The Power Five Misery Index
- Status
I know there weren't a hundred bowls and it wasn't a 64 team tourney field back then, but looking back, the 70s sure seemed worse for us than the past 9 years. So I checked and we had one winning conference record in FB (Blackman, in an overall losing season) and one in BB (Harv) in the years 1970-79. To me the last nine years seem like seashells and balloons compared to the darkness of that decade.
riffraff
- Peoria
The nice thing about the 70s for Illini sports was that it was followed by the 80s, a fantastic decade for being an Illini fan.
Illinithad
- Northeast Missouri
70's were down
80's were rockin'
90's were down (trying to recover from "lack of institutional control")
2000's were rockin for the most part...first half anyway)
2010's have been down so far
'bout due for an upswing.
80's were rockin'
90's were down (trying to recover from "lack of institutional control")
2000's were rockin for the most part...first half anyway)
2010's have been down so far
'bout due for an upswing.
Illinithad
- Northeast Missouri
I was just talking basketball obviously...I didn't factor in football.
ilphotog
The camera never lies
- Champaign
As someone who covers all but two sports (wrestling-swimming) the 2016-17 season, may go down as one of the worst in recent memory. The fall teams (VB-FB-Soc) all failed to reach post season.
The winter sports (MBB,WBB,MGym,WGym) are too early to know with any accuracy, but the WBB will struggle with such a young team. MGym has a plague of injuries to many of their top performers, so this may be a down year for them. WGym should be pretty good if they stay healthy.
The Spring sports (BB,SB,WTN,MTN,MTK,WTK,WG,MG) Baseball should improve over last year, probably a year away from being really good again. Softball should have their best team in years, looking forward to their season. W.Tennis has everyone back and should make the NCAA's for the first time in a while. M.Tennis should be good, but there are a lot of newcomers, to early to tell. Both track teams, I have no idea. W.Golf should be decent and M.Golf will be a powerhouse as usual.
So it may end up being a decent year or it could head South and finish as one of the worst. I always hope for the best, but so far this sports year has been rough.
So hopefully this is rock bottom this year (as a whole) and the Illini start heading back up the hill of relevance.
The winter sports (MBB,WBB,MGym,WGym) are too early to know with any accuracy, but the WBB will struggle with such a young team. MGym has a plague of injuries to many of their top performers, so this may be a down year for them. WGym should be pretty good if they stay healthy.
The Spring sports (BB,SB,WTN,MTN,MTK,WTK,WG,MG) Baseball should improve over last year, probably a year away from being really good again. Softball should have their best team in years, looking forward to their season. W.Tennis has everyone back and should make the NCAA's for the first time in a while. M.Tennis should be good, but there are a lot of newcomers, to early to tell. Both track teams, I have no idea. W.Golf should be decent and M.Golf will be a powerhouse as usual.
So it may end up being a decent year or it could head South and finish as one of the worst. I always hope for the best, but so far this sports year has been rough.
So hopefully this is rock bottom this year (as a whole) and the Illini start heading back up the hill of relevance.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Some understandably roll their eyes at the assertion I am about to make, but what really sucks about it is that there is simply no excuse for the University of Illinois not to be competing regularly for Big Ten titles, let alone be this God-awful. I mean we've all heard the elevator speech before, but it's easy to get used to being bad, become depressed, maybe even become complacent and just "accept it." However, the fact is we are:
- The state flagship school of a state of 13 million people.
- Arguably (I don't think it's arguable, but I'll be diplomatic) the most popular team in the nation's 3rd biggest media market (where we have over a QUARTER OF A MILLION alumni living) and the second most popular team in the nation's 21st biggest media market (St. Louis).
- A public ivy which regularly ranks in the top ten public schools and top 50 schools overall in the nation
- Located in a university town that has experienced explosive growth in the last ten years and regularly places highly in lists of the best college towns, best places for graduates to stay after college, even best party schools!
- Within very short driving distance of Chicago, St. Louis AND Indianapolis
- Not competing with any major public schools for instate fan support, recruiting or marketing
- One of the biggest - if not THE biggest - alumni associations in the nation
- Football and basketball programs that have a TON of history to market with recruits
- A school with a freshly renovated basketball arena an a soon-to-be renovated football stadium ... while both are still historic in their own ways
Sorry, but the bar should be set so much comically higher than ... well, LAST IN THE NATION. :tsk:
- The state flagship school of a state of 13 million people.
- Arguably (I don't think it's arguable, but I'll be diplomatic) the most popular team in the nation's 3rd biggest media market (where we have over a QUARTER OF A MILLION alumni living) and the second most popular team in the nation's 21st biggest media market (St. Louis).
- A public ivy which regularly ranks in the top ten public schools and top 50 schools overall in the nation
- Located in a university town that has experienced explosive growth in the last ten years and regularly places highly in lists of the best college towns, best places for graduates to stay after college, even best party schools!
- Within very short driving distance of Chicago, St. Louis AND Indianapolis
- Not competing with any major public schools for instate fan support, recruiting or marketing
- One of the biggest - if not THE biggest - alumni associations in the nation
- Football and basketball programs that have a TON of history to market with recruits
- A school with a freshly renovated basketball arena an a soon-to-be renovated football stadium ... while both are still historic in their own ways
Sorry, but the bar should be set so much comically higher than ... well, LAST IN THE NATION. :tsk:
Serious Late
- Peoria via Denver via Ann Arbor via Albuquerque vi
While I don't necessarily disagree with you, if these are the criteria needed for a successful athletics department, then how do we explain Rutgers? All of your points could be made just as strongly, if not more so for them and a rather large contingent still wishes they didn't even exist in the Big Ten.
Sadly, winning football championships in pre-1950 and making one rose bowl appearance in the 21st century does not constitute what I'd consider good history. Post 1950's (which is even before I'd consider modern football started), we've had zero continuity and no multiple year (I'm talking 5+) runs of great football. Just because we've played D1 power 5 football since its inception does not mean we have good history. Now if you wanna say the history you're talking about is bad history, I agree. But that doesn't help us become a powerhouse football school.
On a similar vein, no basketball championships, 5 final four appearances, and recent complete lack of quality on the court means little basketball history too, though I wont fight back on this front--we've had recent spurts of quality basketball.
I agree with all your other points. We have the foundation of a powerhouse college sports university. I think all those areas can point towards our success in smaller sports like wrestling and golf. They just haven't translated to the money makers. I'd say good history for a program is definitely top 3 in terms of necessities for extended success. We can sell players who were some of the best college athletes ever in the 50's and 60's, but that's only gonna go so far when we've had little success since then. Most high profile kids dont care that Red Grange or Dick Butkus played here. They probably care more guys like Whitney Mercilus/Corey Luiget or some of our offensive lineman who are average NFL staters went here. History means we've won something. Even a conference championship or a bowl game would suffice. The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl WAS a good step towards something more, but we lack the administrative power to build off that. The Lovie hire might have been the best use of football money in modern times. Even if he completely busts he brought buzz to the team. Thats something that no coach has ever done immediately here. Especially recently with Beckman and Cubit.
The thing people need to understand about Rutgers is that until they joined the Big East in 1991, they didn't really self-identify as a "major" sports program.
Not unrelatedly, college sports and college generally on the East Coast is just a different thing.
Rutgers does have a lot of advantages and shouldn't just suck in perpetuity, but they bear the burden of having to invent a midwestern-style "Ole State U" culture in a way that Illinois does not.
Tevo
- Wilmette, IL
And now it turns out that Wake Forest even has an excuse? Just GREAT! And even with this, they're still going to a bowl game this year....
http://www.sbnation.com/college-foo...t-louisville-radio-announcer-tommy-elrod-mole
http://www.sbnation.com/college-foo...t-louisville-radio-announcer-tommy-elrod-mole
This is beyond the pale. You could lose a lot of money betting on integrity in college sports, but still, NO ONE turned this guy in? It'll be interesting to follow the details of this as we move forward.
With Bama's talent Nick Saban himself could probably send everything directly to the other coach to use and they'd still go undefeated.
I can recall a Nick Weatherspoon team blowing a 20+ point lead and a general feeling that the U of I
In the 70s you had to be a masochist to be a Cubs, Bears and Illini fan. I can recall a Nick Weatherspoon team blowing a 20+ point lead and a general feeling that the U of I would always manage to find a way to lose the important games during the Harv era. Also remember "We're Thru With Lou" bumper stickers 4 or 5 years into his time at Illinois. Most fans that I knew didn't think much of his in game decision making. Deja vu all over again? Nostalgia has a way of blocking out the bad and emphasizing the good. Illinois was never a blue blood program and will periodically have its downturns. It is OK to want to be better and we should strive for that. But I dpn't think Illinois has become something different than it has ever been. We will win again.
Exactly, people seem to think we were a top 25 program in basketball and football for decades upon decades. Id say, overall, in the past half decade we might be around 35ish combining basketball and football. Maybe higher considering a lot of football schools suck at basketball and vice versa, although we could easily be considered that way too. No reason we cant become consistent, its been pointed out here we have all the requirements, but its not as easy as just wanting it. Having people in place to use the resources the best way is how you get to dynasty status. I think a good idea of what it takes to become that is Wisconsin. Look at Wisconsin. Basketball had zero relevance until Bennett showed up in the early-mid 90s. Now they are considered top 25 teams every year since (pretty much). Around the same time Alvarez came in, and similarly transformed the football team into a top 25 caliber organization. If you ever want to compare a school to us, it might be Wisconsin. Similarly ranked universities, vastly different athletics since the 90s. Get ourselves an Alvarez and Bennett and we are gold
. (not as easy as it sounds.)- Status