College Football - Feel the Excitement

Only three weeks away from the college football season. Scanning the national media, I don't see any mention of the Illini as having anything to do with shaping the next decade of college football, at least in SI's view. Scanning further...ah, here's ESPN's Big 10 preview. Let's scroll down...hmm, no Illini at the top...still scrolling - there's Indiana, but no...oh, crap! There's Illinois, at number 11. Great - we're projected to be worse than Indiana. I'd say that things can't get any worse than that, but next year Nebraska joins the Big 10, so actually things can get worse - we could finish 12th.

Returning to the SI article, one of the predictions is the return of the option offense. I hated the option offense when teams like Oklahoma and Nebraska used it in the 1970's and 80's, but I'm so bereft of hope for the Illini football program now that I'd be willing to stomach having my team run the option if it meant we'd no longer be a doormat. Thanks, Ron Zook and Ron Guenther!

Eamus Gemini! Eamus Rutili!

Since the Cubs are mailing it in, I'm reduced to rooting for the Reds to finish ahead of the Cardinals in the NL Central, and for the Twins to finish ahead of the White Sox in the AL Central. This is the sports equivalent of the U.S. government's decision to back Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s - the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Unfortunately, this is how it has to be - unless the Bears can overachieve, until college basketball starts, schadenfreude is all I have to go on.

I'm Not That Frustrated

Check this out - ESPN's Jon Greenberg suggests that Cubs fans show up at the charmless hulk of a stadium at 35th and the Dan Ryan this week to support the White Sox as they battle the Minnesota Twins for first place in the AL Central.

Thanks for the tip Jon - so if (hypothetically) I'm unhappy with Barack Obama's performance as President, would you suggest that I move to Iran?

New Faces

The 2010 Cubs are leading the major leagues in one-run losses by a wide margin. So the best thing that could happen to this team is to have its OPS leader go on the DL - especially when the only other catching option on the major league roster has a sub .500 OPS. To remedy this, the Cubs called up Welington Castillo, who was so excited to replace Geovany Soto that he left one of his "L's" in Iowa. Castillo has an .823 OPS (albeit in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League), but he's only 23, so maybe he'll be somewhat useful. Unless the manager does what he did last year when Soto went on the DL and plays Koyie Hill almost every inning of every game until Soto returns, that is.

Also, Derrek Lee, who is still dead last among NL first baseman in OPS, will be out on bereavement leave. Micah Hoffpauir has been brought up to replace him. Last year, the Hoff hit .239/.300/.427, which is actually better than Lee's .246/.332/.383 line this year. That's right - Lee has been less productive than a guy who couldn't even find a spot on the Cubs' major-league roster this year. We'll see if the manager insists on putting the Hoff in the 3 or 4 spot in the order, as he has done with Lee in every single game he has started this year.

Second Place, Here We Come!

If the reports and rumors floating around are correct, congratulations to the Green Bay Packers, the 2010 NFC North champions. And congratulations to the Chicago Bears, too - that 7 or 8 win season now might be good enough for second place in the division! Heady times, indeed.

As a requiem for Brett Fav-ruh, if he truly stays retired, here are three facts:

1. His last pass as a Green Bay Packer was an interception which led to his team losing the NFC Championship game.

2. His last pass as a Minnesota Viking was an interception which led to his team losing the NFC Championship game.

3. Chris Chandler has quarterbacked a team to the Super Bowl more recently than Brett Fav-ruh has.

A College Football Post!

If anyone is reading this blog, they'll notice that I haven't said much about college football yet. It's hard to believe there's not much buzz around the Illini football program and the soon-to-be unemployed Ron Zook with only a month to go before the season kicks off, but that's what happens when a team has only two winning seasons in a decade (and three in the last 15 years), I guess.

Well, college football fans, today's your lucky day, because I came across this article, entitled "Ron Zook Looks to Stimulate Fan Support." Talk about a misleading headline - there was nothing in the article saying that Zook was about to resign! But after all the blather about staying positive and working harder came this quote, from the author:

All teams need fan support to play their best. If Illini fans want their team to be successful, they will forget last year and focus on helping the team win this year.

Even if they think a change in the head coach is the only solution, they cannot rule out their own contribution to failure if they refuse to support the team. Illini players and coaches will give everything they have to the effort, so the fans need to do likewise to know without doubt they aren't part of the problem.

Yes, because that's the biggest problem with this team. It's not the players, or the coaches who recruited them, or the Athletic Director who hired the coaches who recruited the players. It's the fans who have endured the second-worst Big Ten football program of the last 15 years (only Indiana is worse, and I'm not even sure they have a football team) - yes, it's our fault that the team stinks (hmm, I think I may have heard that before).

Look, guys, I'm more than happy to forget last year (and most of the last decade, frankly) and give "everything I have" to help the Illini win in whatever way that I can - you know, support the team. But if it's a Saturday afternoon in October and Illinois falls behind 28-3 in the second quarter, I'm probably going to be doing something else besides supporting the team. My leaves aren't going to rake themselves, you know.

The Ultimate Pick-Me-Up

The Colorado Rockies had lost eight of their previous nine games prior to a visit from the Cubs this past weekend. The Rockies swept the series and now have are on a four-game winning streak. The Milwaukee Brewers had lost five straight games before tonight's game at Wrigley Field in which the visitors scored 18 runs on 26 hits, dropping the team with the highest payroll in the National League into fifth place.

For the rest of the season, teams will be looking at the Cubs the same way a sleepy truck driver looks at a can of Red Bull.