Posted by: Pete Roussel on February 14, 2012

Illinois head coach Tim Beckman sat down with Jerry Dinardo to talk about his first couple of months in Champaign.

Beckman shared some candid comments about leaving Toledo after three seasons with a 21-16 record.

Beckman said, "Terrible.  Hardest thing I've ever done.  I guarantee you that I'm one of the only ones that went back.  I went back to the senior banquet because I needed to say good-bye to parents.  I needed to say good-bye to those seniors.  Those seniors won eight football games.  They are the reason that I'm here."

He added, "Probably one of the toughest things was reading some of those tweets.  I had a couple of players that were crushed."

At Toledo, Beckman inherited a struggling program.  The Rockets finished 5-7 in Beckman's first season, but then posted back-to-back seasons of eight wins.

Dinardo asked how the rebuilding process will be different from Toledo to Illinois.

Beckman explained, "I don't think it will be different at all. This one thing about this program, and I've said this since I've been here...this program is not broken.  We need to tweak it and keep it at a consistent level."

Illinois will host Western Michigan to begin the 2012 season.  The next three games are at Arizona, Charleston Southern, and LA Tech.

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