Big upgrade at coach and this season should be decent, D looks tough. I took em plus 7

Took Hawaii too

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Nice surprise yesterday beating Nebraska. Glad they made the coaching change.

Lovie's recruiting was an insult to Illinois. Two thirds of his team were players from out of state, many from Texas. How do you think Texas kids like the cold up here?

Scott frost

Oh man

I-L-L...

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Yep

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https://twitter.com/DrKenCast

Terrible loss... gonna pound Virginia

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Anyone who went down there last weekend and sweat their balls off and was paying attention, as I did, saw that NE had guys open on every pass play and their QB was basically as piss poor as the Cub pitching staff. Bielema sucks and got lucky last week. The O line blows despite being all upperclassmen. The Rutgers transfer back up is a Rutgers transfer for a reason. The best D player was a transfer and got hurt last week and is out for the year. Bielema is basically a taller midget than Lovie with a hotter wife.The Alvarez tree has proven that it sucks.

I appreciate the Illini making me feel better about IU losing yesterday

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

As someone who doesn’t follow college closely, can someone explain to me how the fuck Illinois is so terrible every year? It’s embarrassing as hell. You’re a big 10 school. Stop getting curb stomped by every fuckin school you face. That’s a fair enough low bar to hurdle.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I have explained it before. Unlike most other Big 10 schools, Illinois is not viewed as the home team or destination for most of Chicagoland teenagers. Growing up, the kids in my high school either rooted for ND or Michigan. So when picking where they want to play college ball, few Illinois high school seniors consider UIUC their top choice. Contrast that with say Wisconsin, where pretty much everyone in the state sees that as their top college program.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

This feels like an insufficient explanation when a team like Iowa St is ranked in the top 10 of the country.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Well you did not ask why Iowa State is ranked. You asked why the Illini generally suck.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

As an aside about Iowa State, you can apply to that school and get accepted quicker than an Amazon delivery.

You do an online application and they will admit you immediately and give you tons of money to make it like you were in-state.

Doesn't explain why Illini football sucks. But I don't want to talk about that.

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https://twitter.com/DrKenCast

Was talking to a Nebraska farmer I know whose son was going to Ames because the crazy package made it cheaper to go their for his ag degree than Nebraska by a significant margin. Still, Ames... Almost have to pay people to go there. This is not an endorsement for Central Illinois mind you.

It's been that way for 40 years. I got into a tiff with my HS guidance counselor because I only applied to two schools. She wouldn't release my transcript unless I applied to three schools, it was the high school's protocol. So I insisted on applying to Iowa State: $10, 1 page application, no test results needed, to shut the twat up.

In those days, you had to be in the top 40% of your high school class to be accepted at Iowa State.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

To be clear, it wasn't a commentary on the school itself. I'm sure it's a fine school.

But, I'd go to the kid's Senior Banquets and hear that a kid got a $40k scholarship to Iowa State and I thought "wow".

Then we applied for my oldest and got one immediately and figured it out.

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https://twitter.com/DrKenCast

It's like health insurance payments. Hospital B has to charge the same on paper as Hospital A, otherwise people will just assume it's worse quality as opposed to better run. But Hospital B can slash actual reimbursement and still make a better profit.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

UIUC was a lot like that when I applied. A simple GPA and ACT formula. It was nice having an acceptance in the first couple weeks of January he waiting for March or whatever it was for the rest to come in. Felt better when the first three responses I got back were 2 rejections and a maybe from the rest of the schools.

That’s true about Wisconsin now but it certainly hasn’t always been that way. In the 70s and 80s they were as bad as U of I and NU - which were some of the worst programs in the nation. Clearly UW was able to change the direction of the program in the same way that NU did a bit more recently. Coaching and recruiting are everything in college football. U of I isn’t doomed to always be bad. They need to hit on the right guy to lead the program. Clearly easier said than done but Minnesota has found some success with PJ Fleck. Their decision makers are almost McCaskey like in their ineptness.

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If we nominate Trump we will get destroyed & we'll deserve it.- L Graham
I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.- DJT 2016
MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!- DJT 12/25/23

I think Bielema will be alright.

You can’t change things immediately. As recent hires go, he has the best odds of success.

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https://twitter.com/DrKenCast

This didn’t age well

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Everybody laughed at me but they never should have let Zook go.

He got top talent and coached them inadequately to some infrequent success. The Illini fan base is delusional in their expectations regarding football.

At least they were mostly competitive with brief moments of greatness.

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https://twitter.com/DrKenCast

Zook couldn’t even win at Florida with guys Spurrier recruited.

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They went to the Rose Bowl. They beat the #1 team in the country on the road. All at UofI.

I can live with that.

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https://twitter.com/DrKenCast

That was a fun season

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Doctor,

You forget that recruiting had gone to crap at the end of the Zook era as everyone realized he could not coach (and he was no longer able to retain good recruiting coordinators like Locksley), he was no longer able to get marginal students into school, and the Champaign State Attorney's campaign was throwing the book at Zook's criminals on the team. Started 6-0, that last season, which was a mirage from where I sat in the Horseshoe, and then tO$U came to town and they went 0-6.

Note that Zook did not remain in coaching after he got fired by Illinois. He was working at a bank. He only got back into coaching as the Packer Special Teams guy and, if you recall, the Packer screwed up an onside kick to lose a playoff game that year.

He is now on Locksley's Maryland staff, from what Brian Barhardt told us on Sat.

The problem was not firing Zook, it was hiring a cavalcade of sucky coaches (see, the firing of Bruce Weber). At least Bielema really wants to be there. But so did Bruce Weber.

I wonder how many kids in the Chicago area have watched an entire Illini game. I see everyone wearing Badgers gear up here, and it plays on tv at every bar.

I just do not see the Illini as a first choice school for that many local kids. It has been a settle school for both athletes and students just like it was said in Risky Business.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

It’s a fantastic, world-class engineering and accounting school.

But very few of those people play football very well.

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https://twitter.com/DrKenCast

No doubt about those degrees.

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Hawaii (fuck) You