My condolences
Well folks, another Saturday and another Zooking loss for the Illini in the books. A 30-0 shut-out. Ouch. My heart really goes out to the fans and alums of the University of Illinois. It's now beginning to dawn on you that everything all of the Florida fans said was true.
There have been some comments on of the other posts here about the Illinois' rightful place in the world of college football. By and large most of the fans are resigned to the idea that Illinois can't really be a power and that Zook represented a chance at that with his "recruiting prowess" and that the Illini could never be the Gators. I disagree. Illinois is a big state school from a big state, playing in major conference with a lot of talent to be had. But you do need a coach who can recruit. And by that I mean a COACH who can recruit. Zook is not a coach. He's a recruiting coordinator at best. He can't strategize his way out of a wet paper bag.
A word of advice to your athletic director. When you finally decide to dump clown Zook, perhaps you should consider a young up-and-coming coach from a lesser school. Florida hired Steve Spurrier from Duke and Urban Meyer from Utah. Don't hire a failure from a more important football program. Look at the team that mopped up the floor with you today. They hired their coach from division 1AA.
35 comments:
You are so right.
I came on here two years ago and was fighting with you about Zook being a good coach. Clearly I was wrong. He is an awful coach who doesn't understand anything about football other than how to get highly touted recruits to come to his school and then turn them into shitty players who also don't understand anything about the game of football.
i'd love to think he's still pulling in the big time recruits, but he's not really doing that any more either. minnesota had a great class too after their coach quit and they were the big 10 door mat. locks actually pulled most of those recruits anyway. please get rid of zook, at least when turner was here, we realized we were bad.
Urban Meyer's ballsack could better coach and better prepare a football team.
I don't know what is more frustrating:
a) The fact that Illinois looks and plays like a team with no talent.
or
b) The fact that Illinois is a team that has a lot of talent but looks and plays like a team with no talent.
Ron Zook isn't the worst coach I have ever seen in my 34 years of watching all 5 major sports (MLB, NFL, NBA, College Basketball, College Football).
Ron Zook is the worst coach who has ever coached any sport at any level. He has to be. No coach could possibly be worse. It's a provable scientific fact. It is no longer just a hypothesis.
I fully support your site.
I like B CHL. Think Lou Tepper 1996, 2-9 overall, 1-7 conference. I should know, I had seaon tickets that year. We've got juice, talented, yet over-rated, Benn, top ten draft pick, (yeah, f'n right!), and we can even score against a mediocre OSU team.
Gdamn, looks like Cincinnati is going to be a knock-down drag-out flipin' fight.
See ya' Zook. We'll catch you water skiing on the big ten network somewhere in S. Dakota!
I'm with you on Zook being a joke....but did Urban Meyer's continuing propensity for running up the score finally cost one of his starters? 31-7 and still trying to keep his boot on Kentucky's throat...
There are a couple reasons why Illinois will never be as good as Florida in football.
1) Culture. Football is religion in the south. That's not the case in the midwest. A buddy of mine came from Oklahoma, where his high school had a concrete stadium capable of holding 15,000 people. High school! His dad still attends every home game a dozen years after he graduated because that's what you do in that town on a Friday night. You never see anything close to that in Illinois. Basketball is a bigger part of the high school sports culture in Illinois than football, so the homegrown talent just isn't quite there.
2) Weather. Ohio State and Michigan have two of the most storied programs in college football. Yet they are consistently a step behind the top tier. If you were a five star recruit offered an opportunity to play in the fun and sun, or play for a school where you're going to be cold at the end of the season, which would you choose (all other things being equal)?
Big Ten schools are huge, which means a lot of money. And some of them have the prestiege to attract top talent. But on the whole they will continue to fight an uphill battle against other schools for the best players. The Big Ten is going to continue to be a step behind schools like USC, Florida, Texas, LSU, etc.
I can't believe Zook still has a paying gig, Illinois could do better, see if you could steal Jim Leavitt, the USF coach, he's undefeated and winning against top 20 teams at a joke of a school..
getting a failure from good school is bass akwards, trying getting someone that knows how to win at a shit hole.
Overall Big 10
2-9 0-8
2-10 1-7
9-4 6-2
5-7 3-5
Zook is a looser and needs to go.
Anon, at 5:04 AM. Illinois is capable of being much better than it is. Will they compete for a BcS championship? Doubtful but there's no reason they can't compete in the Big 10. And look at schools like Boise State are you telling me the football culture and weather in Idaho is that much more of an advantage for them. It's not that hard.
You do need to find a good a coach. The question is what makes for a good coach and where do you find them.
A good coach is a guy who has a clue and a plan. One he can articulate, and more importantly, one he has demonstrated works. Of course, you aren't going to be able to hire Urban Meyer or Pete Carroll. But you can hire the next Urban Meyer or Pete Carroll.
Look for guys that are winning at inferior/smaller schools. A guy that elevates a small program can elevate a big program. Zook took down a major a program about two pegs at Florida. Why would anyone think he could elevate a program like Illinois?
here is the sad part: Ron Zook will coach Illinois in 2010. Why? it's because our loser AD, Ron Guenther, won't fire him because that would mean Guenther would, for the second time, be firing a coach that he hired.
Plus Guenther wants to retire this coming spring, so he'll retire and let the new AD hire his own man.
Illinois football: Embrace Mediocrity!
FRN, welcome to FRZ! You've been on my blogroll for quite a while.
If the best example you can provide of a successful cold weather team is Boise State, then I have to point out that you aren't going to disprove my rule by citing an exception. Can it be done? Yes. Is it as easy as you purport? No. If it were that easy, then everyone would achieve that level of success. But all you can offer is the anomaly.
Realistically, the best Illinois can hope for is to occasionally get the better of Ohio State and Michigan, and perhaps perennially match horns with the Wisconsin/Michigan State/Purdues of the world, teams who can claw their way into the top 10 from time to time but spend most of their time looking up in the standings.
If Illinois were considered a final destination for a good coach, then I'd tend to agree with you. But Illinois is a stepping stone, like it or not. Were Illinois to get a great coach from a lesser school, eventually a position at one of the top tier programs would open up, and he'd be gone. The list of good coaches who stayed with a lower level program and turned it into a perennial powerhouse is very short. The odds are against it for a reason.
I am laughing at some of the posts on this blog after the game with Ohio State. The Illini DOES has skilled players but the coaching is ineffective. The Illini did not look ready to play vs. Ohio State, especially their starting QB. The Illini should have yanked Juice and put in the second team guy. Juice way playing with injury and could have gotten hurt worse. Again, the Illini do have some players who can play but they do not have good depth and it shows up when they play quality teams.
If Zook does not get his team to a bowl game he should be let go....
"I'm with you on Zook being a joke....but did Urban Meyer's continuing propensity for running up the score finally cost one of his starters? 31-7 and still trying to keep his boot on Kentucky's throat..."
Up yours, buddy.
Tim Tebow wanted to play in spoite of the fact that he had the flu, and was fine until that one hit that took him out of the game.
And as for your comment about Urban Meyer running up the score, he plays to WIN nad plays for 60 solid minutes. moRon Douchebag Zook can't even pull the concept of effective gameday strategy out of his ass.
"If the best example you can provide of a successful cold weather team is Boise State, then I have to point out that you aren't going to disprove my rule by citing an exception."
It's so easy for Bitche State to be successful all the time, playing cupcakes week after week.
"If Zook does not get his team to a bowl game he should be let go...."
Indeed. Everybody's so down on Charlie Weis right now, but at least Cheeseburger Charlie's making a valiant effort to evacuate the coaches' hot seat and is actually having a decent season so far in South Bend. He's leaving the seat warm for moRon Zook, who's playing his way to the forefront of the row of chairs right now with Al Groh and Steve Kragthorpe.
utah, oregon, BYU, boise state, even nebraska, those are all sunny locations where i would love to vacation at.
jj gator, why the hate? I'm just pointing out that with Meyer you run that risk because he doesn't let up at all. This isn't any different than Andy Reid keeping McNabb on the field late in a game when the outcome is no longer in doubt. With few exceptions we all seem to hate Zook here and want to see him go, I just wanted to point out that while Meyer is getting you the wins the guy isn't perfect and the way that he runs his team could be seen as a contributing factor in TT getting a concussion.
Methinks they could go after Kevin Sumlin of the University of Houston.
"jj gator, why the hate? I'm just pointing out that with Meyer you run that risk because he doesn't let up at all. This isn't any different than Andy Reid keeping McNabb on the field late in a game when the outcome is no longer in doubt. With few exceptions we all seem to hate Zook here and want to see him go, I just wanted to point out that while Meyer is getting you the wins the guy isn't perfect and the way that he runs his team could be seen as a contributing factor in TT getting a concussion."
Please, cut the "why the hate" shit. I hate Zook for the same reasons Not Baghead does - he fuckin' near ran bmy beloved Florida Gators right into the toilet from 2002-2004 until damage control measures were finally taken on 10/25/04.
And if you think you can coach Florida football better than Urban Meyer, haul your pussy-ass out onto Florida Field and prove it. Tebow received that concussion from a clean hit by a Kentucky defender which is just part of the game of football - so your saying that Meyer cause Tebow's injury is just asinine.
"Why all the hate", you ask? Because I CAN. Fair enough?
BOISE STATE WAS DIVISION IAA UNTIL 1995!!! WE CAN'T DO BETTER THAN THEM?!
Mike London - Richmond
Great recruiter, defensive minded, 47 years old, been around the block.
A popsicle formed from the frozen ejaculate of Richard Hatch and RuPaul would be 100 times less queer than this web site.
zooks problem is (besides decisions on the field) is that he can't develop players. All the talent he has and yet when they become juniors and seniors they aren't performing like they should.
"zooks problem is (besides decisions on the field) is that he can't develop players. All the talent he has and yet when they become juniors and seniors they aren't performing like they should."
Some sportswriters have also called Zook one of the biggest wasters of talent in college football.
benn for example, that guy has pretty much played every position possible on offense, some how still hasn't lived up to expectations.
Rumor has it George Michael called Boy George just to tell him this blog was the gayest thing he's ever seen. Confirm or deny . . .
haha ron zook is reading this !!
I concur fire ron zook!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hope Illinois keeps Ron Zook forever because his shitty coaching and recruiting is Iowa's gain... When Illinois sucks, the best players from the Chicago Suburbs end up playing for the Hawkeyes.
As a lifelong Gators fan I completely feel your pain. I also have Illini ties and was flabbergasted when you hired him. He's a joke! You sometimes have to wonder if he actually believes the garbage that spews from his mouth week after week following another embarrassing loss. Best of luck getting rid of him!
Please help me. My academic credentials are limited to graduating from UI's accounting program & passing the CPA exam. If Zook is such a great recruiter, why can't he win games? If Zook is such a great coach, why can't he win with all this "talent"? When you're down by 18 points late in the game & you haven't stopped the run all day, why wouldn't you try an on-side kick? Doesn't anyone care that Illinois has won only 11 Big 10games since 2003, 6 of them in 1 season?
May, you really need to get a life
This blog is the best thing since granny porn.
My dog has the shits lately. Every time she drops a diarrhea load out in the yard, it reminds me of this site.
every time i think i have seen something i think is the most pathetic i have ever seen in college football, week after week, zook tops it. every week. for a good 16 years now.
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