Ladies and Gentlemen, Presenting...Your First-Place Chicago Bears

The Bears are the only undefeated team in the NFC? Wow, I certainly didn't see that coming. Even if it is only week 3, an electric crowd and a thrilling 20-17 win over our most hated rivals on national TV to move into first place is about as good as it gets this early in the year. It was good to see some old friends return to form (pun intended) tonight. And speaking of old friends returning to form, take a bow, #54 (and continuing on the "old friends" theme - how weird to hear former Bears announcer Wayne Larrivee on the radio call for the Packers). It also helps to have one of our new friends (our big-money free agent defensive lineman) wreaking havoc both on defense and on special teams.

I probably shouldn't get too carried away. The Packers outgained the Bears 379-276 and had over ten more minutes of possession time. Of course, when another team wants to hand you the game (152 yards of Packers penalties, a couple of which negated Cutler INTs, and one that took a Packer TD off the board and led to the blocked FG), you need to be in position to take advantage of it, which the Bears were. So let's enjoy this one, and hope the Giants continue to be turnover prone (3 in each of their first three games) next Sunday night as the Bears shoot for a 4-0 start.

"You Won't Be Needing This"

First place in the NFC North is up for grabs Monday night. Bears. Packers. A rivalry going back to 1921. Need I say more? Of course I do, otherwise this post would be way too short.

I will say that saw some of the Giants game today, and they were an undisciplined mess. If the Bears can somehow get a win against the Packers, they'd have a leg up on Green Bay and a good shot at a 4-0 start. And with the softer part of the schedule after that....

Ah, whom am I kidding? The Bears are clearly setting me up to rip my heart out. Even without any semblance of a running game, Aaron Rodgers will have his way with the Bears' defense, and I feel like it will be a victory for the Bears if Jay Cutler gets through the game in one piece.

Prediction: Green Bay 31, Bears 17.

A Football-Free Weekend

No Illini game Saturday? No Bears game Sunday? There go all of my excuses to not mow the lawn. In any case, the red hot Illini (for whom two straight wins equals "red hot") have a bye week, which offers a great opportunity to assess the team's prospects for the rest of the season and for a bowl bid. Yes, I said a bowl bid. The Illini have two wins already, and looking at the schedule, I see three very winnable home games against Indiana, Purdue, and Minnesota (disclaimer - I understand that "winnable" doesn't equal "the Illini will win", as Zook-era teams have proven over and over).

But for argument's sake, let's give the Illini these three wins, which would make five and leave them needing one more win to become bowl-eligible. And yes, I've heard about the proposal to allow 5-win teams into bowl games this year, but I wouldn't count on that, and I don't like it anyway. Call me a traditionalist, but a team with more losses than wins shouldn't be in a bowl game. A team with an equal number of wins and losses - now that's a different story.

So with that backdrop, let's take a look at the remaining games on the schedule and see which (if any) would be a potential source of a sixth Illini win:

• Oct. 2 vs. Ohio State. Ummm...uhhh....Next!
• Oct. 9 at Penn State. Looking for trends with the Nittany Lions, I see that they've won every time they've hosted a non-Big Ten team from Ohio, but lost every time they've played on the road against teams ranked #1 in the country. Unfortunately, the Illini are probably closer in quality to the former group than the latter group, and this one's in Happy Valley.
• Oct. 16 at Michigan State. Sparty has looked good so far this year, what with their chicanery and all. But look at their Big 10 schedule: games against Wisconsin and at Michigan and games at Northwestern and against Iowa sandwiched around their home game against the Illini. Could this be a classic trap game for Sparty? A Zook-era team has gone to East Lansing with a freshman QB and left with a win before.
• Nov. 6 at Michigan. On the plus side, the Illini have beaten the maize-and-blue two straight times, and UMass did hang 37 points on the Wolverines in Ann Arbor. On the minus side, Michigan has a Heisman Trophy-caliber QB, and I think the universe would implode if Michigan lost three in a row to the Illini.
• Nov. 20 vs. Northwestern @ Wrigley Field. The Illini have lost 6 of their last 7 against the 'Cats, who are sort of the anti-Illini. Northwestern is well-coached and disciplined, with players who fit their system, which has continuity because they aren't constantly shuffling coordinators in and out every year. Northwestern is the designated home team for this one, so our best hope might be that Wrigley Field's other home team's bad luck rubs off on them.
• Dec. 3 at Fresno St. Wow - a game in California in December? We are going to a bowl game! Oh, wait, this is a road game on the regular season schedule - part of our Athletic Director's insane plan to ridiculously over-schedule a rebuilding program. Anyway, except for the ending, last year's game was a great one that could have gone either way. Maybe if the Illini have something to play for this year (a bowl bid), the rematch will go our way.

Well, there you have it. I don't see any obvious wins here, although some seem more winnable than others. If I had to rank them from best chance for a win to worst chance, I'd say Fresno St., Northwestern, Michigan St. Michigan, Penn St. and Ohio St. So while a sixth win is possible, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it, especially because I don't think I can hold my breath until December. For now, I'll just enjoy knowing that after this Saturday, the Illini will have gone three straight weeks without a loss.

I'll Take Potpourri for $200, Alex

Here it comes - the corned beef hash of blog posts.

You know that Ron Guenther has to be behind this proposal.

I'm excited about the upcoming Illini basketball season, but I'm worried that we probably have the only coach in the country who uses the word "mollycoddling".

I see that the Arizona Diamondbacks have hired Kevin Towers as their new GM. This is a good move for them - during his 15-year tenure as the GM of the Padres, he showed that he was not afraid of sabermetric analysis, and despite middle-of-the-road payrolls his team won four division titles and appeared in the 1998 World Series. However, the Padres lost a one-game playoff after being one strike away from another postseason appearance in 2007. Two sub-par seasons later, he was out of a job. The point? If Kevin Towers got fired for having that resume, how does Jim Hendry still have his job?

They Gone!

Congratulations to the AL Central champion Minnesota Twins, who became the first team to clinch a playoff spot tonight when the White Sox lost in Oakland. It must be fun to be a Twins fan and root for a well-run organization. The Twins won the AL Central last year, but after being swept out of the ALDS they upgraded their roster in an intelligent way. Instead of throwing lots of money at mediocre free agents (like some GMs would), they made a couple of low-budget free agent pickups, getting a starting second baseman and a power-hitting DH, who combined are making only $800,000 more than the Cubs are paying the combination of Jeff Samardzija and John Grabow. The Twins also picked up their starting shortstop in exchange for a guy who can't crack the starting outfield in Milwaukee. And they were able to cover for the loss of one of the best closers in baseball for the entire season, and the loss of one of the best first basemen in the AL for the second half of the season, and run away with their division.

Unlike recent Twins teams, this one isn't a hard-nosed, talent-challenged, overachieving bunch of piranhas. They have the second best record in the AL, and they earned it, with the second best run differential in the AL (both trailing only the Yankees). The Twins are a model for anybody who wants to put together a winning team within the confines of a budget, and I'd love it if the Cubs would ditch Hendry and find someone who could copy what they have done.

Hey, What's Going on Here?

How long has it been since the Bears won in Dallas? The last time it happened, Walter Payton was the leading rusher and Doug Flutie started at QB. How does a team break a streak like that, especially when they're a seven-point underdog? Making solid in-game adjustments helps - having the QB use a short drop and quick release to counteract a vicious pass rush, and deciding it's OK to throw the ball near the goal line, for example. So does forcing three turnovers while not turning the ball over once. It all added up to a 27-20 win and a 2-0 start for the first time since the 2006 NFC champions did it.

When Calvin Johnson apparently grabbed the football in the end zone late in the game last week, it looked like a loss to the Lions, and with games at Dallas, home against Green Bay, and at the Giants looming, an 0-4 start seemed likely. Now, the Green Bay game next Monday will be for the early lead in the NFC North, and the worst the Bears could be after their tough-looking season-opening stretch is 2-2. And while the Packers look very good right now, the Giants didn't look so hot tonight. After that, the schedule softens up a bit (at Carolina, Seattle, Washington, at Buffalo). I don't want to get too far ahead here, but a 6-2 start is not out of the question. Granted, the second-half schedule looks imposing, but it's at least possible that I won't have to wait until college basketball season starts to have a little sports excitement.

A Win is a Win, Right?

The Illini football team completed the directional school portion of their schedule by hanging on for a 28-22 win over Northern Illinois. Not very impressive, but at least it was better than a couple of other Zook-era efforts against MAC teams. Trying to catch everyone off-guard, Illinois changed up their lack of discipline problem this week; they played turnover-free football but piled up 85 yards in penalties. And as radio announcer Brian Barnhart noted during the game, these weren't cheapies like false starts. For example, a roughing the passer penalty took away what would have been the game-clinching interception, which led to a late NIU field goal and a nerve-racking on-side kick (which, fortunately, the Illini recovered).

Whatever the means, the result is a 2-1 record for the Illini - the first time they've been over .500 since beating Iowa in November, 2008. It should also be noted that the last time the Illini had a close shave against NIU in Champaign, they went on to win the Big 10 title outright and earned a berth in the Sugar Bowl. So I see no reason we can't do the same this year, provided that we can get Kurt Kittner, Brandon Lloyd, Rocky Harvey & Co. back into uniform. Barring that, I think I'll just enjoy the upcoming bye week, since I get the feeling I won't enjoy what comes after that.

L'shanah Tovah!

I'm not sure what's in store for me during Jewish calendar year 5771, but so far, it's off to a great start, and it keeps getting better. For Bruce Pearl, not so much:

"Parrish goes on to report that Pearl lied to NCAA assistant director of enforcement Kristen Matha when asked about the in-home event. Parrish's sources say the NCAA already had photographic evidence of Pearl and Craft inside his home at the time, which, if true, means Pearl was busted right away and not found out later."

It's ironic - not just in an Alanis Morisette way; it really is ironic - that Pearl, who got the Illini into hot water with the NCAA by (illegally) recording a conversation may now be undone by someone photographing him making illegal visits to a recruit.

Keep the good news coming!

Milestone #1 - Passed

Relax and rejoice, fellow Cubs fans - tonight's 5-1 win over the Cardinals means that our favorite team won't lose 100 games this year! While tonight's Reds' win officially eliminated the Cubs from the postseason, that win combined with our win over our hated rivals pushes the Cardinals 7 games back of the Reds, reducing their tragic number to 13. As for the Cards, you know things are going bad when a team can't score a run off of Jeff Samardzija.

Now, it's on to milestone #2 - getting the four wins necessary to finish with more wins than the unstoppable force that was the 2006 Cubs.

First Place! Woo-Hoo!

On a day where the Bears outgained the Lions 463 yards to 168 and knocked the Lions starting QB out of the game just before halftime, they still needed a technicality to beat the Lions 19-14. Bears' fans should be thankful that Matt Forte was there to provide some very powerful deodorant (the same goes for referee Gene Steratore). Otherwise, with the next three games being at Dallas, home against Green Bay, and at the Giants, we'd almost certainly be looking at an 0-4 start (not that 1-3 is anything to write home about).

Of course, this game shouldn't have been close, considering the yardage edge and the fact that the Lions played prevent offense for the entire second half with Matthew Stafford out of the game. Then again, the four Bears turnovers didn't help, nor did the 100 yards in penalties. And don't get me started on the Bears' decision to use the same goal-line playbook that Joe Paterno used in the 1979 Sugar Bowl. Seriously, they hire Mike Martz because he's some sort of offensive supergenius, and that's what they come up with - four runs up the middle on five plays from the one-yard line?

The good news is that Dallas appears to have a coaching staff that's just as stupid as ours, which gives us some hope. Wait, whom am I kidding? The Cowboys will probably be p***ed off about losing and take out their frustrations on the Bears. Whatever - I'm still going to enjoy looking down the standings at the Vikings while I can.

We're Number Three!

The Illini had everything going right for them tonight, and dominated the entire game on their way to an easy 35-3 win over SIU. And everything I worried about in my prediction post - the turnover battle (which Illinois lost 3-2), needing to put the game on the shoulders of Nathan Scheelhaase (who went 14-18 for 231 yards, 2 TDs, no INTs, and a QB rating of 222.2 for the game), SIU being amped for the game - didn't matter. All of which means that we're still (at worst) the third-best program in the state right now. And at least I was pretty close on calling the Illini's point total for the game.

Some might think this is just a win over a cupcake, but even if that's true, it's better than the alternative (as Virginia Tech and Minnesota discovered today). At the very least, this is something to build on, with another winnable game coming up next week at home against Northern Illinois, which had to hold on for a 23-17 win at home against North Dakota today. It would be nice to get out to a 2-1 start before we run into the twin buzz-saws of Ohio State and a trip to Happy Valley after our bye week. While the competition this week may not have been as tough as I anticipated, it was nice to see our freshman QB make big improvements from last week. If that continues, I can see Illini football becoming fun again in the not-too-distant future. And next year, it will be nice to open with a game like this instead of being fed to the Tigers.

Where's The Fire?

Apparently there isn't going to be much fire coming from Knoxville. Bruce Pearl admitted giving "misleading and incorrect information" (i.e. "lying") to the NCAA during their investigation of the Tennessee basketball program, and as a result his bosses slapped him with a punishment so the NCAA would get off their backs. Pearl will have to forfeit $1.5 million in salary over the next five years and cannot recruit off-campus for a year. And if you look really closely, you can see the marks where the ruler hit his knuckles.

So let me see if I've got this straight - 21 years ago, Pearl lied to the NCAA investigators about Deon Thomas. Now, he lies to the NCAA investigators about his own program. And yet people come rushing out to defend him. I especially love this quote from the cited ESPN article:

"Pearl recorded Thomas, who by then has committed to Illinois, admitting that he had received a car from an Illinois assistant and turned the tape over to the NCAA. Though the NCAA never was able to back up Pearl's claim, the subsequent investigation revealed other ridiculously minor violations and Illinois was handed a one-year postseason ban because the NCAA would have looked foolish if they had investigated Illinois for a year and not punished them in some way."

(Italics mine. Oh, and some of the other quoted material may represent my interpretations of these events.)

In other words, Pearl's allegations were completely bogus, but he's still a good guy because he was a "whistleblower". Don't get me wrong - I think whistleblowers provide a great service to society, but only if they're telling the truth. If you're a lying whistleblower, it kind of defeats the purpose.

Remember how Kelvin Sampson took Oklahoma to the Final Four? No, you don't, because now when you think of him you think of how he drove the Indiana basketball program off a cliff with his illegal and unethical behavior. So let's hope that even if this is Pearl's only actual punishment, the incident helps change the perception of Bruce Pearl from wronged man to wrongdoer. After twenty-plus years of waiting for vengeance, that would still be pretty sweet.

It Was (Almost) Twenty Years Ago Today...

The big question for the Fighting Illini football team this week is whether they will finish it as the third or the fourth best college football team in the state. Yes, right now I'd put U of I third of the three FBS teams - in the 2000s, Northern Illinois has 68 wins and 4 bowl bids; Northwestern has 62 wins and 5 bowl bids; Illinois has 45 wins and 2 bowl bids (yes, they're both BCS bowls, but there are no others). Southern Illinois, Saturday's Illini opponent, may be an FCS team, but they're no pushover, with seven straight seasons of nine or more wins. It's typical Illini luck that Ron Guenther finally schedules a pre-season game against a non-FBS opponent, and they come into the game ranked #2 in the FCS poll the week we play them. At least the game's not in Carbondale, so I guess that counts as progress. However, even with the home crowd, we can't presume a win for the Illini, especially since this will be like SIU's Super Bowl (much like Bradley's shot at the U of I basketball team last November, and remember how that turned out).

It's hard to draw conclusions based on the one game each team has played so far, particularly since SIU's was a 70-7 thrashing of Quincy. Oh, wait, it was the NAIA team, not that Quincy. But looking back at the last couple of years, one worrisome pattern has emerged that would favor SIU, and not the Illini - turnovers. I know it's a cliche to talk about turnovers, but in the last two seasons, SIU has been +8 and +17 in turnover margin, while the Illini have been -6 and -4. We saw what Scheelhaase did against Missouri in the second half, so we have to hope that he doesn't have to win the game for us, meaning he'll need a big dose of help from the running game.

Therefore, it's fitting that Saturday's game will mark the (almost) 20-year anniversary of Howard Griffith's record eight-TD performance against, yes, SIU (I was at that game - wow, am I getting old). Illinois will have to follow that script and pound the ball on the ground, keeping the pressure off Scheelhaase and (knock on wood) minimizing turnovers. I'm seeing a close game, but the home crowd will be abuzz from the celebration of Griffith's achievement (and abuzz from a full day of tailgating) and that should help to pull us through this one with our first win of the season.

Prediction - Illinois 31, SIU 24.

There's Smoke. Now Let's See Some Fire.

Oh, please, let this be true! According to ESPN's report of a potential investigation into Bruce Pearl's Tennessee basketball program:

With its football program already under an NCAA probe, the University of Tennessee is facing an investigation into its men's basketball program.

NCAA representatives are checking, in part, excessive telephone calls and the use of unauthorized phones to contact recruits, sources told ESPN.com Thursday.

It would be perfect retribution if Bruce Pearl would get into hot water with the NCAA over telephone calls, considering that his illegal recording of a phone conversation with Illini recruit Deon Thomas helped set the Illini basketball program back for a decade and unfairly tarnished the reputations of Jimmy Collins and Lou Henson (this may be a reason why Henson has not yet been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame). Let's hope there's something to this story.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T. - Gettin' Some From Fox TV

Good news, fellow Bears fans - Fox Sports doesn't think our team sucks! Well, maybe they do, but at least they think our season-opening clash against the similarly putrid Lions isn't the most unappetizing matchup this Sunday.

As proof, they'll be sending Thom Brennaman and Brian Billick to cover Sunday's game. As you can see from this chart, there are three crews below Thommy and Billick in their pecking order. The #7 crew is off this week (there are only six games on Fox this Sunday), and the #5 and #6 crews are both covering the NFC West intra-division matchups. So we have that going for us for now, but I have a feeling we'll be getting a steady diet of Kurt Warner with Chris Myers or Chris Rose by the end of the season.

Oh, and some sympathy is in order for poor Thommy. Instead of enjoying his beloved Reds battling for their first division title in 15 years, he'll be stuck with this stink-bomb of a football game. I suspect he'll at least be keeping an eye on the baseball scoreboard and trying to work in references to the Reds game as often as he can. If there's an over-under on how many times he mentions the Reds during this game, take the over.

At Least They Beat the Spread

Not much needs to be said about the specifics of Saturday's 23-13 Illini loss. In summary - Illinois executes well in the first half, Missouri adjusts in the second half, forcing the freshman QB to make big plays to win, which he was unable to do. However, the game was competitive throughout, which is more than I (and the oddsmakers) expected. It's difficult for me to find fault with the players or coaches for their effort. Against a team like Youngstown State (Penn State's opener), Eastern Illinois (Iowa's opener), Middle Tennessee St. (Minnesota's opener), or Towson (Indiana's opener), it would have been enough for a victory. But instead, Ron Guenther's insistence that his rebuilding team needed to open against the superior Tigers on a "neutral" field, year after year, has left the team 0-1 for the fourth straight year.

The best thing about Saturday's game is that it means this series has come to an end. Good news is on the horizon for the Illini's next head coach, however - after 18 years Guenther has finally figured out the knack of scheduling. Check out the 2011 schedule, which features eight home games, including five straight to start the year, with the first two against Arkansas St. and South Dakota St. That schedule will certainly help the new regime get off to a quick start next year and maybe even (gasp) make it to a bowl game, which is (almost) enough to make you feel sorry for Ron Zook, who's probably wondering why he never got to have such an advantageous schedule.

Mr. Bright Side

Today I'm choosing to look at the bright side of things.

Let's start with the Cubs (3rd highest MLB payroll), who beat the Mets (5th highest MLB payroll) in the battle of "teams who are getting the least bang for their buck". Thanks to winning seven of Mike Quade's first ten games as manager, the Cubs now have 58 wins. With 27 games left, they only need to go 5-22 to avoid losing 100 games, and 9-18 to exceed the win total of the putrid 2006 Cubs (which was looking doubtful not too long ago). Hey, why stop there? If the Cubs can go 15-12 the rest of the way, they wouldn't even lose 90 games! Go for it, Cubbies!

On to the Bears. Instead of panicking about a winless preseason, consider this - in 2008, the Detroit Lions went 4-0 in the preseason, then proceeded to go 0-16 in the regular season. Therefore, it's only logical to expect that a team that goes 0-4 in the preseason will go 16-0 in the regular season! It's official - you can book your tickets to Arlington Texas for Super Bowl XLV!

And to top it all off, college football starts tomorrow too! All this good fortune at once!

Snowball, this is Satan. Satan, this is...hey, where'd Snowball go?

Last December, the Missouri basketball team snapped a nine-game losing streak against the Illini in the Braggin' Rights basketball game. Does this mean that there's a chance that, for the sake of balance, the Illini football team is about to break their five-game losing streak in the Arch Rivalry on Saturday?

Nah, that won't happen. Prediction - Missouri 34, Illini 10.

More Sports Schadenfreude

On August 11, in this very blog, I stated flat out that I'd be rooting for the Reds - or more accurately, rooting against the Cardinals - to win the NL Central this year. Also on August 11, the Cardinals finished a three-game sweep of the Reds in Cincinnati and moved into first place by one full game (two games in the loss column). It looked like I had planted the kiss of death on Cincinnati by throwing my support behind their team.

However, in the last three weeks since that "telling sweep", an amazing turnaround has happened - the Reds have won 14 of their last 18 games, and the Cardinals have lost 13 of their last 18 games, so that the Reds have gone from a one-game deficit to a commanding eight-game lead in the division race. Oh - and the Cardinals' poor stretch started with losing 2 of 3 in St. Louis to the Cubs. Yay, Cubs!

Even better - the Cardinals now find themselves five games behind the wild-card leading Phillies. And enjoyable as it was to see Matt Holliday play a fly ball off his nuts last October, it's obviously much better if the Cardinals miss the postseason, which is looking more likely every day.

It's Football Season!

Now that the calendar has turned to September, I get to turn my attention away from the train-wreck that is the Cubs and focus on football. I'm glad to see that Phil Steele is not the only one predicting "big" things for the Illini this year (if you consider the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl "big"). Yahoo! Sports college football expert Tom Dinehart predicts that Illinois will upset Missouri on Saturday, going so far as to say that the stars are lining up for the Orange-and-Blue this year. I guess in Tom's world, having a lame-duck coach who's had one winning season in five years and is starting a freshman QB and breaking in coordinators on both sides of the ball constitutes "stars lining up".

But good news is on the horizon for the Illini football team - the Big Ten announced its realignment plans for football once Nebraska joins the conference in 2011. The Illini's division will include Ohio State, Indiana, Purdue, Wisconsin, and Penn State. This is good news for our yet-to-be-named coach next year - with fellow doormats Indiana and Purdue, around, there might be a couple of easy wins to be had every year. And if our knucklehead AD could figure out that we are trying to rebuild our program and not worry about strength of schedule as if we were competing for a national championship, I can see a scenario where Illinois at least starts becoming bowl-eligible on a regular basis - a marked improvement over the last 15 years of Illini football.

There's more good news out of the realignment announcement - the new divisions won't affect the basketball team. That's good, because having Ohio State, Purdue, and Wisconsin in a basketball division would make things awfully tough on the Illini every year, while Michigan State would have a cakewalk every year with Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, and Northwestern in their division. But since there is a conference tournament, there will be no divisional alignments in basketball, so after the Illini get back to where they should be this year, they shouldn't have any trouble sustaining it.