Not even a week has passed since the announcement that Lovie Smith would not be returning as head coach of Illinois’ football program and we have a new coach installed.
Illinois Football announced this morning on Twitter that Bret Bielema, who most of us probably know and remember from his time coaching our neighbors to the north, Wisconsin, will be the new head coach. After coaching college football, he made the jump to the NFL in 2018 but wasn’t a head coach, holding a variety of assistant coaching jobs on a few teams.
Per Illinois Athletics’ post, Bielema’s initial contract is for six years beginning with an annual salary of $4.2 million.
Here’s the tweet:
Top image from Illinois Football’s tweet.
