Illinois needs a more effective pass rush in 2023 to possibly account for inexperience and youth in the secondary.
By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst
July 20, 2023
(Cover photo courtesy Tork Mason/USA Today Network)
After being offered the outside linebackers coach job at the University of Illinois, Charlie Bullen took inventory in what kind of athletic clay he would be working with in his first college job in a dozen years.
Bullen’s film session from the 2022 season didn’t last long, about a few minutes in fact, before he said yes to Illini head coach Bret Bielema and the two of them began to formulate a plan for a positional room that now has three players with starting experience, a promising transfer from a Power Five Conference program and a junior college transfer that chose Illinois over Oklahoma’s Brent Venables program this spring.
“It is a loaded room, and that was part of me being attracted to coming here,” Bullen said. “They were a phenomenal, top defense in this country before I even got here, and I accept this role humbly and knowing that they didn't need me to be great. They were already great before me, so I look at it as I'm just trying to enhance what's already been successful wherever I can. I don't necessarily need to reinvent the wheel, and that hasn't been my approach.”
