Illinois 34, USC 32 Postgame

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#552      
Curbelo Fanboy
spotter said:
I was actually just outside the booth when that photo was taken. It was after the Illinois-Louisville Thanksgiving Day football game in 2001 that clinched the B1G title and a trip to the Sugar Bowl. This was taken by Turpin's family who came up to the booth to surprise him after his last regular season football game. It was a nice moment.
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Slight edit - we played NW on Thanksgiving Day. Louisville was rescheduled to late September after originally being scheduled for the Saturday after 9/11. Our bye week was such that we just moved the bye to the post 9/11 weekend when everything got cancelled, then resumed our schedule (I think it shuffled Ville to be after Michigan instead of before).
 
#553      
Curbelo Fanboy
Ander1345 said:
Food poisoning? Really? Really belittling their team's effort the game was 1000% closer than it ever should have been. They played well.
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Pretty sure if it was a team wide epidemic we would have heard about it during the game. Or noticed guys randomly disappearing to the locker room off and on during the game.
 
#554      
RabidDawgClassic
Curbelo Fanboy said:
Slight edit - we played NW on Thanksgiving Day. Louisville was rescheduled to late September after originally being scheduled for the Saturday after 9/11. Our bye week was such that we just moved the bye to the post 9/11 weekend when everything got cancelled, then resumed our schedule (I think it shuffled Ville to be after Michigan instead of before).
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Looks like we pushed the schedule back one week until the October 6th game against Minnesota. Not sure how we were able to do that what with the multitude of other teams having different bye weeks, but apparently that’s what we did.

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#555      
Curbelo Fanboy
RabidDawgClassic said:
Looks like we pushed the schedule back one week until the October 6th game against Minnesota. Not sure how we were able to do that what with the multitude of other teams having different bye weeks, but apparently that’s what we did.

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I think I remember now. We flipped Lville into what was the original Michigan game date & Michigan into 9/29. I think we shared a bye week with Michigan which allowed us to do that. They had a non con game with W Michigan on 9/22 so I think they did the same thing. Swap our game a week later & insert the non con game into the 9/22 slot.

I remember for a couple days there was talk that we would play Lville at end of season in early December before the date swaps were able to happen.
 
#556      
RabidDawgClassic
Curbelo Fanboy said:
I think I remember now. We flipped Lville into what was the original Michigan game date & Michigan into 9/29. I think we shared a bye week with Michigan which allowed us to do that. They had a non con game with W Michigan on 9/22 so I think they did the same thing. Swap our game a week later & insert the non con game into the 9/22 slot.

I remember for a couple days there was talk that we would play Lville at end of season in early December before the date swaps were able to happen.
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How were we able to coordinate the rest of the schedule with other teams’ bye weeks? Those are usually staggered and I would think it would be nearly impossible to get it all so perfectly back on track. Obviously we did it though.
 
#557      
Centennial Illini
spotter said:
Jim Turpin wrote in his book that Mackovic was a cold and rude person to work with.
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This comes straight from an employee of KMOX sports right after the Mackovic era.

Every Sunday morning, KMOX would do a quick 3 minute blurb featuring the head coach at Mizzou and Illinois discussing the previous days game. When approached by KMOX to set this up following his hiring, Mackovic informed them that he would have to be paid if they his participation. Only Mizzou was featured from that point on.
 
#558      
Curbelo Fanboy
RabidDawgClassic said:
How were we able to coordinate the rest of the schedule with other teams’ bye weeks? Those are usually staggered and I would think it would be nearly impossible to get it all so perfectly back on track. Obviously we did it though.
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I think once we hit conference everyone just shifted a week later to play the final games on Thanksgiving weekend. Prior to that, Big Ten season ended on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Black Friday used to only have a couple games from other leagues (Bama/Auburn was typically that weekend IIRC) & a few rivalry games on that Saturday. Non conference types like GA vs GA Tech; SC vs Clemson, etc. This was in the days of the 11 game season so the season ended that pre Thanksgiving weekend for most schools (all of Big Ten).

Edit - I just did a quick search & in 2000, there were only 21 games on Thanksgiving weekend. Mostly rivalry weekend type games. ND played USC, AZ vs AZ State, GA vs GA Tech with a few lesser conference games sprinkled in. Now that weekend is the regularly scheduled 12th game for everyone except Army/Navy.

I don't think the Big ever played after Thanksgiving prior to then (except 1963 due to JFK assassination). They just shifted the conference schedule back a week. That is why we played NW on Thanksgiving. The game would have been that Saturday after Thanksgiving but the IHSA finals were already scheduled for Black Friday & Saturday so Thursday was the best available day. As I recall, it was discussed moving that game to Soldier Field or even to Evanston in the post 9/11 shuffling. That talk didn't last long & it was decided to go with Thanksgiving Day.
 
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#563      
Curbelo Fanboy
aaeismacgychel said:
Yeah, this is prime USC. If they don't dominate the teams the fans believe they should dominate (i.e. pretty much everyone) there's a nefarious reason for it. This went from one guy out sick, to half the team but only the defensive half having food poisoning, to Illinois purposely poisoning them with hotel catering. Also the refs stole 7pts and the win from them and the B10 unfairly forced them to play in their Big Noon game of the week making them play at 9am their time.

Basically everyone cheated them and there's a grand conspiracy against them by the B10 who secretly are making them fail since they joined the conference.

For people who aren't familiar with USC, they were basically the Michigan of the Pac10. God help us all if they ever become good again.
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Heck one of their guys was calling for an investigation of the state's food handling laws & practices.
 
#564      
Curbelo Fanboy
Mr. Tibbs said:
Morton Weir iirc

little did we know how totally effed up that was

as big a mistake in UI athletic history as the slush fund

Ikenberry had left by then, iirc
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How many games could a good coach have won starting in 1992 thru 1995. It would have been a metric ton. 94 was a borderline title team (in terms of talent) & went 7-5. 5 losses by combined 22 points or something like that.
 
#565      
Battle89
Curbelo Fanboy said:
How many games could a good coach have won starting in 1992 thru 1995. It would have been a metric ton. 94 was a borderline title team (in terms of talent) & went 7-5. 5 losses by combined 22 points or something like that.
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A Beckman-level self-inflicted wound on the program.

Not that I am saying that Tepper was equal to or worse than Beckman on a personal level, but Beckman was hired in an era where no one wanted the job, the program was in the pits, and potential coaches were pre-emptively declining the job.

Tepper coached when the program was still near its peak, and to have probably the best defensive talent in Illinois history (the number 2 and 3 overall draft picks on it) go 7-5 was an abomination, and indeed was a 'dagger to the program' for many years after.
 
#566      
Curbelo Fanboy
Battle89 said:
A Beckman-level self-inflicted wound on the program.

Not that I am saying that Tepper was equal to or worse than Beckman on a personal level, but Beckman was hired in an era where no one wanted the job, the program was in the pits, and potential coaches were pre-emptively declining the job.

Tepper coached when the program was still near its peak, and to have probably the best defensive talent in Illinois history (the number 2 and 3 overall draft picks on it) go 7-5 was an abomination, and indeed was a 'dagger to the program' for many years after.
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I contend (from a biased perspective) that Tepper is one of the 5 worst coaches perhaps in major American team sports history. I'm sure he wasn't "that bad" but man he sucked out loud. And we had him at a horrible time. Defense was his calling card, but he taught more of an old school style of defense that was not good against the pass happy offenses that were starting to spread the nation at that time.

So many games came down to the end & his read/react philosophy never seemed to make the big stop at the end of the big games. He was playing a 1970's defense against offenses that were moving into the 90's.

And his offenses were so bad. But as he said in the postgame after the 1994 Purdue debacle where Dilger got tackled 2 yards short of the end zone, "I'm not responsible for the offense". Yes, that was an actual quote he said on the radio interview on the game broadcast. Truly baffling lack of awareness.

Lou proved the adage that a great human does not a great coach make.
 
#567      
Mr. Tibbs
Curbelo Fanboy said:
How many games could a good coach have won starting in 1992 thru 1995. It would have been a metric ton. 94 was a borderline title team (in terms of talent) & went 7-5. 5 losses by combined 22 points or something like that.
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it was an epic fail . set us back way way more than the late 60’s slush fund troubles
 
#568      
Curbelo Fanboy
Our dislike for Lou was exceeded by LSU fans after he went there to become the DC. There was epic levels of hatred for him in Baton Rouge. Like they would hang him in effigy in the crowd during their games levels of hatred.
 
#569      
aiwpfan
Curbelo Fanboy said:
I contend (from a biased perspective) that Tepper is one of the 5 worst coaches perhaps in major American team sports history. I'm sure he wasn't "that bad" but man he sucked out loud. And we had him at a horrible time. Defense was his calling card, but he taught more of an old school style of defense that was not good against the pass happy offenses that were starting to spread the nation at that time.

So many games came down to the end & his read/react philosophy never seemed to make the big stop at the end of the big games. He was playing a 1970's defense against offenses that were moving into the 90's.

And his offenses were so bad. But as he said in the postgame after the 1994 Purdue debacle where Dilger got tackled 2 yards short of the end zone, "I'm not responsible for the offense". Yes, that was an actual quote he said on the radio interview on the game broadcast. Truly baffling lack of awareness.

Lou proved the adage that a great human does not a great coach make.
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And he had a servicable OC in the person of Greg Landry. Who he then traded away for Paul Schudel??!?
 
#570      
MoCoMdIllini
aiwpfan said:
And he had a servicable OC in the person of Greg Landry. Who he then traded away for Paul Schudel??!?
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The story I heard was that Lou didn't care for Greg's "potty mouth." Other accounts vary.
 
#571      
Curbelo Fanboy
aiwpfan said:
And he had a servicable OC in the person of Greg Landry. Who he then traded away for Paul Schudel??!?
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Paul Schudel. In 95 we played AZ & East Carolina on back to back weeks. We won 9-7 over AZ & 7-0 over ECU. ECU actually had some solid teams back then. The ECU game featured the following stat line for Illinois rushing. 55 attempts for 112 yards. Yes just a shade over 2.0 yards per carry. Holcombe had 49 carries for 130 yards. We lost net yards on a few qb sacks.

It was like going in a time machine and watching a game from 1972 with the way the game was played. Truly ugly football. Anyone there would know that our offensive coaching had no clue at that point.
 
#572      
mhuml32
Curbelo Fanboy said:
I contend (from a biased perspective) that Tepper is one of the 5 worst coaches perhaps in major American team sports history. I'm sure he wasn't "that bad" but man he sucked out loud. And we had him at a horrible time. Defense was his calling card, but he taught more of an old school style of defense that was not good against the pass happy offenses that were starting to spread the nation at that time.

So many games came down to the end & his read/react philosophy never seemed to make the big stop at the end of the big games. He was playing a 1970's defense against offenses that were moving into the 90's.

And his offenses were so bad. But as he said in the postgame after the 1994 Purdue debacle where Dilger got tackled 2 yards short of the end zone, "I'm not responsible for the offense". Yes, that was an actual quote he said on the radio interview on the game broadcast. Truly baffling lack of awareness.

Lou proved the adage that a great human does not a great coach make.
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It's fair to have greater frustration for the head coach that starts the program slide than the head coach who takes over a bad program and makes it worse.
 
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