Illinois fired Tim Beckman today, which is a nice and overdue thing since Tim Beckman is heinous even by awful college football head coach standards.The decision came after Illinois received a preliminary report of an external review into the program. You can read the school's announcement here, but this the smoking gun:This isn't revelatory so much as official confirmation of grievances that numerous players had already aired publicly. The Chicago Tribune interviewed 50 of his players in a story earlier this year, and while many of the ones he recruited were "overwhelmingly positive about Beckman and describe a coach who cares about them," many more weren't. In particular, former players sounded off about Beckman being "gruff, confrontational and verbally abusive. Some described a culture that discouraged them from resting if injured."That last part, in particular, jives with what former Illini offensive lineman Simon Cvijanovic said in a lengthy Twitter screed (and multiple follow up interviews like this) in May. Among other things, Cvijanovic alleged that the team used a one-time trainer that was not licensed in the state of Illinois and that, without Cvijanovic's prior knowledge or consent, the school expanded the scope of a knee procedure to include the removal of his almost his entire lateral meniscus. Not long afterward, former Illinois receiver Darius Millines tweeted about how Beckman "made it very hard" for him to go visit his father on his 50th birthday, a particularly important milestone since the elder Millines had been diagnosed with cancer and had not been expected to reach that birthday.So, fuck this guy, basically. Of course, even if one does take Beckman at his word that everything was hunky dory and, nope, no abuse going on here, his team was toilet water anyway. Beckman was 12-25 as Illinois' head coach. Even Beckman's bowl team last year was ranked 107th nationally defensively. No one expected him to get canned a week before the season started but his dismissal was inevitable, because Tim Beckman is a lousy coach in addition to being a lousy human being.But, hey, we'll always have his tweet from just one hour before the news broke: