When Mike Thomas said he was going to "assess" Ron Zook at the end of the season, "assess" was apparently a code word for "fire immediately", and "end of the season" meant "end of the regular season after a humiliating blowout loss to a horrible team, bowl game or not." Honestly, I feel bad for the Zooker right now. While his overall record at Illinois (34-51, 18-37 in conference play) was awful, he did walk into a terrible situation when he took over the Illini (three straight losing seasons before he arrived), and unlike the two guys who had the job before he did (and unlike certain basketball coaches), at least he did leave things in better shape than when he got here. But even though Zook seems like a good guy, he wasn't a very good coach, his faults were glaringly obvious, and the six-game regular-season-ending losing streak made it clear that he's not the right man to lead this program going forward.
The good news is that whoever the new permanent head coach is, with the talent on hand there's no way next year's Illini go 0-11 (as they did in Ron Turner's first year after taking over for Lou Tepper) or 2-9 (as they did in Zook's first year after taking over for Turner). It's also encouraging to see that Thomas won't tolerate mediocrity; back-to-back six-win regular seasons probably would have earned Zook a five-year contract extension if Ron Guenther were still the AD. As a side note, I'm guessing this also means Bruce Weber's seat just got a little bit hotter, and that Weber will need to do better than spending every year on the NCAA Tournament bubble if he wants to stick around. So now the fun begins. In hiring Zook's replacement, Mike Thomas gets to make his first big impact on Illini athletics.
First off, let's eliminate interim head coach Vic Koenning from consideration. Yes, Koenning has done a great job with the Illini defense over the last two years (Saturday's performance against the lowest-scoring offense in the Big Ten notwithstanding), and I'd have no problem keeping Koenning around as defensive coordinator if the new head coach wants him (similar to when Buddy Ryan stayed on as the Bears' defensive coordinator during the transition from Neill Armstrong to Mike Ditka). But Koenning has already proven that he's not fit to be a head coach at this level. His three-year record when he was in charge of Wyoming's football program was 5-29; making him the permanent head coach will turn out the same as the last time we promoted our defensive coordinator to head coach (Tepper).
If Thomas's record at Cincinnati is any indication, he won't go this direction. Both of his football hires there (Brian Kelly and Butch Jones) had previously been successful head coaches. And that's what I'd prefer to see too. It's not a coincidence that the two most successful Illini coaches in my lifetime (Mike White and John Mackovic) built winning programs in their prior head coaching jobs (at California and Wake Forest, respectively), while the last three coaches (Tepper, Turner, and Zook), none of whom had past success as college head coaches, didn't work out so well. Coincidentally, White and Mackovic were offense-minded head coaches (as were Kelly and Jones), and I'd like to see Thomas hire someone with that profile to replace Zook, since a more exciting style of football will help fill the seats at Memorial Stadium. Put those traits together, and I think the right man for the job is former Texas Tech head coach Mike Leach.
The Red Raiders had a winning record and played in a bowl game in each of Leach's 10 years on the job, and his high-scoring spread offense would energize the fan base (and would be a good fit with the personnel we already have). Yes, Leach comes with some baggage, he may or may not care about defense, and he has a reputation for being difficult to control. But I'd rather take a chance on a proven winner with his issues (some of which could be minimized, such as by keeping Koenning in charge of the defense) than hire an unknown quantity who may leave us in the same position we were in after the 1996 or 2004 seasons. With uncertainty at Penn State and Ohio State, this is our chance to take a big step forward in the Big Ten's Leaders Division. A bold move is needed, so here's hoping Mike Thomas makes that move and brings Mike Leach to Champaign in 2012.
EDIT - OK, so it looks like Leach is taking his talents to Pullman, Washington. So how about Kevin Sumlin or Tim Beckman? Both coaches have built winning teams (at Houston and Toledo, respectively), although they don't have the extended record of success that Leach had. Just as long as Thomas doesn't give us a coordinator with no previous experience, I'll probably be fine with whomever it is.
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