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You mention the Penn State game from last year. Man, that has to be one of the more maddening losses a hundred ways over. We really outplayed them, were on about the 2 yard line at end of the first half and came away with no points, our super reliable kicker misses a kick at the end, as you mention, a critical pass interference is called that really changes the game on a play that could have gone either way, JoePa gets his win record and days later the Sandusky affair starts to go public. Not to mention it would have been a much needed road win against a good team. Ugh – one of the more maddening losses of recent memory. A win there may have realigned what was becoming a derailment of a season.

And to finish Grogs thought, without the pass interference, we may still have Zook. So is the call still maddening if it led to us to Beckman?

@ Grogs, concur that the loss was brutal. i remember Robert’s recording as he watched the final plays. just brutal – like an exercise in self-loathing. I had a PSU grad/friend text me as soon as we missed the FG at the end and say “Take That!” That brought a smile to my face. We are Illinois football – we can’t be trusted.
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big time silver lining – it was another data point that helped push Ron Zook out the door. if Zook had stayed in charge i think we were 1 or 2 seasons away from a Ron Turner like collapse based on how badly we were recruiting, particularly in the state of Illinois. This is arguably the best class in Illinois prep history and we missed on many a guy at positions of serious need. I blame that on Ron Zook.

i think more people know about Green than you give credit. IMO his name would be as, if not more easily recognized than say, Spence, hull, or sanni.

Ranger…..Robert’s “we can’t be trusted” label never seems far away. In his now famous pre-Rantoul post, the excited train guy screaming “OMG! Listen to that horn! She’s beautiful!” seems quite the antithesis of what we’ve come to expect over the years. Last falls Penn State game however is much more Illini-like….brutal penalties, barely missed Illini field goal. No different than an opposing 300 pound offensive lineman catching a tipped extra point pass to beat us in a previous year. Sticking with the excited train theme, we’ve become much more accustomed to results like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBBK2hjcPuA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

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Yeah, I do agree with you guys that it helped put another nail in Zook’s proverbial coffin so in the end it was for “the greater good”. But just as a stand alone event when you’re watching your team and just flat out rooting for them, it was a kick in the marbles. A feeling that is not as unfamiliar as it should be with Illini football.

One of the reasons that I love this blog is that Robert lays it all out there – you get all the emotion, the good and the bad. I think my favorite thing on this blog is Robert’s post-NU victory update from the stands. We were on top of the world after that one. I thought we were a lock for 9-3 or better. Then it all began to unravel, as we should have known it would.
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The biggest challenge Tim Beckman will face is changing the losing culture of this program. Nobody has cracked that code since the slush fund scandal. White came the closest, but he started to derail towards the end. I wouldn’t say Mackovic stuck around long enough to do it despite more consistent success then White had. The Tepper, Turner, Zook eras have been just AWFUL for us. A solid 20 years of mediocrity punctuated by two improbable seasons. Quick fact – since the 2000 bowl victory over Virginia we have had TWO WINNING REGULAR SEASONS!!!! That just boggles the mind. And people wonder why we can’t get more than 35k fans in the seats.
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Can Beckman change us from loathing losers to winners? I hope so.

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Tepper and Zook were bad hires. It put people who are clearly coordinators at their maximum capacity (and maybe really position coaches at the ideal capacity – that’s more of a Zook comment BTW) and assumed they would make good head coaches (clearly Florida did that for Zook, not us, but we caught a “falling” Ron Zook – assuming Florida’s castoffs were good enough for us). They should never have been head coaches. The Turner hire took a guy who was accustomed to the NFL and threw him into college. The college-to-NFL or NFL-to-college switch seems to rarely work. At least the Beckman hire takes a somewhat proven college coach and bumps him up to a higher echelon in the college ranks. I think it could really work out. If it doesn’t, I don’t think the reason swill be as obvious as they appear to be in retrospect with Tepper, Turner and Zook.

@ Grogs,
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Agreed on the Beckman as better fit. I think that even if it doesn’t work out it doesn’t work out in a “man we’re 7-5 all the time and want to make a move up,” instead of a “holy crappin’ crap we’re a 1-11 dumpster fire!” kind of way.
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What are your thoughts on Mike Thomas? I am a big fan. I think he’s going about improving the DIA in the right way.

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I do like Mike Thomas. I like the way he decided that, dammit, we’re bringing in proven head coaches. I think being a head coach is a very unique gig that not everyone can do. It takes a skill set that is quite different from being able to just coach an aspect of a sport well. You have to delegate, recruit, manage egos, etc. – and then still coach. I was dreading bringing in an unproven assistant coach for the bball team or the latest hotshot coordinator from some other school for our football team.
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I think the flak that M Thomas took for the “apparent” clumsy Groce hire turned out to be all runaway media rumors in the end. Hey, he tried to get Shaka Smart and Stevens at about the highest money that made sense. They didnt’ want the job – not much more he can do. I would have been more unhappy if we got Smart or Stevens and paid something crazy like $4 mil a year. I personally think both of them need to strike while the iron is hot. My prediction is that you won’t even remember Shaka Smart’s name in 3 years, but whatever. But yeah, I like Mike Thomas. Much better than Guenther. And Guenther used to live in my neighborhood.

I made the trip from Chicago to State College for the game last year. While the tailgate in the snow was among my favorite moments relating to my Illini travels,
the game itself was a pure gut punch.

The botched hold by Tim Russell, the phanton PI call against Justin Green, being under attack from flying snowballs leading up to, and including, Derek Dimke’s field goal miss made for a very long car ride home (after we thawed out of course)

My Justin Green memory is the 2.4 seconds when I thought we were actually going to lose to Northwestern on a Fitzee-designed trick play with no time left on the clock. Northwestern receiver all alone on the far side of the field, blockers everywhere, OH HAI JUSTIN!

Great post as usual Robert.

Sorry to get off of football but have you checked out the ESPN’s college basketball 50 for 50 Rankings? Illinois comes in at #33. Their methodology may not be perfect however I generally think we’ve underacheived in both major sports, would love to see that change with the new coaches.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/tag/_/name/50-in-50-series