Homecoming 2019
- Chicago
"Players who could star and rise in class" being the key words from the article, nothing abut being the teams best draft prospect.
Illini Football 2022
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ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Those weren't quite as stacked though.
We lost Juice, Benn, Hoomanawanui, Cumberland, Jon Asamoah and Josh Brent before 2010, and then Liuget, Leshoure, Martez and Nate Bussey before 2011. We haven't have waves of talent like that since.
mhuml32
- Cincinnati, OH
Homecoming 2019
- Chicago
Well then not only is the evaluator bad, he's also contradictory.
SampsonRelpenk
- Edwardsville, IL
2001 was the first year I was old enough to really be able to pay attention and follow the team so the collapse of the Turner era is something I've given a borderline Sisyphean amount of thought. Two things baffle me more than anything though:
1) The monumental talent valley of the 2003 through (extending into Zook's first year) 2005 seasons. In that period it was glaringly obvious top to bottom that there was just absolutely nothing left, save for a stray Kelvin Hayden or Christian Morton, on those rosters in terms of upperclassmen able to contribute at a power conference level, despite being made up of classes that were recruited during and immediately after a four year period where our average record was 7-5 (excellent, obviously, by Illinois football standards). Then Zook's Rose Bowl team is led by a bunch of juniors and seniors recruited by Turner when he was absolutely floundering. Just weird.
2) The clear cut Jekyll and Hyde 2002 season in which we were absolutely clowning around on the field for the first six games and then looked like borderline conference title contenders in the latter six. I don't know how you go from letting yourself get torched by Asad Abdul-Khaliq to causing complete mayhem in 13-0 National Champion Ohio State's backfield in the span of four games but we did it. And it was Turner's one Kittner-less season where we had good, yes, good quarterbacking. Almost no one remembers Jon Beutjer that year was #3 in yards, #2 in TDs, and #3 in efficiency in the conference, and did it while missing a game and a half (injured vs Purdue and sat during The Great Dustin Ward First Half Experiment vs Mizzou). Then we lose our four NFL receivers and two NFL lineman, he gets thumped around too much the year after and is never the same.
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DeonThomas
- South Carolina
Here are the early odds for our Wyoming opener. As always happens during the August build-up: (1) I've bought my plane ticket, (2) I've got my 45 yard line Memorial Stadium ticket loaded on my phone, (3) I'm believing all the hype from the coaches, and (4) I'm planning to predict that we cover the spread. (Hey - it worked last year!)
| MatchupSpreadTotalMoneyline | ||
|---|---|---|
| WYO 7-6 | +10.5-109 | +332 |
| ILL 5-7 | -10.5-114 | -487 |
To be fair they found out they were getting fired no matter what after the 6th win…..so everyone packed it in
illini80
- Forgottonia
Wait, so you’re saying they were 6-0 and found out they were getting fired no matter what??
mhuml32
- Cincinnati, OH
I agree, this is why this list is mostly worthless. It’s trying to do multiple things at once.
That list comes from Matt Miller, who's a pretty knowledgeable NFL Draft analyst that didn't start working for ESPN til here in the last few years. I used to hear him when he would do interviews about draft prospects on Chicago radio.
Thomas had paperwork started to fire Zook and Weber before the seasons even started
illini80
- Forgottonia
He clearly wanted both of them gone and was looking for an excuse. Unfortunately, they both gave him one. I’m not sure he could have pulled that off if Zook could have won a couple more games. Maybe so, and you clearly know much more about it than I do.
I’d think the same thing with Weber if he and the team hadn’t imploded so badly the last month and a half after a terrific start.
Illinivek23
- Gurnee
Just saying under Mike Thomas we found the worst possible outcomes for nearly everything, including hiring a lasagna boasting sideline chewin' lameduck of a coach.
The only way any of the potential scenarios change is if we never hired him in the first place.
If Hightower returns to effective play, that will be rather helpful.
Mr. Tibbs
- southeast DuPage
when we hired Beckman , we could not have goofed that up any more if we tried to . Thomas seemingly effed up every thing about it from the moment he started the process .
what a mess that became .
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
Jacas and Bailey: studs. If we managed to land the downstate safety we were pursuing heavily (went to Leonhard/Bucky), would we have even offered Bailey? Funny how things sometimes work out (just to be clear, I really, really wanted the kid who went to Madison),
What happened to Ford? Did he get injured?
No idea, but missing a week of training camp isn't ideal.
Werner followed it up and said that the injury shouldn't hold him up long. So yeah guessing he tweaked a muscle or something.
And Ward played a pretty solid game against Purdue in JB's absence. Antonio Harris also gave us a solid running game that year.
The 2000 season should have been a 7 or 8 win season; we got screwed by the refs in the UM game and Kittner's injury cost us the OSU game
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