Uninformed Zook Memes

Submitted by mgokev on

Seeing as we just came off of a great performance against good ol' Ron Zook, I figured I'd pass along an "Uninformed Zook" meme bank that I came across earlier today.  Many of them are pretty funny, but here's one referencing last year's Michigan game:

Uninformed Zook

 

There's quite a few gems in there across eight pages that had me laughing.  Hopefully these start popping up across the interwebs.  Share your favorites.

 

 LINK

MGlobules

November 18th, 2011 at 3:45 PM ^

that a coach so widely ridiculed is not long for it. No one likes to be laughed at by an entire nation, least of all a university and its trustees. 

Btw, has Illinois HAD any glory years in Big Ten football? 

PurpleStuff

November 18th, 2011 at 4:06 PM ^

What are the realistic expectations at Illinois that Zook isn't meeting?  You have to go back to the 1980's to find a coach who did more at the school and that was in a Big Ten without Nebraska and Penn State.  This is a place where Gary Moeller won 6 games in three years (Zook has won that many already this season).  After a rough first two seasons, he's averaging 6 wins a year over the last five.  Over that span he's averaging about three and a half conference wins a season too.

.500 seasons and a bowl game more often than not seem like a pretty damn good return at Illinois to me.  At Florida he finished in the top 25 three years in a row (despite dealing with the growing pains of Chris Leak as a freshman and sophomore at QB), brought in Charlie Strong, and recruited a team that won a national title two years after he left (when Leak was a senior).  He's obviously not the greatest coach in the country, but I don't get the instinctive hate or dismissiveness toward the guy. 

EGD

November 18th, 2011 at 5:03 PM ^

I agree with this.  Illinois under Zook has been about as good as Illinois can realistically get.  Another thing worth mentioning is just how awful Illinois was when Zook took over that program.  Illinois went winless in 2003, and won 1 game in 2004, the year before Zook was hired.   Zook is far from an elite coach, but at least he's made Illinois competitive again. 

I suppose the problem for Zook is that the Illinois fanbase sees teams like Wisconsin and Michigan State doing well, and they think "why can't that be us?"

jmblue

November 18th, 2011 at 6:34 PM ^

Btw, has Illinois HAD any glory years in Big Ten football?

Illinois has won 15 Big Ten titles. Only Michigan, OSU and Minnesota (16) have more. Those titles aren't all in the distant past; they've won Big Ten titles in 1983, 1990 and 2001. They're the flagship school in a state of 12 million people, which produces a decent amount of talent. They could be a strong program. I've never understood why they're so up-and-down.

dahblue

November 18th, 2011 at 4:11 PM ^

What's the deal with all of the Zook and/or Illinois hate?  Maybe it's something that grew after my Michigan era, but it seems kinda weird.  They've always been like Indiana+ in my book - never very good and don't care about them.  Am I missing something?

Gorgeous Borges

November 18th, 2011 at 4:17 PM ^

Why is Ron Zook so ridiculed? I understand that everyone thinks that he's stupid, but what are the really stupid things he's done? I mean, I know that he went on a 7-minute touchdown drive with 11 minutes left in the game. What exactly is it that he is so bad at? The guy coaches at Illinois, not exactly a hotbed of talent or glorious football tradition.

lunchboxthegoat

November 18th, 2011 at 4:51 PM ^

he consistently bring in stupid good recruiting classes (even for Illinois) and does nothing with them. punts from the opponent 32, goes for 2 because he admitted he didn't know the score of the game, averaged 8 wins at FLORIDA of all places where you have all the talent in the world at your disposal....etc. etc.etc.

PurpleStuff

November 18th, 2011 at 5:13 PM ^

They won 8 games last year and would have to win every remaining game to match that total this year.  But nobody goes on and on about how dumb Meyer and Muschamp are. 

Les Miles does just as much bat shit crazy stuff during games (if not more), bends the rules more, and yet is not villified (except by UM administrators) in nearly the way Zook is simply because he has a bunch of beastly athletes on his defense who don't give up any points.

And the recruiting classes for the guys on his current team are ranked 42nd (freshmen), outside of top 50 (sophomore), 35th (junior), 23rd (senior, but includes guys like LeShoure and Liuget who are already in the NFL), and 20th (5th year senior, but includes two 5-star guys in Benn and Wilson who are already in the NFL).  The classes before that were ranked 30th and outside the top 50 respectively.  To me that pretty much reflects what they have accomplished the last two years (7 win seasons, bowl game), not some crazy good haul that should result in Big Ten title contention, especially when looking at the rankings of Michigan, OSU, Penn State, Nebraska, etc.

 

lunchboxthegoat

November 19th, 2011 at 9:45 PM ^

You're comparing one year runs for Meyer and Muschamp to Zook's entire tenure being 8 wings averaging. I'm not saying they should be consistently in BCS bowls but when you have defenses as quality as he had the last two years you should do more than throw up all over yourself this year and lose games you shouldn't (last year). 

 

Les doesn't get as much crap because he wins game. He consistently performs to the expected level of his talent or above. Zook consistently turns quality talent into pewp. 

aratman

November 18th, 2011 at 6:38 PM ^

Screwed us out of a Michigan-Ohio state national championship game.  It's all his fault if you look past the fact that we lost the last game of the season.