March 06--It took Illinois about three months to hire athletic director Josh Whitman. And it took Whitman about three minutes to fire football coach Bill Cubit.
Guess things are changing in Champaign.
Or are they, given the athletic department's recent pattern of incompetence?
Even if you support Whitman's decision to whack Illinois' lame duck coach, you can't defend Saturday's timeline.
At 10:56 a.m., the Illini football twitter feed put out a release on Cubit's firing. Minutes later, top receiver Mikey Dudek tweeted: "Love finding out about this through Twitter."
Call it a rookie mistake for Whitman, who apparently forgot that he's no longer in charge of a Division III program. News travels fast in Big Ten country, Josh.
The new AD should have had the Illini players waiting in another room, so he could have delivered the news immediately after the deed was complete.
Firing Cubit obviously does make sense, considering he had only one foot in the door anyway. Who can forget the words uttered by then-interim AD Paul Kowalczyk when Cubit was extended before the Illini lost to Northwestern at Soldier Field.
"Obviously, it's not ideal but for now," he said. "I don't think it will put a dagger in the heart of the program."
You've got to give Kowalczyk credit for accuracy. The extension was simply a delay of game.
So what's next? As Illinois' Big Ten rivals laugh at a program that since 2011 has had three athletic directors and is hunting for its fourth head football coach, there will be enormous pressure on Whitman to get this hire right.
Does he have someone in mind? He better.
Or else this goes down as a second flub in Whitman's nascent tenure.
"I'm refreshing my Twitter feed for updates on my own football team," quarterback Chayce Crouch tweeted Saturday morning. "This is crazy."
tgreenstein@tribpub.com
