Why Is Illinois Football Always So Bad?

Illinois has not had the consistent coaching that other dominant programs have had. This is really the single biggest issue. The fanbase was thrilled with landing the Zooker, as their expectations are set that low. Guys like Tepper and Turner have been among the worst coaches in the B10 while they were at UofI. Also, recruiting Chicago is very different than Ohio. Chicago tends towards ND at least as much as Illinois. Many folks living in Chicago are from elsewhere, so the built in allegiances that Ohio has towards OSU don't exist in Chicago. And a lot of schools have established themselves well in the Chicago area. ND, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc.

How many of the top 250 recruits are in Chicago/Chicago area? I know they have some pretty good B-Ball talent but as far as football goes I don't recall too much. I think the talent that decides not to go there because of either other programs having better facilities, fan base, ability to develop talent. Look what Ron Zook did at Florida with all that talent in the south....do you think he was going to do any better at Illinois with no where near the recruiting base?

Chicago is different than Detroit or Cleveland in that it has a LOT of transplants from out of state, so it's much more of a mixing pot of fanbases than a monolithically Illinois one. Plus, past crappiness begets future crappiness just as past success begets future success. Way it is in CFB. You have to be good for a LONG TIME before a kid grows up with the ingrained notion that your program is one of the "good" programs.

Disclaimer: I'm from Illinois, grew up downstate, and played high school football in Illinois. Parents are U of I alums. I went to Michigan. I have always felt the same way as the OP, and disagree with some of what is said here. Illinois is not as good as Ohio for talent, that I will agree with. Not a lot of places are. But if the University of Illinois could keep the instate talent instate, they'd be fine. I would say that as many of the top players from Chicago go to ND, Iowa, Wisconsin, IU, Michigan (Schofield) and some others as go to Illinois. U of I, as the instate school, which is about 2 hours straight south of Chicago, should get at least 50% of these players. And the football in the suburbs of Chicago, as well as the private schools in the city is pretty solid. Plenty of good D-I players. More than I think people on here realize. Yeah, I know- I'm not linking to any articles or anything on this, and I may be biased, so grain of salt, etc, etc. But there are lots of good players from the Chicagoland area. Illinois IS a sleeping giant. Their stadium is being renovated (or has been renovated?) is big, looks pretty cool, IME, it's a big school with solid academics, and is also a fun school supposedly. The comments about shitty facilities are just, frankly, wrong. And the comments about it being in a corn field, see: Purdue, MSU. I think the problem, as others have put it, is coaching. It has to be. They also haven't been any good consistently for at least 40 years. If they ever got a good young coach there, they'd be a force to deal with. They just have had inept coaches. I mean, Lou Tepper and Ron Turner were abject failures. One 10-2 season does not make up for multiple winless or 1-win seasons or whatever other shit Turner turned out during his tenure.

It all goes back to Red Grange scoring four touchdowns in one quarter against Michigan. Doing that to such a high prestige team--even if Michigan hadn't yet adopted the legendary winged helmet--has doomed Illinois to hover between failure and mediocrity. You reap what you sow. Not even Dick Butkus could save them.

Because they play TUOOS every year for a dumbass Turtle.....WTF

Just go to a Rose Bowl recently? When was the last time Minny, MSU, Indiana, Perdue, Iowa or Yugoslavia did that?

its like 3 hours from everywhere, surrounded by central and southern Illinois farmland.

Illinois is completely batshit schizoid in the modern era. From 2003-2006 - that's four seasons - they won two Big Ten games. Total. Averaged half a conference win a season. At the end of the 2007 season, a year after they went 2-10, the Illini went to the Rose Bowl. In 2001 they went 10-2 and to the Sugar Bowl; the year before and the year after they didn't even have winning seasons. This goes back through the 90's as well. They went to bowl games, they went 0-11. This comes back to coaching, surely. The state doesn't lack talent, although Illinois can't lock it down. But generally there are playmakers in Cham-Bana. It's trouble at the top that causes these kinds of swings.

I did a quick search of Rivals' ranking for Illinois, and noticed that they did not have an abnormally large number of top-flight recruits. Here is a breakdown for Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and for giggles Florida, for 2007-2009. I listed only 4* and 5* recruits because that represents the top-level talent best, though the distribution of 3* talent in each state mirrored the percentages of upper-echelon recruits. Also, don't kill me for using only Rivals - I'm sure there is some discrepancy across the services, but I doubt to such a degree that would drastically alter the results.

2007	2008	2009
4*	5*	4*	5*	4*	5*
Illinois	5	1	6	0	9	0
Ohio	13	1	14	3	16	0
Michigan	12	1	8	0	10	1
Florida	38	3	43	5	56	5

So that's only 21 4*+ recruits over a 3 year period, and only 1 5*, in Illinois. By comparison, Ohio has 37 top recruits, including 4 5* kids. Heck, Michigan, usually not considered a hotbed of football, has produced 32 recruits, including 2 5*. Of course, Florida blows the whole region away, but I expected nothing less. Still, I think the general sentiment on this board that Illinois may not be as great of a football factory as some expected rings true.

Illinois is seen as a stepping stone not a destination.

Don't sell those fight'n Zooks short this year.

He will not win with Illinois talent. No disrespect intended to Chicago.

He will not win with Illinois talent. No disrespect intended to Chicago.

Illinois is usually deceivingly bad, but sometimes deceivingly good. They are almost never a team that is just good, bad, or decent. They fluctuate like a wave. I can never get a read on them, ever. I truly have no idea what the hell will happen when they play. Hence, I never bet on their games.

They would do well if they had a major rival to add excitement to their program. Instead, they've got nothing but MUCK FICHIGAN t-shirts and a campus in the middle of nowhere in a state almost devoid of football talent. And Ron Zook.

I think low expectations really help. I know saying "they're a basketball school" doesn't really fly as much as it used to, but well, they're a basketball school. Most of my friends at U of I had zero clue who Juice Williams was before last year and I know none of them could name the starter before him. Can you imagine that at Michigan?

Weren't they in the Rose Bowl 2 years ago? Anyway, I thought Zook may have turned that program around until he cursed them to death when he allowed that reality TV show to come in a film the kids 24/7. Terrible, terrible idea. I had to laugh at Jabberwock's comment. After visiting other B10 team's message boards you would think we have a rivalry game every week of the season. Penn State, Minnesota, Wisconsin (yes, seriously), and Illinois all consider us "rivals". Alrighty then.....