Illinois fired football coach Lovie Smith after five seasons, the school announced Sunday.
Offensive coordinator Rod Smith will coach the team in the season finale at Penn State on Saturday. A school statement said a national search for the next head coach will begin immediately.
Smith took over the Fighting Illini in the 2016 season, and his teams were 17-39 (10-33 Big Ten.) His best record was 6-7 in 2019, a season that ended with a 35-20 loss to Cal in the Redbox Bowl.
The Illini (2-5) lost Saturday to No. 14 Northwestern, 28-10.
Smith, 62, played linebacker and defensive back at Tulsa (1976-79) before turning to coaching. He was the defensive coordinator of the St. Louis Rams (2001-03), then was hired to coach the Chicago Bears.
In Smith’s nine seasons in Chicago, his teams were 81-63. He was NFL coach of the year in 2005, after the team went from 5-11 in his first season to 11-5. The Bears won the NFC championship in 2006, losing Super Bowl XLI to the Peyton Manning-led Indianapolis Colts, 29-17.
He was fired after the 2012 season when the Bears started 7-1 but finished 10-6 and failed to make the playoffs for the fifth time in six seasons.
Smith also coached the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to an 8-24 record in the 2014-15 seasons.
The Illini haven’t finished their regular season with a record above .500 since 2007, when they were 9-4 and represented the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl — a 49-17 loss to Southern California.
Illinois is the third Power Five conference school to be searching for a new coach, following Vanderbilt and Arizona.