Tate: This is getting real old
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Where do you start?
If this was a boxing match, the ref would have stopped it. A chess match, a concession. A baseball game, the shortstop would pitch to save arms.
Where’s the towel when you want to toss it in?
“Embarrassing ... extremely surprising!” senior Graham Pocic said.
Two years ago Pocic was a sophomore center engaged in a Big Ten classic — a 67-65 loss to Michigan — and here he was Saturday, snapping for a hapless (nine straight conference losses) squad that floundered while the Wolverines frolicked.
This is the same Michigan team that was mugged earlier by Alabama, barely escaped Air Force 31-25 and was shut down by Notre Dame.
But the Wolverines appear to be finding themselves as they head into consecutive showdowns against Michigan State and Nebraska with the division championship in the balance. As a tuneup, the Wolverines outgained Illinois by an astonishing 527 to 134. Illinois netted 29 yards passing. TWENTY-NINE! What would Mike White think or, rather, what would Bob Zuppke think?
The 241st consecutive Big House crowd topping 100,000 came out to watch the debacle on a rainy afternoon, and half of them were gone by the end of the third quarter. Not much happened thereafter except for sub Thomas Rawls’ 63-yard TD dash to finalize it at 45-0.
Opposing forces
What we witnessed through the mist Saturday was the collision of rival cultures: Michigan, proud and talented and fiercely supported, simply overwhelming an opponent that has been unraveling through the years and has lost the heart of its fans and the ability to respond to adversity.
Michigan located a Schembechler-style coach, Brady Hoke, who could burrow into that culture. The Illini, meanwhile, have turned to Tim Beckman in yet another coaching change that so far hasn’t clicked. The Illini have seldom appeared more bedraggled than in losing by scores of 52-24, 35-7, 31-14 and 45-0 in a four-week stretch.
“I’ve never been in a situation like this,” Beckman said. “It’s tough. Everyone is hurting.”
It is a story growing old. In 50 meetings dating to Ray Eliot’s last team in 1959 — leading into the brother rivalry of Pete and Bump Elliott — the Wolverines have won 42, lost six and tied two.
Adversity hit early Saturday. First, the Illini couldn’t make third and 1 near midfield and had to punt. On Michigan’s fifth play, the Illini were caught napping on a flip to Jeremy Gallon, and he rambled 71 yards through an outmaneuvered secondary.
There was a slight lull when Denard Robinson got dinged and sat down for two possessions, but he returned for a spectacular 33-yard burst to set up his 6-yard score, then took Michigan to two more TDs in the first five minutes of the second half. He proved with his 18th 100-yard game what an extraordinary ballcarrier he is.
“Denard had a special game,” Beckman said. “We didn’t play well defensively or in any department. There’s not a happy soul in our locker room. We’re at a crossroads.”
Illinois did not reach Michigan’s 30-yard line, much less the red zone. Illini QB Nathan Scheelhaase went out in the second quarter with a concussion but is expected to be cleared when Illinois plays its homecoming game with Indiana in two weeks.
Tate’s tidbits
— Mike Thomas, still awaiting schematic architectural designs for the Assembly Hall, analyzed the renovation of Crisler Center on his trip to Ann Arbor. The UI athletic director said that tweaking has continued between the engineering firm and the university, but he is still targeting corporations and others who might be interested in premium seating opportunities.
— Former UI Chancellor Nancy Cantor, who oversaw Syracuse’s move from the Big East to the Atlantic Coast Conference, has announced she’ll step down at the end of her contract in June 2014. Cantor had reportedly met resistance, but not in the early completion of a billion-dollar fundraising drive for professorships, scholarships and facilities.
— Missouri fans must be longing for the Big 12 and that early game with Illinois in St. Louis. Saturday’s 42-10 loss to Alabama left the Tigers 0-4 in their initial SEC season.
Loren Tate writes for The News-Gazette. He can be reached at ltate@news-gazette.com.
This is unacceptable...“I’ve never been in a situation like this,” Beckman said. I don't want to hear this again.
Two things to consider: Is the team making incremental game to game improvements...not seeing it. Does the coaching staff demonstrate the ability to make game-time adjustments, to stem the tide or take advantage of opportunites...not seeing it. That's coaching people, and I'm just not seeing it.
Beckman is a clown. His specialty is comedic incompetence. Season is young and Timmie still has chance to set all time Illini record for lowest number of yards gotten and most points scored against. Beckman has proudly transformed Illini into national punchline and laughing stock.
https://twitter.com/DanBloeme/status/257596960473743360/photo/1
What is getting old is watching coach Beck stair out to the sky without emotion. This team has not bought into anything that he has requested. The team is without a leader. It is also clear that there is no adjusting to adversity going on within the game. Even if Sheel stayed in the game, it would not have mattered. He is never going to be able to stay in any pocket and if he did still does not have the arm to throw medium passes. You need to ditch the spread, put in O'toole as a drop back and run regular formations complete with running backs to hand off too. We have so many formations and options and we clearly cannot do any of them good enough to be effective. It is not if you lose, but how you lose and we look like a D3 school. What was Beckman and the other coaches doing during training camp. It is clear they are in big trouble. Bring in a $4 million dollar coach, and either be a football school or not. Did you see what Indiana did yesterday.
Team Beckman's problems are the result of one man's decision: Thomas. Since Thomas was obviously not able to secure his number one, two, three, or more picks for head coach, Thomas should have hired Vic Koening as interim coach for this year and left assistants in place. We had just won our second bowl game and ranked seventh in total defense. All coaches were under contract and paying all of them anyway and spend this year looking over situation and making the best long term selection for Illiniois football and Vic may have proven himself as head man or some other candidate would have surfaced that was willing to build a program here. Instead of going after happless Beckman go after the man who put him here:Thomas! Beckman is not capable and last year was good example:Beckman's team last year gave up over 60 points in back to back MAC games; what did Thomas or Illini fans expect this year? We have Thomas to blame, not team Beckman.
We didn't coach good enough. We didn't play good enough," Illinois co-offensive coordinator Chris Beatty said. "Nothing really went right. It was a bad day."
Gee, do you think?
Little Nathan isn't the guy.
Neither is Riley McFool.
There's no QB on the roster.
No speed.
No talent.
What was it John McKay famously said about the execution of his team -- he was all for it.
When the year ends, dismiss them all and start over.
Go to Texas, Florida, California, and find some speed.
Beckman and the rest of his stooges are the worst collection of coaches I have ever seen. I would even hesitate to call them football coaches as what I have seen does not resemble football, at least not D-1 football. Worse plays than I see on sandlots. I see more cohesion and semblance of effective play calling in recreational and pee-wee leagues. It's become almost impossible to watch this farce they call Illini football anymore. Yuck!
Embarrassing....I'm not sure what Tim Beckman said in the interview with Mike Thomas....but, man, he sure fooled Mike. How in the world can a 7-6 team returning this many players be this awful? I've been watching football a long time, and this is about as bad a Division 1 team I've ever seen...I know it's early in his stint at Illinois, but let's face it, this was a bad hire. Inexcusable to be this bad, plain and simple!
I sat on wood benches at Memorial Stadium through 4 years of Jim Valek's teams (one year, punter Terry Masar was MVP), and watched too many years of Gary Moeller's teams and Lou "let 'em score" Tepper's teams.
The 2012 team is worse than all those combined, because they are dramatically worse than each of the preceding two years. So we finish this year 2 - 10, and next year it looks like either 1 - 11 or 0 - 12.
These players were stars in high school and were recruited by many programs. How is it they seem to have forgotten how to play football?
Keep Luke Butkus, replace the rest of the staff.
I dont think I can recall seeing a team with such poor coaching. Yes, we lost some players, but we were so much better than this last season, it seems impossible to attribute the entire change to the players.
I can handle bad records, but I want to at least have the hope of something better. Even if coach Beckman recruits well, I have little confidence that this staff can coach them into a competitive team. they seem in way over their heads. Sort of like Zook before we changed the assistants, but worse... much worse. At least with Ron Turner you knew he could coach, you just hoped he could recruit.
We are in a really bad situation. Financial concerns make it difficult to fire Beckman (arent we still paying Zook?!), but keeping him seems nearly hopeless. Frankly my best hope at this point is that Beckman recruits decently and leaves something for the next coach who will almost certainly arrive in the next year or two. What a disaster.
We lost players, really good players. The Illini had more NFL talent in the first 2 rounds than any other school in the B1G the last 2 years and they "managed" 7-6 and 7-6. The last 3 recruiting classes, '10-'12 rank 8th, 9th and 12th in the B1G. The previous 3 classes that carried us through back to back 7-6 records were ranked, 4th, 3rd and 4th. We are losing some of the best talent the school has had in 10-12 years with classes that rank at the bottom of the conference. Yes, the talent level has dropped off, a lot.
What kind of record would this club have with the same coaches......2-5. Yep, the exact same record.
Its a bad bad bad situation.
sorry but it did not drop off all in one year. Yes the trend was clearly down from Zook's early recruiting success but its not like all of those guys graduated last year. We are playing much worse than last season, and I dont see how you can attribute ALL (or even most) of that to graduation. The difference in the defense between last season and this season is night and day.
I don't disagree with the fact that the defense is not performing as well. The only difference between this year and last is margin of victory. Losing close doesn't make it any better. And yes, the difference between this year and last is night and day. IF the old coaching staff were here we would have the same record and the same struggles.
We had more top 2 round NFL talent than any school in the conference the last 2 years and we finished 6-6. That means there was very little depth or talent around them. Now the drop in recruiting is catching up. Two years ago the talent that left was replaced by players from another top 4 recruiting class. Now the players that left last year are being replaced by a 8 or 9 ranked recruting class. Its not hard to figure out, the talent level is not there.
Yes, there are players that had stars next to their name coming out of hs. The last 3 recruiting classes ranked 8th, 9th and 12th in the B1G. That means we are getting enough talent to compete with the bottom 2 or 3 teams. Expecting kids with this "talent" level to compete for a title is absurd. Based on talent alone they should be at the bottom of the conference, and they are. Yes, I want them to be competitive and yes, I want them to win. But, until the recruiting is better, they don't have a chance. Even if Coach Vic was calling the defense this year, the record would be the same, 2-5. Games may have been closer, but the offense would not be any better.
This freefall started last year under Zook. A team doesn't go 6-0 then 0-6 without some major problems with talent or coaching or both. As far as Coach Beckman's recruiting, I'm afraid it's going to be hurt by the performance of the current team. We're in a bad place right now--much worse than Penn State will be 2-3 years down the road. We have zero credibility with high level recruits and will be in competition with MAC and OVC schools for talent and we may lose out to them.
firing a coach only helps if the replacement is better. As far as I can tell, we spent a lot of money to be much worse than we were last season. Thats the bottom line. If we couldnt do better than Beckman, I honestly dont see the point in firing Zook. Now we are paying Zook money not to coach, paying Beckman to coach poorly, and we are at least a season or two away from being able to fire Beckman and hire a long-term solution.
Loren this is getting old? You promised us a Rolls Royce last year, as you were driving the fire Zook bus out of town! You brought us a broken down Yugo!
Our defense has moved from number 7, to number 52, this was done under the direction of new defensive minded coach. I agree we lost some key players in the draft, we still had quality young men coming back that played in the same key positions!
It is hard not to shake your head at the direction this team is heading, 4 more years! Really?
A good example of the importance of coaching can be found at Eastern Illinois University in their football program this year. Virtually the same team, same everything EXCEPT for the new coach. The former coach was a long-time coach at EIU with a mediocre football record. He was an elderly man at the end of his career when he retired, and he ran a program that seemed to lack vitality and force. Enter the new coach and, without any other changes, the team's performance has changed like night into day. Coaching matters. Illinois looks disorganized, lost, flummoxed, and you can't help but feel sorry for the players because they are in what must be an awful situation. One can accept losing a game when the loss comes after playing like champs who were simply bested by another good team, but to lose like we did just makes you feel bad for everybody involved..... even Michigan, because that win was not a glorious win, but it was a win, all the same.
They should have kept coach zook and Vic. Reason being is zooks teams got us to two consecutive bowl games and wins for first time in school history. Having said that, he should have been told that the next year needed to be better or we would look elsewhere. We should have waited until there were more coaches available. Mike Thomas wanted to make a name for himself. I do agree with the firing of weber though. His teams have underachieved for far too long. Great guy but he couldn't recruit chicago or Illinois very well nor could he coach well.
Now we have to wait and hope coach chewy can recruit and start winning some games in the next couple of year.... ugh.
The O-line shortcoming appears to be an insufficient number of players with the physical capability to compete with D-1 line opponents, not coaching.
When the UofI turns its back on a former player named Butkus --Dick, Mark or Luke-- it will be time to terminate the football program.
Conveniently forgetting one big dot.. had RG NOT extended Zooks contract we wouldn’t be on the hook for his salary, making it prohibitive to can Beckman… had he instead hired Charlie Strong to replace Zook we could be bowling instead of Louisville… and Beckman would still be at Toledo… it is asinine to say where we are now is not a direct result of RG giving Zook an extention and thinking high priced assistants would overcome his ineptness… it was a joke.. the very concept that you openly state, your bringing in 2 new coordinators to run the team because your head coach is a terrible X’s and O’s guy.. and he’s basically a recruiting coordinator.. then extend his contract and give him a raise… Zook’s specialty… was special teams.. we saw how good that worked out…
well it did take us to two consecuitve bowl wins which is a lot better than we have now.
And by the way, talking about RG firing Zook sooner implies that you think he would have made a better coaching hire than Thomas did?!?! Kinda odd conclusion from a RG-hater, huh?
The bottom line is that we hired Thomas to replace RG, and Thomas hired Beckman. If Thomas had made a good hire we wouldnt be having this discussion.
Being a high school coach in Florida, I can tell you that a 3 star athlete down here is better than most 4 star athletes from up north. I coached in both Illinois and Iowa for many years and I can't believe the difference between the athletes. In Gainesville alone we have 6 d1 athletes alone and I have yet to hear from 1 Illinois coach. there are 2 running backs and a receiver with forty times of 4.4 to 4.3 speed. We have a receiver whose dad was a receiver in the NFL he has had offers from 4 major universities and we haven't seen an Illinois coach at any of our practices in the spring or during the season. Even if you don't get one of these kids, you need to get your foot in the door. Gainesville High School is ranked #1 in the State 6A state.
the underlying danger here involves money. Realistically, the University can't fire this coach for at least 2 or 3 years. If nothing is done to improve the product on the field, attendance will drop dramatically. That will hurt badly especially since many of the costs are fixed costs. We alums/fans can rant all we want to about "winning", "contending", "bowl games", etc., but if the team isn't improving and/or isn't a bit exciting, who will want to go to game? All the nice facilities and promotions aren't going to help at all if the team is lousy and not improving. The Administration, by its bone-headed decisions in recent years, created this mess. i have my doubts that they have the willingness and ability to lead us out of this swamp.
M Thomas is the one over his head. It's not Beckmann's fault really that he took the job. Why wouldn't he. Major conference, big raise, etc etc. M T should have hired Coach Vic on a 1 YR interum head coach basis. That way we could have maintained some level of continuity to follow up a bowl win. By the end of the 2012 season, everybody would be able to see what V C really had in him as a head coach, recruiter, etc. In the event that this did not work out, then M T would have had a whole year to sign another coach.
Everyone -- or most -- seem to forget that our offense was pretty lousy last year, including in several of the games (ASU comes immediately to mind) that we won. Not that I am at all enamored of our play-calling and schemes, but we have one red-shirt freshman and two red-shirt sophomores starting in the O'line, and the two seniors have both been injured. Forgetting for a moment the bad decision of not keeping Koenig (and see Paul Klee's take on why Jerry Kill is successful, but c.f. Urban Myers's philosophy), I do not think any coach would be having much success with our offense this year. It is extremely disheartening and I really did not want to see Zook go, but we are paying a price for the fall-off in his recruiting.
And I was at Michigan Saturday; the O'Line was opening some holes for the first time in a long time, but whether it was the lack of having a fullback in this offense or the fact that the passing game allows the opposition's linebackers and safeties to play up close, 7 yards was about the best we could get on any run.
Michigan beat one of Mike White's early teams 70-21 (scoring 70 straight points), but then we made the Rose Bowl. Hope springs eternal. Give Beckman at least 4 years; do not think any coach would take this job knowing that he could lose it after 7 games.
We have a bunch of clowns out there on the field, the coaches and players! Understand the play, trust the play and execute the play! what is so hard about that? I am making a plea to Illini nation right now, the only way to bring about a change for the better is to not attend any more games until they bring in a big time coach with a big time reputation for winning and winning big. This bull crap has got to end and end right now! They depend on money, your money, you are paying for a defective product year in and year out they will not change until you the fans which have all the power take a stand and say enough is enough I am not gonna waste my hard earned money on something that the school don't care about anyway, which is a winning football program. When it comes to anything like this the fans/consumers have the power, plain and simple just stop giving them your time and money and they will make changes I gauran damn tee it!!!!!!!!!!i
The Illini have been hiring and firing coaches since I was a student in the 60s, Give it up. No silver bullet here. The problem has been institutionalized.
Week after week, year after year, the rest of the nation doesn't see a top five engineering school, agricculture school, computer science school. No, thanks to ESPN and football mania the nation "sees" Illini incompetence play out onthe gridiron year after year. It's killing alumi funding and the endowment fund.
Like it or not football is not just a game. It's big business and poses a strategic threat to university finances - a threat that needs to be taken seriously.
It's time for radical and disruptive innovation.
Recipe for success: Make football fun again. Enlist the support of faculty, students and staff. Make Illinois football a multi-disciplined research project. And there's a lot to be learned in the process. What better way to study math, science and physical education.
Turn the football program over to the academic expertise of a truely great university. Hire the business school to provide management consulting services to the Athletic Department. Hire the Beckman Institute to provide technical consulting services with respect to football operations.
The Beckman Institute is multi-disciplined powerhouse that can deploy the university's academic resources in statistics, computer science, simulation, game theory, operations research, psychology, marketing, etc, etc. Use those resources to recruit better players, evaluate tendencies and weaknesses of opposing teams, design more effective offensive and defensive strategies and even to call plays, time outs, etc in real time. Imagine the impact on illini morale.
Could we do worse?
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