Pregame: Illinois at Wisconsin, Saturday, October 1st, 11:00am CT, BTN

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#276      

TheChief4Life

TheChief4Life
TheChief4Life
So, in regards to Illinois 'becoming a basketball school' vs. 'remaining a football school', are there any external factors that played into this as opposed to just "this coach sucked" or "the AD tanked the program", etc? I mean, did we not capitalize on television trends when they began? Did we miss the mark with certain marketing opportunities? Things like that. We were obviously a premier program in the 1910's and 1920's, but then it just seems that as technology and other things improved, Illinois football didn't keep up (i.e. televised football beginning in the 30's and being decentralized in 1984). Maybe I'm trying to find causation due to correlation even though there is no cause to be found in these regards.

It is interesting that the first nationally televised coast-to-coast bowl game was the 1952 Rose Bowl game, and Illinois destroyed Stanford. But again... nothing seems to have really come from that. 39-55-5 over the next 11 years with a 7-1-1 season being our best season in that mix but with seven seasons where we failed to win 5 games. I don't know. It's just weird that a program that had all things firing correctly in the 1910's and 1920's just fell off the map in afterwards with just a few memorable seasons here or there.

To add to this, it's just depressing when I'm watching a hype video before games, and 90% of the video is in black and white and involved either Red Grange or Dick Butkus.
 
#277      

ChiefGritty

ChiefGritty
Chicago, IL
ChiefGritty
bluemountain said:
'88/89. For whatever reason, in spite of his success, Mackovic never generated the enthusiasm White did. And that was followed that winter by the flying Illini. And from then on, basketball was the dominant sport at the UofI.
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Yeah.

There is a more positive version of this story which is that Illinois is just one of the best and most tradition-rich basketball programs in the nation, in a state that is an endless well of talent, and in the last few decades has had a lot of memorable teams and players and in 89 and 05 a couple of the most memorable and beloved teams anywhere that just really got into people's hearts.

It doesn't have to be a bad thing to be a basketball school. Beats the heck out of being a lone big flagship University in a high population state that isn't good at either sport (hi Mizzou! 😘)
 
#278      

DeeAndDWill

DeeAndDWill
DeeAndDWill
bluemountain said:
In the absence of an AD, Morton Weir made the call to promote Tepper. He was a well regarded DC and a heckuva recruiter - he had several top 20 recruiting classes at Illinois. As someone else said here though, his teams were soft and he got too involved in offensive game planning. Gary Barnett, who was the OC at Colorado when Tepper was the DC there, got the NW HC job the same year Tepper got the Illinois job. I was at the game in '92 when NW beat us and quickly came to the realization we hired the wrong guy.
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Tepper was just the perfect distillation of the Peter Principle. DC and recruiting was his ceiling.
 
#279      

DeeAndDWill

DeeAndDWill
DeeAndDWill
illini80 said:
I don’t want to re-discuss the Zook years once again, but calling it a program on fire is simply not accurate.
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Illinois Winning Percentage in the years prior to Guenther
10 years - .585
5 years - .576
3 years - .666

Illinois Winning Percentage in the years prior to Thomas
10 years - .391
5 years - .419
3 years - .405

Technically, you're right though, the program wasn't on fire when Thomas took over. It was the blackened, and then salted, charred remains of the fire that Guenther started 2 decades earlier.

Again, this is not a defense of Thomas, but simply pointing out that Guenther and Thomas took over programs in a VERY VERY different condition.
 
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#280      

ChiefGritty

ChiefGritty
Chicago, IL
ChiefGritty
It's tough because two things are true:

1. Thomas was a poor AD, whose two biggest decisions were huge failures

2. The brand of Thomas as history's greatest monster was intentionally planted and disseminated in the media and places like this by people loyal to Guenther who incessantly peddle a laughably slanted narrative of the programs history that cast him as a heroic figure with all of the failures being everyone else's fault.

In a way we were lucky that the inevitably rocky transition away from the Guentherite cult was such a wham-bam car crash that ended quickly.

Guenther and Thomas were both poor AD's, though both had certain virtues, and luckily our current AD represents a synthesis of those virtues and has a bigger checkbook to play with than either of them did.
 
#281      

king dad runnerup

K
king dad runnerup
ChiefGritty said:
It's tough because two things are true:

1. Thomas was a poor AD, whose two biggest decisions were huge failures

2. The brand of Thomas as history's greatest monster was intentionally planted and disseminated in the media and places like this by people loyal to Guenther who incessantly peddle a laughably slanted narrative of the programs history that cast him as a heroic figure with all of the failures being everyone else's fault.

In a way we were lucky that the inevitably rocky transition away from the Guentherite cult was such a wham-bam car crash that ended quickly.

Guenther and Thomas were both poor AD's, though both had certain virtues, and luckily our current AD represents a synthesis of those virtues and has a bigger checkbook to play with than either of them did.
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Who are these people loyal to Guenther? I've seen no commentary on Loyalty--none--that supports Guenther. All the failings of our athletics programs were placed at Guenther's feet until Thomas came along. Then we could blame him as well. Perhaps other forces were at work . . .
 
#282      

ChiefGritty

ChiefGritty
Chicago, IL
ChiefGritty
king dad runnerup said:
Who are these people loyal to Guenther? I've seen no commentary on Loyalty--none--that supports Guenther. All the failings of our athletics programs were placed at Guenther's feet until Thomas came along. Then we could blame him as well. Perhaps other forces were at work . . .
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I mean the biggest and most obvious one was his old pal Loren Tate.

But thankfully a lot of this stuff is in the past now. You don't hear so much about how admissions won't let us recruit the same players as Wisconsin or that the Board of Trustees will force us to hire Kirby Wilson or Reggie Theus if we ever have a coaching opening anymore. #WeWillWin has a much nicer ring to it than #EveryoneAlwaysBeatsUsBecauseWe'reTheOnlySchoolThatHasToFollowNCAARules
 
#286      

BRucks

BRucks
BRucks
1970 John said:
Lucky you got out when you did. My senior year was 1969. What a dreadful season. We celebrated first downs like they were touchdowns. Anyone who doesn’t know what a bad, really bad season should find the records for that season and, as an Illini, weep.

But it was still a time when football was a thing to do. You went to games because “everyone” did, not just hardcore football fans…who would have abandoned the team, though it just wasn’t done then. You didn’t leave early. Or was that just my impression?
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Average attendance for the six home games that year was 39,794. We have yet to reach that this year. :(
 
#287      

the national

the national
the Front Range
the national
ChiefGritty said:
He's got an amazing ability to make himself the size of an atom when a pursuing DB has him dead to rights. As pictured there.
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I love this photo. It looks like the Indiana DB just gave up and started crying on the field bc I.Williams was just too much for him.

don draper faint GIF
 
#288      

BretMyBeachHouse

B
BretMyBeachHouse
TheChief4Life said:
So, in regards to Illinois 'becoming a basketball school' vs. 'remaining a football school', are there any external factors that played into this as opposed to just "this coach sucked" or "the AD tanked the program", etc? I mean, did we not capitalize on television trends when they began? Did we miss the mark with certain marketing opportunities? Things like that. We were obviously a premier program in the 1910's and 1920's, but then it just seems that as technology and other things improved, Illinois football didn't keep up (i.e. televised football beginning in the 30's and being decentralized in 1984). Maybe I'm trying to find causation due to correlation even though there is no cause to be found in these regards.

It is interesting that the first nationally televised coast-to-coast bowl game was the 1952 Rose Bowl game, and Illinois destroyed Stanford. But again... nothing seems to have really come from that. 39-55-5 over the next 11 years with a 7-1-1 season being our best season in that mix but with seven seasons where we failed to win 5 games. I don't know. It's just weird that a program that had all things firing correctly in the 1910's and 1920's just fell off the map in afterwards with just a few memorable seasons here or there.

To add to this, it's just depressing when I'm watching a hype video before games, and 90% of the video is in black and white and involved either Red Grange or Dick Butkus.
Click to expand...
I think one issue is that righting the ship in football is like trying to start a locomotive with 100 cars. Basketball is just a car.

Smaller venue to fill in basketball. Cheaper tickets. Fewer players so easier to field a quality team. Even scheduling just months in advance instead of years helps.

So in football, just when we start to get some momentum, something takes the wind out of your sails.

Here's one example. We start to get some momentum in the early 80s. feeling good about our direction. "Let's schedule Nebraska!" When 1986 finally rolls around we've got Chris Lamb at QB, not the heir to Eason and Trudeau that probably were expecting when we scheduled the game. If we were setting up the schedule in the spring of '86 no way we put them on the calendar.
 
#290      

Mr. Tibbs

Mr. Tibbs
southeast DuPage
Mr. Tibbs
ChiefGritty said:
Yeah.

There is a more positive version of this story which is that Illinois is just one of the best and most tradition-rich basketball programs in the nation, in a state that is an endless well of talent, and in the last few decades has had a lot of memorable teams and players and in 89 and 05 a couple of the most memorable and beloved teams anywhere that just really got into people's hearts.

It doesn't have to be a bad thing to be a basketball school. Beats the heck out of being a lone big flagship University in a high population state that isn't good at either sport (hi Mizzou! 😘)
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yea, UMass says hello
 
#291      

BZuppke

BZuppke
Plainfield
BZuppke
Football is king and it always will be. All of the conference realignment is based upon it. No need to fall back on ‘we’re a basketball school’ to feel good about things. We’re trending in the right direction and our recent past is just that - past. We don’t have any inherent handicaps like a NW or Vanderbilt (small private schools)

Kentucky is a basketball school as is Kansas. Their football teams seem to be trending in the right direction these days as well.

And I’ll add a quality AD means everything. Josh is our Pat Richter.
 
#292      

pruman91

pruman91
Paducah, Ky
pruman91
www.stltoday.com

Tommy DeVito, Illinois football offense gaining momentum ahead of test at Wisconsin

Illinois football's offense faces its biggest test so far this season vs. the Wisconsin Badgers on Saturday, Oct. 1, 2022.
www.stltoday.com www.stltoday.com


By Anderson Kimball Decatur (Ill.) Herald & Review


CHAMPAIGN — Tommy DeVito got the snap, handed off to Reggie Love before a reverse to receiver Miles Scott.
Scott pitched the ball back to DeVito, who found a wide open Michael Marchese down the sideline.

That play, a reverse flea-flicker on the field named after former Illini coach and the inventor of the flea-flicker Bob Zuppke, was the most flashy of the new wrinkles the offense put in after the bye week.
Those seemed to go a long way in a bounce-back game where the red zone issues from the past couple of weeks weren’t nearly as prevalent in a 31-0 win over FCS Chattanooga. DeVito threw for over 300 yards and looked adept in the newer parts of the offense that featured draw plays and run-pass option plays (RPOs).
With a defense that has flourished, ranking in the top five nationally in scoring defense and total defense, the offense has become the team’s biggest question mark. Although it was against FCS competition, it was the positive sign the team was looking for before it faces tougher opposition in conference.
 
#294      

illini80

illini80
Forgottonia
illini80
ChiefGritty said:
I mean the biggest and most obvious one was his old pal Loren Tate.

But thankfully a lot of this stuff is in the past now. You don't hear so much about how admissions won't let us recruit the same players as Wisconsin or that the Board of Trustees will force us to hire Kirby Wilson or Reggie Theus if we ever have a coaching opening anymore. #WeWillWin has a much nicer ring to it than #EveryoneAlwaysBeatsUsBecauseWe'reTheOnlySchoolThatHasToFollowNCAARules
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Listen, I was unhappy with much of what RG did. However, I believe he was doing exactly what he was hired to do. I had a friend in administration that I complained to about him and his response was Guenther wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, I was told, Guenther wanted to retire several times and he was talked into staying.

I realize this doesn’t change the result of his decisions. But at least in my mind, it changes where a good part of the blame lies.
I also promise to not further hijack this thread.

I’m so excited to see how we fare against Wisconsin. They will be coming at us with guns blazing. If we can withstand the onslaught and keep our composure I think we have a good chance. Turnovers just cannot happen and the kicking game needs to get its act together. This is a make or break stretch of the season. A win tomorrow would go a long way towards showing recruits we are really a program on the upswing.
 
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