Lovie Smith Named Illinois Head Coach: Contract Details, Comments and Reaction

The Illinois Fighting Illini football team named former NFL head coach Lovie Smith as its next head coach on Monday and provided an image of Smith signing his deal as well as financial details of the agreement:

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Smith and the UI have a six-year agreement calling for payments of $2 million annually for 2016 and 2017, $3 million for 2018, $4 million for 2019 and $5 million annually for both 2020 and 2021. He will have opportunities for performance incentives tied to team academic and athletic achievements. Smith's appointment will be presented for UI Board of Trustee approval on March 16.

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Illinois also provided a statement from Smith:

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I am extremely excited to be named head coach of the Fighting Illini. [Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman] approached me about this possibility, and I immediately seized on the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of the young men who are part of the program today and in the future. I take this responsibility very seriously and can't wait to get a staff in place to start our move to make Illinois a contender for Big Ten titles. We will play an exciting brand of football that will make our fans, alumni, student body and members of the University community extremely proud.

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Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman posted two photos with Smith on Monday morning before the announcement: 

Illinois shared Whitman's statement in the press release:

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Naming [Smith] as the Illinois head football coach is the first step in taking this program to a place of national prominence. We will build a program that contends annually for Big Ten and national championships. The timing for this move was extremely tight, and we needed to move quickly. A coach of Lovie's caliber would not have been available to us if we had waited until after the 2016 season. Lovie's reputation as a coach, and even more so as a person, made it clear it was an awesome opportunity for the University of Illinois.

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"This is the start of the third quarter of my career; this is where I want to finish up my football career," Smith told reporters on Monday.

"I signed a 6-year contract," Smith said in regards to speculation about an eventual return to the NFL. "I'm not going anywhere." 

CBS in Chicago (via Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports) first reported on Saturday that Smith would be named Illinois' new head coach.

The 57-year-old Smith, who was the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last year, will replace Bill Cubit.

The Buccaneers fired Smith on Jan. 7 after going 8-24 in two seasons. The Buccaneers won four more games in Smith's second season with No. 1 overall pick Jameis Winston starting all 16 games, but that wasn't enough for Smith to keep his job. 

This is not the first time Smith will be among the college coach ranks. He was a linebackers and defensive backs coach for six different schools before finally reaching the NFL level in 1996, serving as Tampa Bay's defensive backs coach under Tony Dungy.

Team	Position	Years
Tulsa	Linebackers	1983-87
Wisconsin	Linebackers	1987
Arizona State	Linebackers	1988-91
Kentucky	Linebackers	1992
Tennessee	Defensive Backs	1993-94
Ohio State	Defensive Backs	1995

Smith will return to the state where he received his first head coaching gig when he was the Chicago Bears' head coach from 2004 until 2012. He led the Bears to three NFC North championships and an appearance in Super Bowl XLI.

As the Bears' coach, Smith went 81-63 and finished below .500 in only three of his nine seasons.

Cubit was named the interim head coach at Illinois a week before the season began after then-coach Tim Beckman was fired amid allegations of player mistreatment. Illinois went on to finish 5-7 last year. New athletic director Josh Whitman dismissed Cubit on Saturday, Whitman's first official day at the AD helm, according to FightingIllini.com.

Smith will take over an Illinois team that has been in the middle of the pack in the Big Ten for the last eight seasons. Since making the Rose Bowl in the 2007 season, Illinois has not won more than seven games in a season. The Illini have made three bowl games during that span, however, winning two of them. He'll also have two offensive building blocks in senior quarterback Wes Lunt and sophomore running back Ke'Shawn Vaughn.

A leader with NFL head coaching pedigree might be just what Illinois needs to return to Big Ten prominence. 

Stats courtesy of Pro-Football-Reference.com. Follow Danny Webster on Twitter.