-RON ZOOK & ILLINOIS...IS THIS OUR FUTURE?-

[thailleagle]

Great Recruiter...Questionable Coach?

I personally think Brewster is smarter then Zook but it's amazing how Illinois had become so Elite in 2007 and now they are one Juice Williams Graduation away from being where they were in 2006 and were mediocre last year and look pretty below average right now.......

 

[PigAxeJug]

I think we wont fall like illinois has. Atleast not till Gray is gone

 

[Schnoodler]

I just want to point out that thus far Illinois has lost to an undefeated Missouri team, OSU, and PSU. All three of them that despite how well Illinois has recruited in Zooks tenure, still have out recruited Illinois. That's pretty brutal analysis.

It does highlight, that better does not equal best. When you consider the depth of teams, and recruiting of the last four years and not just the least effective classes (fresh, and soph), there are not too many surprises. I've got news for you, OSU, and PSU are better programs than Illinois. Probably Missouri too. Just because they're on the path to a destination does not mean they've arrived.

So in some respects the OP is right. We're on a path and it's alot longer than 2+ years.

 

[thailleagle]

I think the difference is they are getting blown out by the same teams they were at least competitive with last year.........

 

[Schnoodler]

last year PSU won 38-24.
OSU won 30-20.

I'm not sure they were much more competitive. They lost to PSU by 18 this year compared to 14 last year. But I will grant you OSU beat them by much more this year than last, but still they lost by ten last year, so not much diff.

All in all 2007 is looking like an anomaly. An inspired year.

 

[thailleagle]

last year PSU won 38-24.
OSU won 30-20.

I'm not sure they were much more competitive. They lost to PSU by 18 this year compared to 14 last year. But I will grant you OSU beat them by much more this year than last, but still they lost by ten last year, so not much diff.

All in all 2007 is looking like an anomaly. An inspired year.

We're not gonna mention the difference in the Missouri margin of victory? Illinois is on an obvious skid and it's not the talent.......

 

[Schnoodler]

I don't think that's been proven at all. I'm not a fan of illinois. So I don't care. But losing to a better program is only evidence that you're not as good as those programs. That's all. Personally I don't think they're worse, I just think maybe they weren't as good as we thought in the first place. I see no evidence that they were any better last year. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. There is just no evidence. We'll know more next week when they play a team they should be competitive with. If they can't hang with them then maybe they are getting worse.

 

[thailleagle]

I don't think that's been proven at all. I'm not a fan of illinois. So I don't care. But losing to a better program is only evidence that you're not as good as those programs. That's all. Personally I don't think they're worse, I just think maybe they weren't as good as we thought in the first place. I see no evidence that they were any better last year. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. There is just no evidence. We'll know more next week when they play a team they should be competitive with. If they can't hang with them then maybe they are getting worse.

Being in Illinois I watch all their games as well as Gopher games and they are clearly worse then last year, it's a shame because they have speed for days.......

 

[Schnoodler]

Again we'll know more in the future when they play teams more to their skill level. Superior teams can make you look worse than you are.

 

[MRJ]

Being in Illinois I watch all their games as well as Gopher games and they are clearly worse then last year, it's a shame because they have speed for days.......

I watched the second half of the Penn State-Illinois game yesterday as well as the Illinois-Missouri game at the beginning of the year and based on that, I would have to say that I agree.

If you thought we got whipped on the lines yesterday, you should have seen how Illinois fared against the Nittany Lions. Illinois was literally getting blown off the line like they weren't even there. I know that Penn State is probably a better team than Wisconsin, but the Penn State backs were running seven or eight yards before even getting hit in the second half yesterday. I think the commentators were saying something about Penn State averaging over nine yards a carry at one point. It was plain ugly.

 

[Bayfieldgopher]

Great Recruiter...Questionable Coach?

I personally think Brewster is smarter then Zook but it's amazing how Illinois had become so Elite in 2007 and now they are one Juice Williams Graduation away from being where they were in 2006 and were mediocre last year and look pretty below average right now.......

Eddie McGee will be a Sr. and has experience and has done well as a backup QB. We no such thing at MN.

 

[thailleagle]

Eddie McGee will be a Sr. and has experience and has done well as a backup QB. We no such thing at MN.

That's because they actually gave Eddie McGhee some reps during games where Juice wasn't playing well, I've watched every Illinois game in the last couple years so I know. Juice was benched a couple times for performance.......

 

[WAGopher]

I'm willing to bet a few cents that the Gopher's plan is to get Gray in for reps with passing when the game wasn't on the line. To date, I don't think we've had any time that we had the game in hand and could afford to give Gray some pass plays or a full series. If we already played SD State I think Gray would have had a full series to two.

 

[Schnoodler]

It is probably the one benefit of a weak NC schedule that get's overlooked. Experience for the youngsters.

 

[washgopher]

lost to better teams?

Maybe so but we haven't really been even that competitive. We say we stayed in with a 'good' Cali team but they been totally blown away the last two weeks, so I'm not to sure they are 'good', they Syracuse continues to lose, only worse, the Air Force lost to a mediocre Navy squad, so we barely beat or played close to other bad teams, big deal. We've got a long way to go.

 

[GoldInDirt]

It appears to me the coaching has consistently gotten better over the past two years. Brewster has shown great flexibility (maybe too much) in making changes.

Our recruiting has been steady, but our starting talent compared to Wisconsin's was shown to be inferior yesterday. Now let's give Brewster two more years and the talent level should be equal. Then he'll have four years of coaching under his belt and his first squad of recruits starting - then let's starting drawing tight comparisons.