Big Ten 2011 // Ron Zook, Illinois Coach for Life

With Ron Guenther retiring this summer, depending on who they hire as the new AD, Zook might be out if he stumbles to 3 or 4 wins. In reality, the biggest reason he wasn’t put out to pasture after 2009 was all the instability in the board of trustees at Illinois after the clout scandal. A new AD — especially if he comes from outside the university — is going to want to put his stamp on the football program, and that might mean curtains for Zook.

As an aside, I think that Illinois might be able to eke out a Leaders division crown, but more likely will get 2nd or 3rd. It’ll be awfully hard to fire Zook if he wins 7 or 8.

I had seen that article before, and one thing that cracks me up is the factual inaccuracy about B1G records. Zook is 16-32. Fitz is 18-22. I know that the author wants to match up same periods and overlook Zook’s first 0-8 year, but all that means is that Zook has had one more year to put his imprint on the program, and he’s still .333 in the conference (versus .450 for Fitz). Of Zook’s six seasons, he has finished with two or less conference wins three times. Fitz only did that his first year, when he took over six weeks before the season began. In fact, Zook has only had one winning B1G season (2010 was a 4-4 year). Fitz has two with one less year at the helm. Zook is 27-45 overall regular season versus Fitz at 34-26. Want to complain about tougher out-of-conference? There’s really only eight games where this comes into play (six against Missouri and one against Cal and Cincinatti), and even if you assume all flip from a W to an L for Fitz, you still have Zook at 27-45 (.375) versus Fitz at 26-34 (.433). None of this even takes into account the talent differential between the two schools. By almost every measure, Fitz is the better coach, which is why he gets more love than Zook.

then Fitz is 16-16, Zook is 16-24.

More to the point, everything in college is graded on a curve. Fitzgerald has the best conference record of any Northwestern coach since WWII, while Zook is roughly a game per season below Illinois average. Nearly all Northwestern fans are thrilled that Fitz is signed for 10 years and every last one of them would be thrilled if Illinois signed the same contract with Zook.

What’s he done? Kept a perennial doormat relevant in football. NU is playing above its traditional status and has elevated itself out of the B1G cellar (that’s now Minnesota-Indiana territory). The fact that Illinois is even concerned with NU is humorous to an outsider.

That article was very misleading. Left out Zook’s 2-10, 0-8 2005 season.

Zook has had some really strong recruiting years. The knock has been that he hasn’t been able to produce with that talent.

Back in the day, it was bad enough that you had Notre Dame coming into Chicago and taking whomever they wanted. Now that Wisconsin and Iowa are competitive on a regular basis, you have more Chicago-are talent looking at those schools, plus the Ohio States and Michigans of the world. I think Zook has done a better job of getting some of the in-state talent to stay in-state (Martez Wilson, Reilly O’Toole, Juice Williams), but there’s a lot of competition in the region and U of I is at a disadvantage next to the traditional powerhouses and new money programs. This argument was made during Indiana or Purdue week (I can’t remember which), and I think it applies to Illinois to an extent, as well.

As for facilities, I don’t think it’s a huge component. They’re likely not as nice as Nebraska’s or Penn State’s, but there’s a recently renovated stadium and a relatively new indoor practice facility (right next to the stadium). Can’t say I’ve ever seen pictures of the weight room.