Monday, November 28, 2011

Now That We Fired Zook, What Are We Gonna Do?

When Mike Thomas said he was going to "assess" Ron Zook at the end of the season, "assess" was apparently a code word for "fire immediately", and "end of the season" meant "end of the regular season after a humiliating blowout loss to a horrible team, bowl game or not."  Honestly, I feel bad for the Zooker right now.  While his overall record at Illinois (34-51, 18-37 in conference play) was awful, he did walk into a terrible situation when he took over the Illini (three straight losing seasons before he arrived), and unlike the two guys who had the job before he did (and unlike certain basketball coaches), at least he did leave things in better shape than when he got here.  But even though Zook seems like a good guy, he wasn't a very good coach, his faults were glaringly obvious, and the six-game regular-season-ending losing streak made it clear that he's not the right man to lead this program going forward.

The good news is that whoever the new permanent head coach is, with the talent on hand there's no way next year's Illini go 0-11 (as they did in Ron Turner's first year after taking over for Lou Tepper) or 2-9 (as they did in Zook's first year after taking over for Turner).  It's also encouraging to see that Thomas won't tolerate mediocrity; back-to-back six-win regular seasons probably would have earned Zook a five-year contract extension if Ron Guenther were still the AD.  As a side note, I'm guessing this also means Bruce Weber's seat just got a little bit hotter, and that Weber will need to do better than spending every year on the NCAA Tournament bubble if he wants to stick around.  So now the fun begins.  In hiring Zook's replacement, Mike Thomas gets to make his first big impact on Illini athletics.
 

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Illini vs. Minnesota Preview: Please Make It Stop

Congratulations, Ron Zook - after a fantastic start to the 2011 season, your team's five game losing streak has completely crushed my spirit.  Of course, I will be rooting for the Illini to beat the Golden Gophers on Saturday, but for me this game will have the same feel as the Illini basketball team's NIT game against Stony Brook in 2010.  If we win, I probably won't be excited as much as relieved that we didn't suffer a humiliating loss.

Fortunately, even though the Illini went from Columbus Day to Thanksgiving without winning a game, we still have a better team than Minnesota.  If the Illini defense could hold Wisconsin's powerful offense in check, they should be able to stop the Golden Gophers' offense.  I think we'll get just enough production from our offense and for a change we won't shoot ourselves in the foot on special teams.  It will add up to a win and a little momentum going into whatever crappy bowl game we get invited to.  Yippee.  But more importantly, it means that the regular season will be over,  so we'll be that much closer to getting an answer from Mike Thomas on whether he wants Zook to be a part of the future of the football program.  And that answer should be something to get excited about.

Predictions
Illinois 24
Minnesota 10
Ron Zook will be fired after the game and will not coach our bowl game

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Bears Sign Josh McCown as Backup QB

Or was it Luke McCown?  It couldn't have been Cade McNown, could it?  No, it actually was Josh McCown.  Too bad it wasn't Neckbeard the Pirate, but apparently the Chiefs got to him first. Oh, well - I guess that just means (1) we'll have to settle for Josh McCown as Caleb Hanie's backup until Jay Cutler gets back into the lineup, and (2) we'll get to see Kyle Orton soon enough, when the Chiefs visit Chicago a week from Sunday.  OK, Josh - here's hoping you're ready to stand on the sidelines holding a clipboard.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Thumbs Down - Can the Bears Overcome Jay Cutler's Injury?

"I've learned that life is one crushing defeat after another, until you just wish Flanders was dead." - Homer Simpson

I certainly don't feel that way about life in general (and not just because, like hens love roosters and geese love ganders, I love Ned Flanders more than Homer Simpson loves a nacho hat).  But the first part of that sentence does a pretty good job of summarizing how I've felt watching my football teams this fall.  After a 6-0 start, the Illini may need to win their last game of the regular season at Minnesota to avoid being shut out of a bowl game.  The Bears had been doing a good job of covering up the stench emanating from Champaign by posting a five-game winning streak - and major props to you if you guessed that the Bears, who were sitting at 2-3 at the same time the Illini were 6-0, would reach seven wins before the Illini did.  However, as you've undoubtedly heard, the Bears suffered a crushing injury on Sunday, losing long snapper Patrick Mannelly to a torn ACL.  Oh - and there was also something about Jay Cutler breaking his thumb during the win over the Chargers.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Velcome to Chicago, Dale Sveum!

That's "SWAYM"
In all honesty, I wasn't exactly thrilled when I first heard the news that the Cubs were planning to hire Dale Sveum as their new manager.  This is the first big decision by the Cubs' new front office team.  So why were they (and the Red Sox, for that matter) so eager to pursue a guy who had twice been passed over for the managerial opening in Milwaukee - once when he was the Brewers' interim manager and had just guided the franchise to its first postseason appearance in 26 years?  Then I read about how Sveum "is a believer in the advanced statistical analysis that Chicago's new leadership loves and is counting on to build up the farm system."  Money quote:

''I do my due diligence and video work and prepare as much as anybody,'' Sveum said before he was hired. ''As far as the stats, those are what they are, and we can use them to our advantage. It's a big part of the game now. It's helping us win a lot of ballgames, the stats and the matchups. That's just part of the game now, and you use what you can.''

Taking advantage of stats and matchups...so no more equating drawing walks with "clogging the bases"?  No more batting a low OBP guy in the leadoff spot because that's where he's "comfortable"?  No more putting a thoroughly average hitter (career OPS+ of 100) in the middle of the order every day?  Wow - if this is true, I can sum up my thoughts on this hire in two words (no, not those two words):


Illini vs. Wisconsin Preview: Ron Zook's Last Stand?

 
But does Mike Thomas agree?
One of the most painful outcomes for Illinois football in recent years came in the 2009 season finale against Fresno State.  Nearly two years later, it's still difficult to believe that our Senior Day was ruined on a last-second, tipped-pass-for-a-two-point-conversion reception by a Bulldogs offensive lineman.  That loss capped off a 3-9 season for the Illini (Ron Zook's second straight losing season), and it seemed all but certain that we would never see Zook on the Illinois sideline at Memorial Stadium again.  But thanks to the generosity, insanity, and/or stupidity of then-AD Ron Guenther, Zook survived, and we've now seen him coach an additional 13 games at Memorial Stadium.  This Saturday's clash against #15/#17 Wisconsin will be his 14th since that Fresno State game.  But unless the Illini can score a victory over the Badgers, it's difficult to believe that current AD Mike Thomas will give Zook the opportunity to extend that number, no matter what Thomas is saying now.  By the way, I've heard that ESPN was planning to bring the blimp to Champaign for Saturday's broadcast, but in a cost-cutting move they've instead decided to get their aerial shots of the game by strapping cameras to the vultures circling over Zook's head.

Given that atmosphere, is there any hope for the Fighting Zookers on Saturday?

Monday, November 14, 2011

Urge to Fire Ron Zook...Rising!

When the Bears signed Todd Collins last year, I went out of my way to praise the move.  My reward for standing up for Collins?  In a start against Carolina (the worst team in the NFL in 2010), Collins produced one of the most inept performances by a Bears QB that I've ever seen (and that includes performances by Rusty Lisch, Rick Mirer, and Henry Burris).

So what does Todd Collins have to do with Ron Zook?  Well, during the Illini's bye week, I did my best to defend Ron Zook's record as Illinois head coach, and asked my fellow Illini fans to be patient despite our team's three-game skid.  My reward?  With two weeks to prepare for Michigan, we got another completely listless offensive performance, more crappiness from our "special" teams, and the Wolverines kicking the snot out of the Illini in Champaign last Saturday in a game that wasn't as close as the 31-14 final score indicated, extending the losing streak to four games.  Making matters worse, there were two separate off-field incidents involving Illini players over the weekend, so while we're slipping in the Big Ten standings, we're moving up in the Fulmer Cup standings.  And the topper - during the last two weeks, both Northwestern and Purdue scored big upset victories (over Nebraska and Ohio State, respectively).  With those results, it's almost certain that ten of the Big Ten's twelve schools will be bowl-eligible by season's end, meaning that if the Illini do end the season 6-6, there may not be a bowl bid for them as I thought two weeks ago.

The promise and progress the Illini showed early this season has completely disintegrated, and unless the team can bounce back and post an upset win against Wisconsin (unlikely, given the state of our offense and the top-ten-in-the-nation scoring defense of the Badgers), I'm guessing that not even a win at Minnesota in the season finale will be enough to convince Mike Thomas to keep Zook around for 2012.  So thanks, Ron Zook, for taking what was shaping up to be a fantastic year and dragging it into the gutter, and for making me look really bad.  Go find another blogger to stand up for you - I'm done.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Illini Basketball: A 2011-12 Season Preview

It seems like it's been forever since the Illini basketball team played in a game that counted, but on Friday, the Illini will open their season against Loyola, and I'm looking forward to having meaningful basketball games to talk about again.  That certainly beats going over what's happened to our basketball team during the last five seasons.  I've already made my feelings on Bruce Weber known, and I don't want to spend too much time re-hashing that discussion, because I'm tired of it.  I'm tired of not feeling invincible on our home court.  I'm tired of being a bubble team, needing to win games in the Big Ten Tournament just to make the NCAA tournament.  But most of all, I'm tired of our team being completely out of the picture when it comes not only to national championships, but also to Big Ten championships.  So probably the best news about the new season is that one way or the other, by March we should have our answer on the "fire Bruce Weber" question.

OK, now that I'm done talking about the past, it's time to look at the present. 

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Bears After the Bye - What to Expect in the Second "Half" of the Season

It's odd how things work out sometimes.  Four weeks ago, the Illini were undefeated, and it looked to me as if the Bears were on the fast track to mediocrity after a Monday night loss to Detroit dropped them to 2-3.  But since then, the Illini have lost three straight games, crushing any hope of New Year's Day football, while the Bears have a two-game winning streak and renewed playoff hopes.  When the Illini were up the Bears were down.  Now, the Bears are up, and the Illini are down.  You know who I am?  Even Steven!

With the Bears are coming out of the bye week at 4-3 (the same record they had at the bye week in 2010), the next two games will most likely determine which way the 2011 season breaks.  A win over the Eagles on Monday night would give the Bears the tiebreaker edge over three of their potential competitors (Eagles, Falcons, Bucs) for wild card spots.  While a loss at Philadelphia wouldn't be fatal to a Bears' playoff run, the next game, at home against the Lions (another potential wild card competitor), is the real key to the team's postseason chances.  If the Bears are swept by Detroit there's no way the Bears will catch the Lions, and the Bears would have no way to make the playoffs other than as the NFC's #6 seed.  But a Bears victory would go a long way toward helping them finish ahead of the Lions, especially since Detroit still has to play Green Bay twice.

With the almost-second half of the schedule about to get underway (it would be much cleaner if the bye week fell at the exact midpoint of the season, but what can you do about that?), I figure this is a good time to try to guess if the Bears will return to the postseason.  I originally had the Bears finishing at 8-8, but there's been a slight change in my forecast.  I'm assuming the Bears will follow last year's formula, in which after the bye week, Mike Martz "chose" to go with more conservative, run-oriented game plans instead of the pass-happy, let's-get-Jay-Cutler-killed game plans he prefers.  Based on that assumption, here's how I see things unfolding the rest of the way, game by game:

Thursday, November 3, 2011

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.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Mike Quade - Gone!

In my little corner of the blogosphere, 2011 has been quite a painful year when it comes to on-field results.  The Packers beat the Bears in the NFC Championship Game and then won the Super Bowl.  The Illini were knocked out of the NCAA Tournament by Bill Self's Kansas Jayhawks (who at least had the courtesy to not win the championship).  And the Cubs helped the Cardinals sneak into the playoffs on the last day of the season just so I could have the pleasure of watching Ryan Theriot and Corey Patterson get World Series rings.

But off the field - wow, things couldn't be much better.  No more Ron Guenther running the Illini revenue sports into the ground.  No more Jim Hendry running the Cubs front office as if it were still 1977.  And now, the news that Mike Quade will not return to the Cubs dugout in 2012.  In truth, Quade was put into a no-win situation last year (much of which was Hendry's fault), and the 2011 Cubs wouldn't have been any good even with the ghost of Joe McCarthy managing them.  But there's no doubt that Quade was in way over his head as a major league manager, and it's nice to see Jedstein not letting this decision linger.  Instead, they've put on their hazmat suits and are getting a quick start at cleaning up the toxic mess they inherited.  The hunt is on for a new manager who will:
  • "place an emphasis on preparation and accountability" (i.e. - goodbye, Carlos Zambrano!  No more standing at home plate watching long fly balls, Alfonso Soriano!)
  • "establish high standards and a winning culture" (i.e. - it will be someone from outside the Cubs organization) 
  • "have integrity and an open mind" (i.e.- knowledge of Sabermetrics, or a willingness to learn and implement Sabermetrics, encouraged)
  • "and he must have managerial or coaching experience at the major league level." (at least they were classy enough to personally contact Ryne Sandberg to let him know he wasn't a candidate).
I have no idea whom they'll come up with to replace Quade (Terry Francona?  Bobby Valentine?  Bob Brenly?), but since everything else the new front office team has done so far has been done in a completely professional manner, I'm sure the same will apply to the process for finding a new manager.  It's exciting to see all of the positive changes happening at 1060 West Addison.  Now if only we could see some similar shake-ups at 1000 Football Drive in Lake Forest, my year would be complete.