{"id":377543,"date":"2025-12-30T08:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T08:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/377543\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T08:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T08:49:08","slug":"bret-bielema-takes-jab-at-arkansas-over-his-firing-while-discussing-his-bowl-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/377543\/","title":{"rendered":"Bret Bielema takes jab at Arkansas over his firing while discussing his bowl success"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the third time in the past five years, the Illinois Fighting Illini<\/a> are playing in a bowl game under head coach Bret Bielema<\/a>. Tuesday brings a date with the Tennessee Volunteers<\/a> in the Music City Bowl for a fun matchup between top Big Ten and SEC programs. Playing this time of year is nothing new for Bielema, no matter where he has been stationed.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin<\/a> saw plenty of bowl games under Bielema. Arkansas<\/a> did as well, except in Bielema\u2019s final year when the Razorbacks finished 4-8 during the regular season. He was quickly moved on after three consecutive postseason appearances. Nearly a decade later, the firing still sits with Bielema.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just keep going back to, it\u2019s three in four years,\u201d Bielema said<\/a>. \u201cHowever it\u2019s going to play out. But those two years that we missed, both five-win seasons. I\u2019m like \u2018Damn, if we would have gotten one more win\u2019 in those two, to be five-for-five. When I was at Wisconsin, I never missed a bowl game\u2026 When I was at Arkansas, we went to three straight but I missed that last year and that wasn\u2019t good enough for them. So, I got shooed out the door.\u201d<\/p>\n

Getting to six wins has been a struggle for Arkansas ever since. Chad Morris<\/a> did not win an SEC game in Fayetteville, let alone gain bowl eligibility. The next five years were overseen by Sam Pittman<\/a>, making it to the Liberty Bowl twice and the Outback Bowl on another occasion. Funny enough, Arkansas won all three of those. Even so, Pittman was let go mid-season due to a poor start this past fall. Bobby Petrino<\/a> took over as the interim head coach and ran into a 0-7 record.<\/p>\n

In total, seven seasons for Arkansas since firing Bielema \u2014 only three bowl games. Not exactly the direction anybody associated with Arkansas wanted to go.<\/p>\n

However, you have to imagine Bielema is happy with Illinois. The Fighting Illini continue to find a little more success than just reaching bowl games. It\u2019s now back-to-back seasons of at least eight wins, something the program has not done since 1989 and 1990. <\/p>\n

Last year saw Illinois take down South Carolina<\/a>, a game where Bielema got quite animated. Beating Tennessee would just be another box checked against a quality SEC opponent. A fun one should take place from Nashville but before getting there, a shot had to be directed at Arkansas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the third time in the past five years, the Illinois Fighting Illini are playing in a bowl…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-377543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}