Bobby Hauck wasn’t out of the game for long. Five days after his retirement as Montana football coach, Hauck has joined Illinois as Bret Bielema’s defensive coordinator, Illinois announced Monday.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to join the Illinois football program,” said Hauck. “Coach Bielema is one of the great head coaches in all of football and I am extremely excited to work for him and the student-athletes and staff here at the University of Illinois. I have a great feeling about the players, the coaches, and the future of this program. I will miss Montana dearly because of the relationships and the passion I have for the football program. I hope to bring some of that to the Illini. I can’t wait to get started.”
On Feb. 4, Hauck, 61, retired as the Grizzlies’ coach after two remarkable runs, the first from 2003-09, the second from 2018-25. Over those 14 seasons, Hauck won 151 games and eight Big Sky titles and made 13 FCS playoffs, including four FCS National Championship games. The 151 wins are a Big Sky record.
Hauck spent 2010-14 at UNLV, where he went 15-49. He then spent 2015-17 as the San Diego State special teams coordinator before returning to the Grizzlies.
“There’s never a convenient spot in the college football calendar to announce you’re retiring, so today’s as good as any,” Hauck said on Feb. 4. “I wasn’t going to have them spread my ashes on the practice field because I dropped dead out there. There comes a juncture where it’s time to do something else.”
Hauck lamented the changing college football landscape in his retirement press conference, saying, “A lot of the head coach stuff in current day Division I college football is not enjoyable. I think it’s the perfect time for me to retire.”
But apparently the draw of being a Big Ten coordinator was too good to pass up. The Illini have steadily improved under Bielema, winning 19 games in the past two seasons. Now, they’ll hope the addition of Hauck helps continue the upward trajectory. The Grizzlies were a top-10 scoring defense in FCS in 2021 and 2023 using Hauck’s 3-3-5 scheme.
“I am excited to welcome Coach Hauck and his family to our Illini FamILLy,” said Bielema. “Since meeting Coach Hauck early on in my head coaching career, I have had tremendous respect for who he is, what he stands for, and the program he has built. He is a family man with incredible attention to detail and a great ability to teach the game to both his staffs and players. Coach Hauck’s aggressive defensive scheme, which he learned at San Diego State and developed at Montana, will be an exciting new style that has never been seen here at Illinois.”
Wide receivers coach Bobby Kennedy has taken over for Hauck at Montana.
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