KANSAS CITY, Mo. — New Illinois football coach Bret Bielema has pilfered a top assistant from the University of Missouri.
Bielema, the former Wisconsin and Arkansas coach who most recently served as linebackers coach for the NFL’s New York Giants, will hire Ryan Walters as the Fighting Illini’s defensive coordinator, according to Football Scoop.
Walters has served as the Tigers’ defensive coordinator for the last three seasons.
He joined Mizzou’s football staff in 2015, initially serving as safeties coach under Gary Pinkel on then-defensive coordinator Barry Odom’s staff.
Walters was promoted to co-defensive coordinator in 2016 when Barry Odom took over as head coach and began overseeing the entire secondary during the 2017 season.
The co-portion of Walters’ defensive coordinator title was removed before the 2017 Texas Bowl.
He was one of a handful of coaches from Odom’s staff that Eli Drinkwitz retained after taking over the program in December 2019.
Walters previously coached cornerbacks at Memphis (2014) and North Texas (2014) and also worked with the secondary at his alma mater Colorado (2009), Arizona (2010-11) and Oklahoma (2012).
Missouri ranked 50th in 2018 in scoring defense, improved to 15th in 2019 then dropped to 85th last season after allowing 32.3 points per game.
The Tigers’ pass defense ranked 86th in 2016, 107th in 2017, 112th in 2018, sixth in 2019 and 84th in 2020 under Walters.
