ESPN’s Mark Schlabach is the recipient of only the 2nd ever Blind Squirrels/Big Nuts award for this piece about Ron Zook’s recruiting success despite a miserable career of actual coaching. I’ve pasted some of the highlights below:

…Illinois football coach Ron Zook … could sell you a used car, but might not be able to teach you to drive it. Zook could sell you swamp land in Arizona, but couldn’t find the state on a map.

[…]

…a masterful recruiter but a lousy coach.

[…]

The Illini, perhaps best known for producing rough-and-tough linebackers such as Dick Butkus, Dana Howard and Kevin Hardy, needed a salesman as much as a coach, because after struggling as one of college football’s worst teams for more than a decade, there wasn’t much about Illinois to sell.

[…]

Zook hasn’t changed the Illini’s fortunes on the field…

[…]

His teams went 4-19 the past two seasons, including a woeful 1-15 against Big Ten Conference opponents.

[…]

“A coach once told me it’s better to be a bad coach with good players than a good coach with bad players.”

[…]

Illinois’ football program has had only minor success — the Illini have won only four Big Ten titles in the last 43 seasons — despite being located in a heavily populated state with no powerful in-state rival.

[…]

“…it’s kind of like selling Mary Kay.”

Share This

• Tens Expected to Turn Out for Fighting Illini Meet ‘n Greet Tour
• Zook’s “Invasion” Sends a Message: The Illini are LAME.
• Seriously, What Leaks?

Jim Donnan actually wrote up a nice piece on the negative effects the horrid, putrid spawns of Satan officially named 3-2-5 and 3-2-5e, and affectionately named “Those Stupid F’in New Clock Rules” have had on the game of College Football.

“When you deprive a team of seven offensive plays per game, you not only decrease the number of opportunities to score, you decrease the amount of time an opponent must spend on defense as well. This can make for closer games, often with surprising results. The rules changes also significantly affected the ability of teams to utilize end-of-game clock management and minimized their chances to stage a comeback. And while shortened games provided fewer offensive opportunities, hastening the time between plays proved to be a disadvantage for defenses, which had less time to react to the opposing offense’s personnel packages.

The clock changes also affected the building of a team’s depth. Seven fewer plays each game might not sound like a lot, but over the course of the season, teams lost an average of 84 plays. That’s 84 plays a second-teamer didn’t get to experience. By affecting a team’s ability to develop its future stars and starters, the rules changes not only impacted records for this season, but future seasons as well.”

As a result, we at HLS have decided to start a new category for when oafs stumble upon success: Blind Squirrels/Big Nuts

Way to go, Jim!

Also, as a friendly public service reminder, hop on over to WeHateTheNewClockRules.com and sign their petition if you haven’t already.

Share This

Related Posts:

• Michigan Kicker to Kick It Really, Really High and Really, Really Hard
• Time for a Change. Halle-freakin-lujah!!!
• MSU’s Center Knows How To Have A Good Time