Illinois needs to find its next Dick Butkus or Red Grange with its next head coach.

The program is yet again in a state of flux, and we aren’t surprised in the slightest.

On Friday, Athletic Director Mike Thomas -— whose days at the University may also be numbered — announced the dismissal of head football coach Tim Beckman. Thomas cited initial results from an ongoing, independent review by Chicago-based law firm Franczek Radelet, which concluded that Beckman discouraged reporting injuries and threatened to take away players’ scholarships.

Beckman was a week away from starting his fourth season at the helm of the Illini and now he’s looking for a new job. An hour before his dismissal, he promoted the first game on Twitter. An hour after, he deleted his Twitter account.

Illinois football hasn’t found much success in the last quarter century. The program has had six different coaches in that time, with a record of 121-173-2. The most notable event in recent memory? A 2007 trip to the Rose Bowl where Illinois lost to USC — 49-17.

As the University prepares to find its next head football coach, there’s one fundamental thing The Daily Illini Editorial Board wants to remind them: Illinois football doesn’t just need a new coach, it needs a new face.

Since Dick Butkus left the University in 1964, the program hasn’t had a notable figurehead to represent its ideals. And it has shown.

Tim Beckman was never going to be the face of Illinois football. In the landscape of college football, Beckman could never live up to contemporaries like Nick Saban, Brian Kelly or Steve Spurrier. Beckman may have survived the process of elimination that was the 2012 coaching search, but his best season involved winning eight games with a MAC school.

Even though it’s only been three days since Beckman’s dismissal, possible lists of his replacement are running rampant. Names like Western Michigan’s P.J. Fleck, former Rutgers coach Greg Schiano and University of Montana’s Bob Stitt have already been linked to the open position.

Maybe interim head coach Bill Cubit will lead Illinois to the Rose Bowl. Maybe another young MAC coach is the next face of Illinois football.

In his first few days as Illinois head coach, Cubit has shown he knows how to not be embarrassing, but if he wants the job long-term, he needs to be more than that. He has more respect than Beckman, which is a start, but he needs to prove he can create an on-field legacy and his name must be fully absent from the results of the ongoing investigation.

Put simply, we don’t know who the next coach will be. What we do know is that Illinois needs to establish a program of stability with a coach that this school can be proud of.