Adversity didn’t even wait for the season to start before it arrived on campus for Illinois, and shuffling the coaching staff with barely a week to adjust before the first game was far from ideal for Bill Cubit and the team he unexpectedly took over on short notice.
The Illini really had no choice but to move on from Tim Beckman after all of his numerous missteps were revealed in detail, including the troubling accusations about his handling of injured players. But that left Cubit in a difficult spot, created some unnecessary distractions for the Illini just before taking the field for a season that included bowl hopes and eventually also made it difficult to truly evaluate the program moving forward.