Illinois is hiring former Wisconsin and Arkansas coach Bret Bielema to lead his football program, the school announced Saturday.
Bielema, 50, has spent the last three seasons as an NFL assistant, working for the New York Giants this year after two years with the New England Patriots. He expressed interest in returning to college and was a candidate for the openings last year in both Michigan State and Colorado, and earlier in this cycle at Southern Miss, according to sources.
Bielema will receive a six-year contract with Illinois, with an initial salary of $ 4.2 million.
Illinois, which fired coach Lovie Smith last Sunday, also considered Buffalo coach Lance Leipold, Oklahoma defensive coordinator Alex Grinch and Wisconsin defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard, among others, to replace Smith, who went from 17 to 39 in five seasons at school.
“Illinois and Big Ten are at home for me and I can no longer be delighted with the opportunity in front of me with Fighting Illini,” Bielema said in a prepared statement. “We want to build a program that will make Illini Nation proud and recapture the passion we saw when Illinois won.”
Bielema won three consecutive Big Ten championships in Wisconsin from 2010 to 2012 and went 68-24 in seven seasons with the Badgers with five Top 25 rankings. He left after the 2012 Big Ten Championship game for Arkansas, where he went 29-34 before being fired in 2017.
He grew up in Prophetstown, Illinois, and played defensive line in Iowa, helping the Hawkeyes win part of the Big Ten title in 1990 (Illinois also shared the championship). Bielema began his coaching career in Iowa before moving to Kansas and then to Wisconsin, where he was named Barry Alvarez’s successor after the 2005 season.
“Bret Bielema is a proven winner,” sporting director Josh Whitman said in a prepared statement. “With three Big Ten championship titles to his credit, few coaches can combine familiarity and success with the Big Ten Conference. and improve. “