Originally Posted by
Chicago 1995
That's not as long a list as you'd think. There aren't that many jobs better than Illinois out there. Seth Davis is tweeting it's a top 5 or 10 job. I think Seth's crazy to rank it that high, but Illinois is probably one of the 15-20 best jobs in the country. Might Shaka hold out for a better job? Sure. But that's a pretty narrow list (Duke, UNC, KU, UK, UCLA, Indiana, UConn, Syracuse, Louisville, OSU, MSU, Texas, Arizona, Maryland (?), NC State (?)Georgetown(?), Florida (?)) and those jobs don't come along that often. Smart's also a midwestern guy -- grew up in Madison, went to college in Ohio -- and he was an assistant at Akron for at least one year while Illinois AD Mike Thomas was the Akron AD.
Illinois's stature as a program -- which I suspect will be somewhat disputed here -- is also why I think this is a longshot for Chris Collins. It's great for him to get his name out there, but this is a heck of a big job for a first time head coach. It's a bigger step than Tommy, Quin or Johnny took in taking their first jobs, and none of those were smashing successes. If Chris or Wo wants to be the head coach at Duke someday, they need to show they can lead a program. Illinois would be a fantastic opportunity for Chris, but I suspect that it's too attractive and guys who already have that experience will end up more serious candidates.
FWIW, I'm an Illinois law grad (1998), and grew up going to Illinois games, and did regularly until I came to Duke for undergrad.