Okay, I'll bite. First, this ranking IS good news. And while I never said I wanted BU to be fired, I did (and do) question his coaching ability. I also said I hoped I would be proven wrong and I hope that I continue to be proven wrong.
BUT, let's don't get too far ahead of ourselves:
(A) The 1 point win at Wisconsin could have easily gone in the loss column.
(B) The Illini only beat Rutgers by 3 playing at home and with Rutger's best player Geo Baker unable to play. He should be back for the return game at Rutgers.
(C) Of the 14 remaining games, 7 are on the road (PU, MI, IA, RU, PSU, NW, tOSU) and other than NW, I doubt Illinois will be favored in any of those road games.
(D) 2 of the 7 home games remaining are against Maryland and MSU. Those won't be easy in any way.
(E) The other 5 home games (NW, MN, NE, IU, and IA) should be wins, but it's the BIG TEN. You never know.
Yes, the Illini could end the regular season 26-5 and I hope they do that well. But let's play the remaining 14 games before we put up a statue for BU.
It's a fair assessment and I can see why you believe the above, but then the question for you is what will be enough evidence that BU is actually a good coach? Is it a 26-5 record? Is it something less? Or can nothing ever convince you that he's a good coach. I'm not trying get on you for this, but I'm thinking through the same questions for myself.
However, here's what we do know and I don't think we can dispute:
1) Coach surrounds himself with a good team. Like any good CEO, he's only as strong as the team around him. Everything has pointed to OA, CC, JW, and the new guy all being good hires and developers of talent. Proof - See GB, Trent, Kofi, and Ayo development.
2) Coach is bringing in the right recruits. It's a little bit of the above mixed in with him, but BU is bringing in talent that we haven't had in a while. Has it taken a while to accumulate, sure, but would you rather a flash in the pan like Cuanzo or a solid program? As BU said in his post-RU interview, us lay people don't know. We have no idea how hard or what it takes to build a program with talent in response to a question of why it took RU this long to get better. Proof - Recruiting Ayo, Kofi, Curbelo, wolffe.
3) Coach is willing to change. This may have taken a little longer than one would think, but he's done it. He's changed his demeanor, changed his schema, adapted to B1G play. Proof - What he ran in OK state is not the same as what he is running today.
4) Coach has gotten this team to come together. Some of this is on the players, but BU is still the lead and you can't question that we are playing much better than we were at the beginning of the year. Sure, I'd love to have the Miami and Maryland game as do-overs, but the fact is that we are playing better and more together. Now, does this always have to be measured in Wins and Losses. I don't think so. We are more competitive, we are not giving up, we are playing ball the right way and executing better. Some days this won't be enough, but I'd rather see more competitive/tight/ugly games than I would blowouts either way. Proof - we won against RU, Wisc, and Purdue. We came back from a huge deficit and had a chance to win against Miami.
Of course, we'll always want to see more, but you have to be happy with where we are. BU was a really good hire and I'm not sure that other than a handful of coaches, we wouldn't be where we are today....the handful include the Selfs, the coach K's of the world. I'm not sure Shaka gets us here. Cuanzo definitely doesn't. Anyways, my 2Cents