Illinois hiring Bobby Hauck as defensive coordinator
Daily Inter Lake | Daily Inter-Lake | UPDATED 2 hours, 45 minutes AGO
That was quick.
On Monday, five days after he announced his retirement as head coach of the Montana Grizzlies, Bobby Hauck was named as defensive coordinator for Illinois.
The Big 10 program put out a press release announcing the hire by Bret Bielema, the head coach of the Fighting Illini since December 2020.
"I am excited to welcome Coach Hauck and his family to our Illini family," Bielema said in the release. “Since meeting Coach Hauck early on in my head coaching career, I have had tremendous respect for who he is, what he stands for, and the program he has built. He is a family man with incredible attention to detail and a great ability to teach the game to both his staffs and players.
“Coach Hauck's aggressive defensive scheme, which he learned at San Diego State and developed at Montana, will be an exciting new style that has never been seen here at Illinois."
Hauck left Montana as the all-time leader in football coaching victories with 151; his second stint, in which he implemented the 3-3-5 defense used at his previous coaching stint at San Diego State, UM went 73-25. The Illinois release noted the Grizzlies ended the past three seasons ranked No. 2, No. 10 and No. 3 in the final FCS rankings.
"I am grateful for the opportunity to join the Illinois football program," Hauck said. "Coach Bielema is one of the great head coaches in all of football and I am extremely excited to work for him and the student-athletes and staff here at the University of Illinois. I have a great feeling about the players, the coaches and the future of this program. I will miss Montana dearly because of the relationships and the passion I have for the football program. I hope to bring some of that to the Illini. I can't wait to get started."
Hauck’s contract is pending approval of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.
Hauck’s record at UM was 151-43; add in five seasons at UNLV and his overall record is 166-92. The 61-year-old Big Timber native began his coaching career in 1988 and continued it as an assistant at UCLA, Northern ARizona, Colorado at Washington before taking the reins at Montana in 2003.
The same day he stepped down at UM, receivers coach Bobby Kennedy was elevated to Grizzlies’ head coach.
Bielema is coming off a 9-4 season, his fifth at Illinois. He is 37-26 as head coach of the Illini and is 134-84 as a head coach, including a 68-24 mark in seven seasons leading the Wisconsin Badgers from 2006-12.