Thank God for Schadenfreude

Basking in the misery of others helps forget one's own misery. The Gators defense, which has been its Achilles heel all season was once again porous and Lloyd Carr goes out a winner in a game I attended. Congrats to Michigan and their fans. You played a better game and deserved to win.

Now, on the business at hand. As I predicted Illinois had the look of a team that was just happy to be there while USC was out for blood. I heard Zook's post game comments on the radio and he said words to the effect of "we're a lot better football team than we showed tonight". Well actually Ron, you're exactly the football team that you showed tonight. You're only as good as your last performance. And that goes for my Gators too. We're 9-4 and that's what we are. A good but not great team. Illinois certainly outplayed my expectations this season but it's still a season of what could have been.

In 2008 I predict the fighting Zookers will regress to the mean. That means below .500. Why do I think so? Several reasons. First of all Rashard Mendenhall will more than likely go pro. Additionally Juice Williams is not a good QB. And next year there will be a QB controversy between Williams and McGee. Zook won't know how to handle it. Additionally, despite Zook's supposed recruiting prowess a lot of the key players (particularly along the offensive line and on defense) are Ron Turner recruits. As those players like J Lehman move on we're going to see Zook's big weakness in recruiting, namely that he doesn't fill holes but chases after players in positions he doesn't need to fill because of the number of stars the recruiting information services give them.

Till next year losers.