Denial

I’m at work, minding my own business, checking my email, taking the occasional cursory glance at Illini message boards.  And there it was.

Guh. Sanni out for the season.

You know that tingly feeling you get when you realize that you forgot to email the client and you’re boss isn’t going to talk to you for 2 days?  Kinda starts in your shoulders and works it’s way up your neck?  That was me.  It’s one of those rare times where my emotions out-pace my brain.  I’m feeling the physical reactions of my parasympathetic nervous system, but my brain is trying to keep up.

“Wait – what? Does this mean Supo Sanni, or some other Sanni?  It’s probably Supo – wait, is it confirmed he’s out for the year? This might just be an opinion on how long he’s out.  Torn achilles? Well, until I see the torn achilles MRI for myself…”

Anger

It’s real.  He’s out for the year.  The ONE position where we couldn’t afford an injury, and we lose a starter.  Had I done a preview of the safety position for 2010 last December, it would have included the names Garrett Edwards, Corey Cooper, Walt Aikens, Trulon Henry, Supo Sanni, Daniel Easterly, and Tommie Hopkins.  Now, it’s only Henry (and converted cornerback turned safety turned cornerback and now turned safety again Travon Bellamy).  My brain has caught up.

Is this some kind of cruel JOKE?  Is there some evil force working against Illini football?  We could probably recoup from losing a wide receiver, or losing a linebacker.  But SAFETY?  Are you KIDDING?

And you know what else?  You know what cruel irony has settled upon this situation?  Our best option at safety right now? NATHAN SCHEELHAASE.  Things have gotten so bad that the best safety on the roster is OUR STARTING QUARTERBACK!! WHY DO YOU HATE ME, FOOTBALL GODS?!?!?

Bargaining

So I emailed Doug.

I can’t even breathe, dude.

Deathblow. Absolute deathblow.

We’ve now lost SIX safeties since November (Cooper decommitted, Easterly decommitted, Edwards neck ended his career, Hopkins left school, Aikens kicked out, Sanni injured).

You don’t lose 6 players from your weakest position, shuffle players around, and be fine. You just don’t.

Doug’s response:

Short term this is an absolute killer. Longer term moving Green to CB
allows Hawthorne to FS, Henry as the run stopper and
Tavon on the strong corner. That is a terrific starting lineup.

Hold on a second. Wait one cotton-pickin’ Ron Zook creatine-infused minute. Doug might be on to something here.

Justin Green using his speed to stick with DeVier Posey, Tavon Wilson locking down Dane Sanzenbacher, Trulon Henry making Jake Stoneburner regret coming over the middle, and Terry Hawthone in centerfield, picking off Terrelle Pryor and then outracing him down the sideline.  I like it. Wait, I like it a lot.

As a Rams fan, I was devastated when Rodney Harrison took out a dull pocketknife and sliced up Trent Green’s ACL in 1999.  But then unknown nobody Kurt Warner took over and led the Rams to a Super Bowl title.  IN FACT, the last time I remember my parasympathetic nervous system kicking it like this was when I heard about Trent Green’s injury.  WAIT – I THINK THAT INJURY WAS IN LATE AUGUST WOULDN’T IT BE SOME SORT OF COSMIC SIGN JUST FOR ME IF THEY BOTH HAPPENED THE SAME DAY…”

Depression

But we’re Illinois Football, and we can’t be trusted.  Despite being the flagship university of the 5th largest state in the Union – I don’t see the flagship schools from California or Texas  (or Florida) (or Pennsylvania) (or Ohio) (or Michigan) (or Georgia) struggling – we’ve been mostly awful at football for the majority of my life.  Sure, we get a few Sugar and Rose highs, but we’ve never been able to sustain it.

So we’ve resigned ourselves to begging for bowls.  I just want a seat at the table.  I just want to say to my Razorback coworker, “Hey, I saw a bowl projection the other day that had Arkansas vs. Illinois in the Gator Bowl”.  College football is a fantastic party, and we just want an invitation.

But it never comes.  The new coaches and schemes (plus, you know, August Syndrome) had me convinced that 6 wins was really possible.  Dallas Football Classic – here we come!

And then a starter at our thinnest position – the position that could kill what looked like a promising defense – tears his Achilles.  OF COURSE he did.  We’ll never win.  I’ll always look like a fool to my Missouri-fan friends (to Missouri fans!).

Torn Achilles.  OF COURSE it’s a torn Achilles.  Our defense is susceptible at one spot, and the struggled-before-but-looks-promising-now player at that position goes down with an Achilles.  Of course.

Acceptance

More will come later – I’m not sure I can convince my brain to leave the depression stage at this point – but I need to turn to acceptance.  Injuries happen.  For every team. And they will continue to happen for every team.  It’s part of the game, and you feel bad for the kid, but you pick up and move on.

And hey, I did rank the defense from 1 to 11 the other day.  Let’s revisit that:

1. Corey Liuget
2. Terry Hawthorne
3. Tavon Wilson
4. Martez Wilson
5. Clay Nurse
6. Ian Thomas
7. Nate Bussey
8. Michael Buchanan
9. Trulon Henry
10. Akeem Spence
11. Supo Sanni

If you’re gonna lose a guy from the defense, lose the guy you ranked 11th, right?

Wrong.  He was 11th because he was completely inexperienced.  And now we’ll replace him with someone who really struggled to pick up the safety position.  So much so that we had chosen to go with the inexperienced guy (Sanni) over the experienced-yet-struggled guy (Bellamy).  And the rest of our secondary is really, really green.

But our secondary is also now really, really Green.  And with speed like Hawthorne and Green back there, our defense could look pretty good in a few years.  And hey, we were playing for 2011 anyway, right?  This year got a little bit uglier, but the prospect for the 2011 defense might have gotten a little bit rosier.  This is what it is.  A poorly timed injury, but in the long run, we’re even, and we might even come out ahead.

One more thing.  Says right here they’re looking to move Steve Hull to safety.

STEVEHULL!