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over UCLA in the Kraft Hunger Bowl. That was Koenning's first and last game. The other five coaches who followed Mackovic went a collective 117-189, and none of them lasted more than eight seasons. Will Lovie Smith fare better? The Illini brought him aboard in March 2016 as the permanent successor to Beckman, who was fired just before the start of the 2015 season for his handling of injured players. Smith's appointment was seen as a huge coup for a beleaguered program. A decade earlier, he had taken the Chicago Bears to the Super Bowl. Before that, he served as defensive coordinator in St. Louis, where he helped the Rams reach the 2002 Super Bowl. Who better to take charge of the Illini than a guy with Chicago and St. Louis con- nections and a reputation for succeeding at the sport's highest level? Within hours of Smith's introductory news conference, Illinois began reaping the benefits of its choice. The Illini sold more than 2,000 new season tickets in the first two days of Smith's tenure as head coach, helping reverse a trend that had seen aver- age home attendance decline in five of the previous six seasons. "There were a lot of fist pumps internally when we heard the news," associate athletic director Jason Heggemeyer told reporters at the time. "Then it was, 'Hey, we better get to work. This is going to be huge.' " Smith's admirers include the coach who will be standing on the opposite sideline from him on Friday night, Penn State's James Franklin. At his weekly news confer- ence on Tuesday, Franklin ticked off a list of Smith's accomplishments as if reading them straight from the coach's CV. "Obviously, we've got tremendous re- spect for Lovie Smith and his career, what he's been able to do," Franklin said. "It's his third season as the head coach at Illinois, 14th year of head coaching experience. Illi- nois, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Chicago Bears. Nineteen years of NFL coaching ex- perience, 11 as a head coach, one Super Bowl appearance as a head coach and one as defensive coordinator with the Rams." "You look at what he was able to do with the Chicago Bears – three di- vision titles, two NFC Cham- pionship Game appearances, a Super Bowl appearance, AP Coach of the Year in 2005. And he's the third-winningest coach in Chicago Bears his- tory. So obviously, the guy has won a lot of games and is a very, very good football coach." Smith has indeed been a winner at most of the stops in his coaching career, which include stints as an assistant at Tennessee and Ohio State while he was working his way up. But he hasn't won much at Illinois, and the sky- high hopes that greeted his arrival have been tempered by two-plus seasons of hard, cold reality. The Illini are 7-20 since Smith took over, and year two was worse than year one, with the Illini going 2-10 overall and 0-9 in con- ference play in 2017. Heading into this weekend's Big Ten opener, the Illini haven't won a league game since defeating Michi- gan State in November 2016. One of the problems has been a reliance on youth. In 2016, the Illini had more first- time starters – 28 – than any team in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Improbably, that number increased to 31 last year, and during their recently concluded noncon- ference season, they used nine. Adding to the challenge, several of those first-year starters have been freshmen. In their 2017 and '18 season openers, the Illini started a combined total of seven true freshmen, equaling the team's total from the previous 36 years. Another true freshman – M.J. Rivers II – S E P T E M B E R   1 9 ,   2 0 1 8 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 2 One of Illinois' biggest concerns on Friday will be containing McSorley. This will be his first game vs. the Illini as Penn State's starter. "He's mobile, he's accu- rate throwing the ball, a good athlete," Lovie Smith said. "Where we are with our program, we look forward to the challenge." Photo by Steve Manuel

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