| College Football The place to talk about college football teams other than Ohio State |
05-05-2008, 03:13 PM
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I have to be honest, I just don't see Illinois moving up into that elite realm. Their biggest asset is also their biggest weakness: Zook is a fantabulous recruiter, but a mediocre at best gameday coach. X's and O's are as important as Jim's and Joe's when you play against elite competition. As Penn State falls, Wisconsin has been very steady. They don't seem to have the stuff to overtake the big two, but I don't see Illinois readily passing them soon. Becoming their equals? Certainly. But don't think that Wisky will go away easily.
Minnesota is looking to rise, as are Dantonio's crew, but there is an ingrained culture of losing at Minnesota (and they lack top flight campus facilities for athletics). MSU could rise, and Dantonio is a great coach, but they're going to have to break M*ch*g*n's stranglehold on Michigan talent to do so. RR might give them a hand with that, but only time will tell.
Bottom line, to me, is this: unless Zook takes the Pete Carroll approach and becomes a glorified cheerleader who has an eye for talent, his teams won't consistently ascend to the top tier of play. Carroll isn't an incredible coach - he's OK, but not great. He does, however, have a great eye for coaching talent and has consistently found great assistant coaches to help develop the great player talent he can draw. It's a great system, and he seems to have identified his weaknesses and supplemented them with the strengths of others. Zook needs to look to do that, in my opinion.
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05-05-2008, 03:22 PM
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Dr Evil, Your Offense Went to NewarK!
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Mediocre game day coach who beat us last year by having his team ready to play near perfect ball. 
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05-05-2008, 03:42 PM
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When you're done rolling your eyes, go watch the tape again. Illinois benefited from a combination of a defense that played soft coverage and allowed Juice to pick up 3-4 yards per play in the 4th quarter and some questionable officiating throughout the game. I won't say that the blown call on a fumble that led to a touchdown in a game with a 7 point spread was the reason we lost. It wasn't. It just didn't help at all.
You want to see how mediocre the Zooker can be? Watch the Iowa game. Or the USC game. His team came out of looked terrible in both of those games. Iowa was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad last year - and they beat Illinois. Illinois put up crazy yardage on USC, but it was ultimately pointless because they didn't have any semblance of a workable gameplan on offense or defense. Once USC realized that Juice can't throw very well and would run virtually every time he had the ball in in his hands, that was that. Mendenhall's yardage mostly came in garbage time (that is, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarter) and had nothing to do with Zook's magnificent game plan.
Until Zook beats somebody through a well crafted gameplan, I won't be convinced that he can take a team to the promised land.
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05-05-2008, 03:52 PM
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Carolina Buckeye
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosman
Mediocre game day coach who beat us last year by having his team ready to play near perfect ball. |
Stupid logic. Tons of mediocre game day coaches have pulled off upsets over highly ranked teams.
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05-05-2008, 03:55 PM
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I think. Therefore, I am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sportsbuck28
Stupid logic. Tons of mediocre game day coaches have pulled off upsets over highly ranked teams.
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Bull[censored]. Stanford was WORLDS better than USC last year. And Appy State? How they're not Div IA I'll never understand.
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05-05-2008, 04:00 PM
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Farewell Fungo!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheIronColonel
When you're done rolling your eyes, go watch the tape again. Illinois benefited from a combination of a defense that played soft coverage and allowed Juice to pick up 3-4 yards per play in the 4th quarter and some questionable officiating throughout the game. I won't say that the blown call on a fumble that led to a touchdown in a game with a 7 point spread was the reason we lost. It wasn't. It just didn't help at all.
You want to see how mediocre the Zooker can be? Watch the Iowa game. Or the USC game. His team came out of looked terrible in both of those games. Iowa was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad last year - and they beat Illinois. Illinois put up crazy yardage on USC, but it was ultimately pointless because they didn't have any semblance of a workable gameplan on offense or defense. Once USC realized that Juice can't throw very well and would run virtually every time he had the ball in in his hands, that was that. Mendenhall's yardage mostly came in garbage time (that is, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarter) and had nothing to do with Zook's magnificent game plan.
Until Zook beats somebody through a well crafted gameplan, I won't be convinced that he can take a team to the promised land.
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AS many on here have pointed out, notably Gatorubet and the other SEC-ites, that is the Zooker's MO. His teams will be inconsistent, undisciplined and horrible some games, losing to teams they have no business losing to, but other games will come out and beat somebody ranked well ahead of them, looking very good.
In 2002:
-10/5/02 - #6 UF lost to unranked Ole Miss 17-14,
-10/12/02 - #16 UF lost to #18 LSU 36-7,
-11/2/02 - Unranked Florida defeats #5 UGA 20-13.
In 2003:
-10/4/03 - #24 UF loses to unranked Ole Miss 20-17,
-10/11/03 - Unranked UF defeats #6 LSU 19-7,
Beyond all that, it was just a well-executed game by the Illini. OSU was just unfortunate enough to run into the Illini on the day they played the best game of their season.
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05-05-2008, 04:21 PM
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I'd also point out and..(waits to here bernini's footsteps running this way) Wisconsin does seem to do an amazing job with less recruited talent. Perhaps the best in the big10, so recruiting rankings arent likely to scare them much. I do agree however that Zook will last longer as a thorn in the big10 than Kirk I love trev alberts Ferentz
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