Bret Bielema last year finished with a 10-3 season with Luke Altmyer behind the center. It was a monumental achievement for the program as they beat others like Michigan, Nebraska, and South Carolina while Altmyer notched up 2,717 yards. But Bielema’s story in the Big 10 wasn’t the only story filled with success. The Indiana Hoosiers under Curt Cignetti were another team that gave some big SEC teams their run for their money as they finished 11-2. But this success the Big 10 programs are enjoying didn’t happen overnight or even in one or two years…

Before Ryan Day came to Ohio State, or before Bret Bielema was with Illinois, there was a head coach who came like a storm in the conference and changed it forever. His name is Joe Tiller, the former Purdue head coach who arrived in 1997 and stayed there till 2008. His 12 years with Purdue turned the program into a household name. He led them to the Big 10 championship in 2000, from being a bottom rung team, and this was only possible due to Tiller’s revolutionary tactical acumen.

Tiller brought in his spread offense and was the first Big 10 coach to implement it in his team, often dubbed as “basketball on grass.” Tiller’s offense shook other programs that were still using the conference’s traditional run-heavy philosophy, often called “three yards and a cloud of dust.” But apart from Tiller, there was someone else, too, whom Bret Bielema credits with having brought in the second revolutionary change after Tiller’s landmark period.

“In my opinion, there were two major transitions in Big Ten history. The first was the addition of Joe Tiller, which turned our league into a league where you know basketball on grass. Joe was the genesis of that. And I really think Urban Meyer was the first, really, that kind of brought a thinking and ideology from the SEC into our conference that had never been seen before, right? And I think that changed our conference literally in those moments to where we are today, as good as anything in our history,” said Bielema as he appeared on a June 26 episode of The Triple Option podcast with Urban Meyer, Mark Ingram, and Rob Stone.

Urban Meyer‘s contribution is undoubtedly vast for the Big 10 after Tiller’s exploits. Meyer came to Ohio State in 2012 and brought a recruiting revolution. He normalized going nationally for recruiting players instead of the earlier standard of regional recruiting, often dubbed as “gentleman’s agreement.” This change brought in heavy dividends for Ohio State with a national market to tap into, and other programs followed suit quickly.

Moreover, his 2014 national title, which was the inaugural season of the playoffs, started discussions of the Big 10’s supremacy over the SEC. Even Meyer famously remarked, “Maybe the Big Ten is pretty damn good.” So, for the Big 10, Meyer was undoubtedly a revolutionary head coach. As for Bielema? He learned his craft from the NFL’s GOAT, as he recalls.

Bret Bielema credits Bill Belichick for reviving his career

Before Bret Bielema came to Illinois, he was learning and perfecting his craft in the NFL, where he stayed from 2018 to 2020 in different capacities. After Bielema was relieved of his duties at Arkansas in 2017, the time looked really tough for him, but at that moment, he got a phone call from Bill Belichick, and things took a turn for the good. The now-Illinois head coach joined the Patriots in 2018 and helped them with Super Bowl LIII as being consultant DC. Bielema recalls the three years he spent in the NFL as filled with more learning than his 12-year career in college football.

“Here are more things that I do now as a head coach at Illinois, that I learned in my three years in the league, than I spent the 12 years prior as a head coach in college football. It’s a world now where the things I learned under Coach Belichick, the things I learned in the ownership of both the Patriots and the Giants, but also all my coaches. That I was able to be a part of it and see their success now is really two years or three years of just great learning,” said Bielema on David Pollack’s See Ball Get Ball podcast.

After Bielema’s stint with the Patriots consultant to the DC, he became their D-line coach in 2019 and later went to the New York Giants for one season in 2020. But after that stint, Illinois came calling for him in 2021, and now he is putting good use of the craft he learned during the period he stayed in the NFL.