Zook, Illinois really had to have this one
Just out of curiosity, how many of you Illinois football fans cruised over to FireRonZook.com at 5:30 Saturday afternoon?
I did, mind you only as a nosy sports writer, to see whether the site existed and whether there was much activity.
The message read, “fireronzook.com is coming soon.”
It didn’t say when. It didn’t say how long ago the heads-up was posted. It didn’t say whether the project was suspended when Illinois won its first six games this season.
Well, regardless, crank it up again, kiddies, because the Fighting Illini’s 17-7 loss to Ohio State justifies renewed interest in the subject.
Not because Zook, Illinois’ head coach, neglected to kick a field goal when he should have in the final minute. Not because he demonstrated poor time management or that he generally reinforced the notion that he’s a bad game coach.
No, the reason fireronzook.com should be revisited is simply because Illinois lost a game it should have won Saturday.
If not now, when? Ohio State is as vulnerable as Illinois will find it for a while, what with the Buckeyes coming to Champaign with a 3-3 record, still suffering from a slew of suspensions and reeling from a devastating blown lead last week at Nebraska.
Ohio State is essentially half a team however you look at it. The Buckeyes are all defense and no offense; on offense they’re all run and no pass.
Yet Illinois was losing 10-0 to a team that hadn’t completed a pass and 17-0 to a team that had completed 1.
Illinois was beginning to feel a little frisky at kickoff with a 6-0 record, No. 16 national ranking and peaking popularity growing for an otherwise dormant football program.
The Illini still were suspect. Their schedule had been soft with their first five games at home and 3 of their victories in Memorial Stadium by a mere field goal each.
The Ohio State game was validation time for Illinois. Even if the Buckeyes aren’t currently the Buckeyes, they are still sort of the Buckeyes.
But for now Illinois’ march toward national, or even local, credibility is stalled.
The way the schedule is set up a merely good team should win 10 games. Heck, a great team would have a shot at better.
Illinois has eight of its 12 games in Champaign. The projected difficult opponents are at home. The projected easy ones are on the road.
The Big Ten’s traditional powers on Illinois’ schedule aren’t so powerful: Ohio State down, Michigan not quite up, and Penn State stuck in neutral.
Even with an anticipated loss to Wisconsin, Illinois should win often enough to be good for Ron Zook and bad for fireronzook.com.
Ah, but squandering a potential victory over a beatable Ohio State team means that an 11-1 record should have been 12-0, a 10-2 should have been 11-1, a 9-3 should have been 10-2, and so on.
Look, Ron Zook isn’t going to be fired. Not now, not after the season, probably not in my lifetime.
The man has a way of walking right up to the line where Illinois might be tempted to replace him. Then the Illini win just enough games to save him.
So Illinois is stuck with Ron Zook and with a bunch of losses in winnable games like Saturday’s.
That leaves Illinois fans with little more than to chant, “I-L-L … I–Yi-Yi!”
mimrem@dailyherald.com