And be these juggling fiends no more believ’d,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope.
~William Shakespeare

I bought in.  Cordale Scott bought in.  22,000 new season ticket holders bought in.  Graham Pocic bought in and invited friends. Phil Steele bought in.  DeAngelo McCray bought in and wore an Illini tux to prom. Stewart Mandel, despite decrying the hire, eventually bought in.  Most importantly, Martez Wilson and Arrelious Benn bought in.

We all bought in to one promise – a collection of gifted athletes will equal a successful football team.  And why wouldn’t we?  Collections of gifted athletes nearly always equal bowl games, yes?  I’m in.  Let’s do this.  Florida here I come.

Illinois 1-5 (0-4)

This is not what I was promised.  What’s that Napoleon quote? “Promise everything, deliver nothing”? I think that’s where we are.  We have a fantastic salesman who has sold our product all over the country.  We had a large number of investors sign up, too, giving us the capital to expand our facilities.  While early product testing showed some serious flaws, the early rollout at that trade show in Pasadena certainly proved promising (there’s that word again), prompting even more investors to get on board.  A few key department heads were let go in 2008, and we were told that the new hires were “the perfect fit”. Trade publications were buzzing about the product launch in September 2009, and our lead salesman continued to crow.  This is it, we thought.  We’re finally here.

And now we’re the Crystal Pepsi of collegiate athletics.  The Edsel.  We’re an 8-track Beta-max Laser Disc in a digital college football world.  Everything promised, nothing delivered. And I’m still struggling to understand how it happened.

Take recruiting, for example.  Solid recruiting equals bowl games, what, 95% of the time? I did a little research:

Looking at the 2006, 2007, and 2008 recruiting class rankings on Rivals, there were 24 teams that had top-35 classes in all three years, Illinois included (30th, 20th, and 23rd, respectively).  Of those 24 teams, 22 currently have winning records and are near bowl locks (many having already earned their 6th win).  The two outliers?  Illinois and Florida State.  FSU has 4 pretty easy games left against struggling teams, so I think there’s a chance they fight their way into a bowl.  Illinois?  Not a chance.

So there’s my new statistic: Consistent top-35 recruiting = bowl games 91.67% of the time. And if FSU pulls through, 95.83% of the time. Illinois? Not a chance.

(I need to pause for a second and go through this again, if only for my (in)sanity.  We put up 55 points on Indiana last year.  We returned 9 of 11 starters from that team, including every starting skill player.  Indiana lost several key players from that defense, gave up 47 points to Virginia last week, are ranked 82nd in total defense (and lost 3 defensive starters to injury for this game)… and we score 14 points.  Can anyone explain that to me?)

Back to promises.  As I lay awake on Saturday night, a thought came to me.  Maybe the failure to deliver on promises is not only the problem for our program on the outside, but also on the inside.  Maybe promises made to recruits, specifically playing time and positions, are a huge part the problem.  Maybe this has been obvious to everyone but me up until now, but it’s new to my stubborn brain, so I’m gonna run with it.

We’re thin at defensive end.  And we’re having a terrible time getting to the quarterback, currently ranking 109th in sacks.  (Those who know me well know exactly where this is going). If only we had a 6′-3″ kid on the roster who probably doesn’t have the fluidity to make for a great receiver but has the frame, body type, and athleticism to be a tackle-eating defensive end.  Yes, Cordale Scott.  But no, this athlete is currently buried 6 deep at wide receiver. Why?  Because Zook got him here by promising him catches.  And then he made him “most improved player” last spring to, I don’t know, keep that plate spinning.

Zook promised carries to no less than 5 running backs.  So instead of one or two guys settling in and getting in a groove (My Man Mikel, anyone?), we enter the second half of the season without one running back averaging even 7 carries per game.  You read that right.  Daniel Dufrene leads this stable of tailbacks with 6.5 carries per game.  Promises, promises, knowing I’d believe…

Terry Hawthorne was promised playing time to keep him away from Oklahoma.  So we’ve put him at wide receiver, cornerback, safety, and kick return in order to deliver on that promise. So many positions, so little development of this fantastic talent. Black…. ca..

Which leads me to this: promises are the problem.  Zook is not only a fantastic salesman on the living room couch, he’s a fantastic salesman on the practice field.  85 players, every one of them happy.  Every one being told how they will factor in some day.  Every one watching his plate start to wobble, hoping Zook will come by and spin it again.

I’m starting to (finally) see that the emperor, indeed, does not own clothes.  That you actually can screw up a 95.83% probability by continuing the fluff and avoiding the tough.  That when something is seemingly falling into place, it can fall apart just as quickly when it’s built on empty promises.  Each week over the past month, when Ron Zook faces the cameras and looks me in the eye and promises me “they’re gonna get this thing fixed”, he retreats behind the curtain with no idea how to do that.  His fatal flaw was hiring assistants like himself – a secondary sales force instead of a product development team.

So there I am.  Speaking of my favorite Illini Football coach in past tense.  Realizing that Florida fans were right.  Taking my rightful place at the hallway ironing board of the college football Thanksgiving dinner.

We’re Illinois, and we can’t be trusted.