ZOOK is a moron
Zook, Hoeppner tackle losing legacies
October 6, 2005
BY HERB GOULD STAFF REPORTER
It's almost as if Illinois coach Ron Zook and Indiana's Terry Hoeppner are reading from the same script -- a script left behind by Ron Turner and Gerry DiNardo. "When I say we're not as far away as everyone thinks, people probably chuckle,'' Zook said. "But the things that need to be corrected are correctible.'' "These are correctible things,'' Hoeppner said. "These aren't physical things where our guy just wasn't good enough.'' That said, when Zook's Illini and Hoeppner's Hoosiers meet Saturday in Bloomington, Ind., (11 a.m., Ch. 2, 560-AM), it might be the last game in which either team does enough things correctly to win. That's frustrating for the coaches and their players. It's also why Zook has replaced Turner and Hoeppner has replaced DiNardo. Say what you want about the Big Ten, which has had so many highly ranked teams plummet to earth this fall, it could be a clay-pigeon factory. The league is still top-to-bottom tough -- tough enough that Illinois and Indiana will have to do some serious overachieving to find any more victories after Saturday. In the last two-plus seasons, the Illini and Hoosiers are 1-1 against each other and 1-30 against the rest of the league. That's a lot of correcting. For both teams, nothing will correct those mistakes better than upgraded talent. The faster a cornerback is, the easier it is to recover from a misstep. The stronger a lineman is, the easier it is to mitigate a missed block. Zook and Hoeppner can't talk about their dubious talent levels without disrespecting youngsters who are giving their all, even if it isn't good enough. So they don't. In that regard, it's still college football, even if the dollars involved are very professional in size. What Zook can, and will, talk about is the future. "I'm going to separate recruiting from football,'' he said, bristling noticeably at the suggestion that losing hurts recruiting, even for a first-year coach. "We'll take care of recruiting. Don't worry about that.'' With Illinois nearly a touchdown underdog to Indiana, its most beatable opponent, it's easy for Illini fans to become discouraged. What they have to remember is that having seen a defensive guru, Lou Tepper, and an offensive genius, Turner, struggle miserably, athletic director Ron Guenther has turned to a recruiting whirlwind in Zook. Of course, a top recruit can feel more comfortable about the likelihood of winning at Michigan or Iowa or Notre Dame than at Illinois -- and that's the type of recruit Zook is going after. What Zook can offer are good facilities, a good education, the chance to play early and often, the chance to be part of a turnaround and the opportunity to play at a Big Ten school that, in the case of Chicago-area kids, is close to home and the state school. And Zook remains pumped to do that. "It's easier to recruit here than other places I've been,'' he said. "We have everything we need here to recruit. We just have to go do it.'' Meanwhile, he'll go to war -- and to Indiana -- with a team that makes too many correctible mistakes because it doesn't have enough talent to overcome them.
So let me get this straight..... for Ron Zook it is going to be easier to recruit athletes to Illinois that it was to UofF ???
http://www.suntimes.com/output/campus/cst-spt-ill06.html
October 6, 2005
BY HERB GOULD STAFF REPORTER
It's almost as if Illinois coach Ron Zook and Indiana's Terry Hoeppner are reading from the same script -- a script left behind by Ron Turner and Gerry DiNardo. "When I say we're not as far away as everyone thinks, people probably chuckle,'' Zook said. "But the things that need to be corrected are correctible.'' "These are correctible things,'' Hoeppner said. "These aren't physical things where our guy just wasn't good enough.'' That said, when Zook's Illini and Hoeppner's Hoosiers meet Saturday in Bloomington, Ind., (11 a.m., Ch. 2, 560-AM), it might be the last game in which either team does enough things correctly to win. That's frustrating for the coaches and their players. It's also why Zook has replaced Turner and Hoeppner has replaced DiNardo. Say what you want about the Big Ten, which has had so many highly ranked teams plummet to earth this fall, it could be a clay-pigeon factory. The league is still top-to-bottom tough -- tough enough that Illinois and Indiana will have to do some serious overachieving to find any more victories after Saturday. In the last two-plus seasons, the Illini and Hoosiers are 1-1 against each other and 1-30 against the rest of the league. That's a lot of correcting. For both teams, nothing will correct those mistakes better than upgraded talent. The faster a cornerback is, the easier it is to recover from a misstep. The stronger a lineman is, the easier it is to mitigate a missed block. Zook and Hoeppner can't talk about their dubious talent levels without disrespecting youngsters who are giving their all, even if it isn't good enough. So they don't. In that regard, it's still college football, even if the dollars involved are very professional in size. What Zook can, and will, talk about is the future. "I'm going to separate recruiting from football,'' he said, bristling noticeably at the suggestion that losing hurts recruiting, even for a first-year coach. "We'll take care of recruiting. Don't worry about that.'' With Illinois nearly a touchdown underdog to Indiana, its most beatable opponent, it's easy for Illini fans to become discouraged. What they have to remember is that having seen a defensive guru, Lou Tepper, and an offensive genius, Turner, struggle miserably, athletic director Ron Guenther has turned to a recruiting whirlwind in Zook. Of course, a top recruit can feel more comfortable about the likelihood of winning at Michigan or Iowa or Notre Dame than at Illinois -- and that's the type of recruit Zook is going after. What Zook can offer are good facilities, a good education, the chance to play early and often, the chance to be part of a turnaround and the opportunity to play at a Big Ten school that, in the case of Chicago-area kids, is close to home and the state school. And Zook remains pumped to do that. "It's easier to recruit here than other places I've been,'' he said. "We have everything we need here to recruit. We just have to go do it.'' Meanwhile, he'll go to war -- and to Indiana -- with a team that makes too many correctible mistakes because it doesn't have enough talent to overcome them.
So let me get this straight..... for Ron Zook it is going to be easier to recruit athletes to Illinois that it was to UofF ???
http://www.suntimes.com/output/campus/cst-spt-ill06.html
posted by KT at 10/06/2005 04:05:00 PM
1 Comments:
"So let me get this straight..... for Ron Zook it is going to be easier to recruit athletes to Illinois that it was to UofF ??? "
Come on, Kent. Academically, Illinois is a better school than Florida. Illinois ranks at #42 vs Florida's #50 in US News and World Report's 2006 "America's Best Colleges" rankings. Don't you think that matters to football players? I'm sure that they want to go where they can get the best education. Who cares about being on a winning team with national exposure, having people to do your homework, and the slim chance of becoming a pro. That's not what being a college player is about.
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