Illinois AD On Coach He Just Rehired: "It's Not Ideal"

Illinois ended their football season with a 24-14 loss to in-state rival Northwestern yesterday. At 5-7, they won’t make a bowl game, but the school re-upped the contract of head coach Bill Cubit after the loss for two more years. Illinois’ interim athletic director Paul Kowalczyk was, uh, not enthused about it:

My friend, if you don’t want to hire this dude as your coach, then don’t hire him as your coach. There are problems within the political structure of Illinois’ athletic department, chief of which is the hiring of a full-time AD. Kowalczyk made a calculation that continuity would be more important than having whoever steps in as AD gets their say in the coaching search, which is all well and good:

“Everything was on the table originally,” Kowalczyk said. “But the bottom line is trying to keep some contunity, trying to keep some consistency in the program and the kids are clearly behind Bill and supportive of that decision. That was the over-riding factor, I think, in that decision.

That said, maybe saying something along the lines of, ‘Our guy is whatever,’ isn’t the strongest endorsement of his talents going forward.

Photo via AP; h/t Eric