illini80
- Forgottonia
Are you talking the 2022 class? Because he took the high road and kept all of the 21’s. Whether he should have or not, I really don’t know, but there wasn’t much time to do anything else.
Virginia 42, Illinois 14 Postgame
illini80
- Forgottonia
Spann and Sydney Brown were injured at some point.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
OK
Thanks
It’s year 3 of waiting for him to show even a brief glimpse of living up to his recruiting ranking.
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
If the scope of the task wasn't apparent, it is now.
The class with all the instate recruits
Illinois Football:
Go Nats 88 Illini
Fairfax, VA
Well that was a brutal game to go to. Not much more to add than what I have read except one thing. UVA is a good team, but I was surprised how much more team speed thay had than we did. Our OL and DL were weak throughout which was also incredibly obvious, but the speed of their skill position players and their secondary was so far superior to ours. I don't know if we are just that slow, or if they are that fast - or both. Still a believer in BB, but this is going to take some time.
How can Iowa be so good, year in and year out, but we have become a laughing stock, and have become the team people schedule for Homecoming? Why can Iowa get good recruits, and we cannot? I argued back 10-15 years ago that Ron Zook should stay, even though he wasn't the greatest coach, and I was blasted for it at the time. But he could recruit, and you can win with good players, even though the play calling and scheming wasn't the best. We simply aren't going to get both a good coach AND a good recruiter. Am I the only one that feels like letting Zook go at the time was a mistake? Bret Bielema was a bust at Arkansas. Seems like a nice guy, but i'm not sure this is going to work unless he can recruit. We are a MAC team at best, and have been for a long time now through different regimes. Is it that our players are not as smart as Iowa's players? Or just not as talented? Or just not coached as well? Or all of the above? I'm sick of this.
Who is that exactly?
People were too busy defending Lovie (not just here) when he was destroying the program with poor recruiting and straight up laziness. The truth is, Lovie wanted out during Year 1. Let's give BB some time here but also not defend him if he isn't getting the job done. That being said, not his fault so far.
I think Art is decent college talent. He is not great and needs a good supporting cast to win but he is decent. He is not a liability like some of our previous qbs. However I don’t care who our qb is if they don’t have time
when did Illinois have a great qb? 20 years ago and before that? Our current qb corps is good enough to win some games
illini80
- Forgottonia
Firing Zook was a mistake mostly because of what followed it. Zook’s recruiting was falling off. IDK if he could have recovered or not, but I do think eventually Bielema will get us to a better place. Right now I admit that seems like a long long way off.
Illini92and96
- Austin, TX
Juice was pretty good.
illini80
- Forgottonia
I will agree our QB’s are good enough to win if we had a good defense. They are not good enough to win with this defense. We need Aaron Rodgers good right now. You can’t manage a game to victory from 2 TD’s down and I think game manager is about as good as Art gets. Of course if he had all day behind a line like we thought we had, he could be much better than he has shown.
KrushCow31
Former Krush Cow
- Chicago, IL
Watched Toledo give Notre Dame a run for their money and just kept thinking there's no scenario we'd ever do that. I'm pretty sure we'd lose to Toledo too. I think we'd be a mid level MAC team honestly.
Illiniaaron
- Geneseo, IL
I did put a question mark behind it.
Illiniaaron
- Geneseo, IL
Unless this team improves I don’t think they will beat Rutgers even at home.
Agree with this. The effort level (lack there of) became apparent after a few years. A lot of damage done to be fixed. I hope BB is the right guy.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
So , I took a nap after the game today....I dreamt of a time when we were winning every game we played
We won the B1G championship.then beat Bama for the NCAA trophy...
Then I woke up and realized , at almost 70 years old ( 17 more days ) that I won't live long enough for any of.my dream to come true...
So I just did a 420 and I'm OK now.....reality is a b***h and 420 is my reality breaker
Carry on my steadfast illini brothers
We won the B1G championship.then beat Bama for the NCAA trophy...
Then I woke up and realized , at almost 70 years old ( 17 more days ) that I won't live long enough for any of.my dream to come true...
So I just did a 420 and I'm OK now.....reality is a b***h and 420 is my reality breaker
Carry on my steadfast illini brothers
Hang in there with us, brother. We’ll get there one of these years.
now, where’s my 420..
it was a tough call for Zook at the time. First team in FBS history to start 6-0 and finish 6-6. Everyone within the organization knew the coordinators were running the day to day and Zook was the recruiting guru. Unfortunately fan base and big money donors alumni thought we further along as a program than we actually were. Pretty sure every illini fan would take 6-6 as the floor. just bad timing with coordinators moving on and the 2011 team fell apart. If Zook could have had the chance to hire the right coordinators who knows where the illini could have been now from a talent perspective. instead we went with a MAC coach that wasn't really the brains of the program and a retired NFL coach who wasn't really interested in putting in the effort it takes to run a competitive college program. All I know this is best collegiate stall we could hope for with the state of our program and the makeup of the current roster. Going to be tough road to hoe over the next couple years but this staff is exceptional considering the current state of this program.
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A new coach presents an opportunity to set a new standard of performance. That abysmal performance was not it. I refuse to believe those players are that less talented than Virginia. This is BB’s opportunity to make sure the new expectations are clear. Maybe not wins, but we should expect competitive games this year. If not then in 4-5 years we’ll be starting the new coaching cycle all over again.