10 best Bret Bielema quotes from the Illinois football 2024 Big Ten media days

Coming off a 5-7 season that saw the program miss out on a bowl game, the Illinois football team is looking for a bounce-back campaign.

It was a tough ask for the Illini to go from an eight-win campaign in 2022 and come back and win eight games last season. But getting to the six-win mark should be the floor every season. We want to go bowling, and we can’t do that without winning six games.

Through the first three seasons of the Bret Bielema era, Illinois football is 18-19 overall. That is a step up from previous coaching regimes, as Lovie Smith won nine games, Tim Beckman won 12 games, Ron Zook won 13 games, and Ron Turner won 11 games in each of their first three seasons.

Now that we are heading into the 2024 campaign, we can see where Bielema’s mind is during Big Ten media days.

Bielema was the opening press conference of the 2024 Big Ten media days, and he gave us some insight into where the program is and what the expectations are for the upcoming campaign.

Here are the 10 best Bret Bielema quotes from the Illinois football Big Ten media days

“One of the biggest questions I get is, coach at this time in your career, how are kids different? How is the game different? And there are so many things that factor into that, and one of the constants is the competitive nature, the environment. The things that make college football so special.”

“To be a head coach right now, in 2024, is such a special time. A lot of people want to dwell on things or think about things in a negative light. Perspective is everything.”

“There isn’t a more exciting time for me in my life than to be the head coach of the University of Illinois in 2024.”

“I can’t express how awesome it is to have this job, to be in this opportunity.”

“I know, in the month of December, my first day, I flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I have never been there before. I was going after a tackle that was in the portal from New Mexico. I thought about that, and then I flew later that day to the East Coast to recruit a defensive lineman. It’s just a different perspective but the same thing. We are pursuing young men who we want to have in our program.”

“I think the addition of technology in college football this fall is going to be huge.”

Referring to outside linebacker Gabe Jacas…

“He was a player brought to my attention, it sounds like a joke, but I had a buddy of mine named Jack Daniels call me who is a high school coach down in Florida. He said, hey I am scouting this opponent, this team, we are looking at and there is this guy on the field who is playing at a pretty high level.”

“Because of the portal world, even though they may have not started for us, but they have started at other places, we have 17 players that are in either our starting lineup or what we consider to be starters in our program, 17 guys that have started more than 10 games in their college football career.”

In regards to newcomer cornerback Terrance Brooks…

“A guy that started I believe almost 20 games at Texas on a College Football Playoff team. A guy that, when we saw him get in the portal, we contacted. Because he was still involved in classes at Texas, we talked to his dad Chet, because he didn’t want us bothering him during the finals weeks and whatnot. So, we literally talked for about a week or two with just his dad and mom without talking to Terrance because that is the way they wanted to get it done.”

“I was literally in Orlando at Johnny Newton’s draft party, and we got word of Terrance being in the portal. I told Aaron Henry who was with us, who was going to go on and do some other recruiting, I said, no you are hopping on a plane and going to Dallas and I want you to meet his mom and dad even if he wasn’t there.”