CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — For the first time since his hiring was announced to the masses, Illinois defensive coordinator Bobby Hauck met with the media in Champaign.
It’s been a wild ride over the past few days
for Hauck, who announced that he was retiring from coaching on Feb. 4, effectively stepping down as the head coach at the University of Montana.
Naturally, one of the biggest questions that’s been spreading is how the 61-year-old coach went from being retired to becoming the defensive coordinator at a new school in such a short amount of time.
“It was kind of time for me to do something besides be the head coach… I really wanted to get back to my roots, which is being on the defensive side of the football,” Hauck said.
Illinois head coach Bret Bielema had been looking for someone to completely take over the defense and own that side of the ball, so this hire seems to fit the bill.
While rumors were flying about the potential of the hire coming from the NFL, Bielema provided reassurance that Hauck was always his guy.
“Everybody thinks they had leads. This is the only guy I offered the job to, the only guy that I gave the opportunity to,” Bielema said.
Hauck brings 19 years of head coaching experience, with stops at Montana and UNLV, and 41 years of coaching overall to Illinois.
Now that he’s found his new home, his goals are simple.
“My new thing is I want to help Coach Bielema win, and hopefully win big,” Hauck said.
During his time at Montana, Hauck made a name for himself by running a 3-3-5 defense that’s known for being aggressive and fast-paced.
In each of the past eight years, his defenses have ranked in the top five of the Big Sky conference in scoring defense, total defense and sacks.
A lot of the buzz surrounding the hiring was that Hauck would be bringing that same 3-3-5 scheme with him, but that might not necessarily be the case.
“You want to put the label 3-3-5 on it, we may never be in 3-3-5 if that’s not what our personnel dictates,” Hauck said. “So we’re going to try to do our best to put our players in the right spot.”
Guys like Matthew Bailey and Xavier Scott, two Illini defensive backs who will eventually be playing on Sundays, could be set up for major success in a Hauck defense when the season finally rolls around in early September.
But for now, the brand new defensive coordinator will just be settling into things and getting his feet wet.
“It’s been a little bit of drinking out of the fire hose, a little bit, you know, learning names and learning who works here,” Hauck said. “It’s pretty easy to figure out some of the marquee players, but we’re trying to put the pieces together.”
