CHAMPAIGN — Illinois football has reached 15 bowl games in the last four decades.
Six different coaches — Mike White, John Mackovic, Lou Tepper, Ron Turner, Ron Zook and Tim Beckman — have guided the Illini to those particular postseason games.
All six did so at least once before their fourth season in charge of the program.
Lovie Smith enters his fourth season at Illinois with a 9-27 record, including 4-23 in the Big Ten, and has yet to coach the Illini in a game past November.
But, evident by the two-year extension Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman gave to Smith the day after the 2018 season ended, Whitman is confident in the first coach he hired at Illinois.