Fire Ron Zook? Not So Fast.

Three weeks ago, the Illini were sitting at 6-0 - the best start for the team in sixty years - and it looked like we were on our way to a history-making football season.  And we still might be seeing history in the making, but it wouldn't be the kind we were hoping for.  I did a little bit of research on the eight seasons in which FBS teams have been allowed to play 12 regular season games, and it looks as if no college football team has ever had both a six-game winning streak and a six-game losing streak in the same season.  But after last Saturday's heartbreaking, last-minute loss to Penn State left the Illini with a three-game losing streak, the Illini need to win one of their remaining three games - at home against #13 Michigan or #20 Wisconsin, or on the road against Minnesota (which beat Iowa in Minneapolis last Saturday) - to avoid becoming first team to claim that dubious distinction.

As a result of the losing streak, the "Fire Ron Zook" bandwagon is gaining momentum as the Illini head into their bye week.  If the Illini do finish the regular season with a 6-6 (or 7-5) record and a berth in, say, the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl after their great start, it would certainly give Mike Thomas a reason to fire Zook at season's end.  But should Thomas be thinking about changing coaches?  My answer - no, he shouldn't.  That's right, I'm about to try to defend Ron Zook.

I admit, it's not easy to look past Zook's recurring problems:  decision-making (like going for the first down at the end of the Ohio State game instead of kicking the field goal); time management (where were the defensive timeouts at the end of the first half against Purdue?); penalties (like the one that cost us a TD in the second quarter against Penn State); and our tragically inept "special" teams units which he coordinates (now the failures of our special teams even extend to our once-reliable field goal unit). Those problems (and others, like forgetting the score and going for a two-point conversion in the second quarter against Indiana) are even harder to overlook when the team is mired in a three-game losing streak.  But before you start preparing the tar and feathers, I'd ask you to hold off on the "Fire Ron Zook" talk for now, to step back, and to look at this season from the perspective of preseason expectations and historical performance.

First, the expectations for 2011 season.  Remember - the Illini are missing three key juniors from last year's team, and a lot of people expected that the Illini would have a tough time overcoming those personnel losses.  In my own preseason projections, I had us finishing 7-5 overall, 4-4 in conference.  Besides the Arizona State game, I've correctly forecast the winner of every game on the schedule - I even predicted the current losing streak.  So to paraphrase the oft-quoted words of Dennis Green, the Illini are who I thought they were.  It's not just me; most reasonable projections had the Illini in the range of 7, 8, or 9 wins, and there's still an excellent chance that the Illini will in fact end up in that range.  Michigan has looked good, but other than their last-second miracle comeback against Notre Dame, they haven't beaten anyone of note in 2011, and Minnesota lost at home to a 3-5 New Mexico State team and to an FCS school (granted, North Dakota State is an 8-0 FCS school).  If the Illini do end up at 4-4 in conference play (8-4 overall), Zook would have done exactly what he was expected to do with this team, and I'd call that a successful season.

Now, the historical perspective.  In 1963, the Illini finished with an 8-1-1 record, capped by a victory in the Rose Bowl.  Care to guess how many eight-win seasons the Illini have posted since then?  Six.  That's right - six.  Which means that, losing streak and all, if the Illini manage to win two more games this year, it still would rank as one of the most successful football seasons of the last 50 years.  Yeah, that's a pretty sad commentary on our program's history, and you could argue that it has as much to do with the soft (and expanded) schedule as anything Zook himself has done.

OK, that's fair enough, but then consider this:  you already know that the Illini haven't made back-to-back bowl appearances since 1991 and 1992.  Thanks to the proliferation of bowl games and the fact that there aren't enough good teams to fill all of the available slots, even a 6-6 Illini team should still make it to a bowl game this year.  And don't sweat the 2-6 conference record; four teams have received bowl invites with 2-6 conference records (2002 Wisconsin, 2006 Alabama, 2008 and 2010 Kentucky).  So let's say Zook does get to a bowl game and then posts a second straight bowl victory.  Care to guess how many coaches have won more than one bowl game at Illinois?  Here's the list:

• Ray Eliot - 1946 and 1951 Rose Bowls

Yep - that's it.  Pete Elliott won the 1963 Rose Bowl.  Mike White never won a bowl game.  John Mackovic won the Citrus Bowl (and lost his other two bowl games).  Lou Tepper won the Liberty Bowl (and lost his other two bowl games).  Ron Turner won the Micron PC Bowl (and lost the Sugar Bowl).  And Zook won the Texas Bowl last year.  So if the Illini do win their bowl game, even if it's not a New Year's Day bowl game like we expected a few weeks ago, you could make a case that Zook, with two bowl wins (plus a Rose Bowl appearance) is the most successful Illini coach of the last 50 years.  That might be the equivalent of being the most successful Cubs manager of the last 50 years, but it in my mind it would be a good reason to retain Zook.  To put it another way, who would want to succeed Zook if Zook was fired after winning two bowl games in a row?

Obviously, if the Illini end the season on a seven-game losing streak (or a six-game losing streak without a bowl game), then I'll change my tune and say it's time for Zook to go.  But the time to fire Zook would have been after the 3-9 disaster in 2009 (on the heels of the 5-7 2008 season), not after he's just had back-to-back winning seasons.  If the Illini do end the season 9-4, or 8-5, the football program's proverbial arrow will still be pointed up.  And if that happens, then, yes, warts and all, Ron Zook should be allowed to continue as Illini coach in 2012.