News. Sports. Arts & Entertainment. Politics
You look at the pic above and think “what does a celebration from the Illinois Fighting Illini 2004-05 college basketball season have to do with this?” The long overdue firing of the school’s college football coach Ron Zook.
Well, when I searched for google images of “Illini celebration,” it was all hoops images. (which says something about why the Zooker is being jettisoned. And, I needed an orange and blue celebration pic for a news like this.
Follow paulmbanks
In 2009, a very underachieving Illini football team finished 3-9. Picked as high as third by some Big Ten and college football pundits, the horrible record was nothing short of a catastrophe for the resume of Ron Zook and the Illinois program.
Or so I thought.
Logic dictated then Illinois Athletic Director Ron Guenther can Zook then and there. Unfortunately, Guenther had FOOLISHLY given Zook a big, expensive contract extension before that season, and buying him out would have been just about financially impossible.
So what did Guenther/Illinois do? They doubled down on a losing hand. Sort of.
They brought in two flashy, expensive coordinators to take as much responsibility off of Zook’s plate as possible. Vic Koenning for the defense, Paul Petrino for the offense.
So which one gets the gig now?
Follow paulmbanks
The main story surrounding the Illinois Fighting Illini losing 28-17 to the Wisconsin Badgers today is the fact that Illini Head Coach Ron Zook is a “dead man walking.”
New Illinois Athletic Director Mike Thomas said he won’t make a decision until after the season is over, so I wouldn’t expect to hear anything concrete until after the season’s final game- next Saturday at the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
Sure, there might be a bowl game, but the axe could fall on Zook’s head a week from Sunday.
The Illini blew a 10-point second half lead to Wisconsin, as the Badgers had TD drives of 2, 30, 44, and 39 yards. No, that’s not a typo, it’s an indication of how POOR the Illini special teams are. And how their offense keeps turning it over, but that’s another story for another time.
For now, I’ll list (in no particular order) the top 5 fireable qualities in Ron Zook WITHOUT mentioning his 34-50, 18-37 in the Big Ten record while at Illinois. That’s obviously reason #1; the W-L record speaks for itself.
Follow paulmbanks
Sometimes I forget that Illini football coach Ron Zook means something different to me than he does to the rest of the nation. I regard him as the college football coach at my alma mater, the University of Illinois.
Sure, I take issue with a lot of his play-calling, and the way he defends his play-calling to the media (especially after the Western Michigan game, when his bad decision making and even worse, his rationale for those decisions, almost gave the Illini win away to an inferior MAC team), but I often forget that to much of America- his name is a punch-line.
Today, reminded me of that brutal truth; when Zook did something that is sure to be national news.
Follow paulmbanks
Check out that snazzy graphic above. Study it. Love it.
And then realize that this is the last year that it will be relevant and current.
Much like the conference expansion dominated the news after the NCAA Basketball Tournament, the Big Ten’s expansion to add Nebraska was the dominant topic of Big Ten Media Day on day 1.
It got a little tiresome, quite frankly. [Read more…]
Follow paulmbanks
