Deleted member 747671
D
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I wonder how common/rare that Zook experience was. I'm sure it would take some digging, but that was during my time at U of I. We got absolutely destroyed year 1, and couldn't figure out how to win in year 2. But the recruiting was firing on all cylinders from day 1 at a level not common to a place like Illinois. The level of excitement, expectation, and anticipation going into and throughout year 3 had to be crazy rare for a program that won what, 4 games over the previous 2 years?There is a great deal of truth to this, but there's also the memory of Year 2 under Zook, which on Wikipedia is 2-10, but living through it was a moment in which everyone walked out of that Ohio State game knowing we were on the right track with light rapidly growing at the end of the tunnel. Not just recruiting, it was right there to see on the field too.
You can see it when it's going well. Buffalo WASN'T going well in Year 2. And then it was. That's EXTREMELY rare. There are basically no coaches, even at Group of Five dumpster fires, who were ever in the 110's -50% type area, especially after year 1, especially declining from Year 1, and survived to do anything. And yet.
We will know to a great degree of certainty that Leipold will fail if we're among the worst teams in the country in 2022. We should probably fire him in that moment if it's financially feasible. And yet.
This stuff is really hard.