Lovie Smith denies report he is 'miserable' at Illinois

The Lovie Smith era at Illinois has gotten off to a rough start.

The Illini dropped to 2-6 with a 40-17 loss at Minnesota over the weekend. A day later, a report emerged from ESPN.com ($) that Smith, a longtime NFL coach in his first year with the Illini, is “miserable in Champaign.” The report also speculated if Smith would leave Illinois after just one season.

Naturally, the report came up at Smith’s Monday news conference. He said he hadn’t seen the report and more or less shrugged off its sentiment.

“Am I happy right now where we are? No, no one on our football team is happy where we are right now. My time in Champaign, it’s a little bit bigger than just where we are right now,” Smith said. “Our football team, as I said, we’re going to win a lot of games eventually. There’s not much more than that. As I said after the game Saturday, not many of us should be happy where we are right now, but we’re going to do something to fix it together here.”

When asked about the “one-and-done” aspect of the report, Smith said he “would not get into speculation at all.”

Later on Monday, Smith echoed that sentiment with a few tweets:

MaryAnne and I are incredibly happy in Champaign. We love this University and this community.

— Lovie Smith (@LovieSmith) October 31, 2016

We look forward to working together to build Illinois Football into a championship program! #WeWillWin #Illini

— Lovie Smith (@LovieSmith) October 31, 2016

 

Unless the Illini win out, the program is staring at its fifth straight losing season. When he took the job, Smith obviously knew he was in for a rebuilding effort. So far, he has gotten just that. The team’s only two wins so far this year are against FCS Murray State and Rutgers. And because of injuries, Smith, who hadn’t coached at the college level since 1995, has been forced to start three different quarterbacks.

There hasn’t been much stability in Champaign over the last decade, so there’s no chance the school would make a change, especially with the way Smith’s contract is structured. New athletic director Josh Whitman made a splashy hire of Smith after surprisingly cutting ties with Bill Cubit in March. Smith will get his opportunity — if he wants it — to turn things around.

Perhaps he can begin to turn the tide on Saturday with struggling Michigan State (also 2-6) coming to town.