Listen or Download

Easy Posts are when I join someone on the radio or on a podcast and I can just come over here and be all “hey go listen to me talk”.  This is another one of those.

I had the opportunity to join Eric Loy on WDAN (Danville) this week to talk some Groce and some spring ball.  Link of the audio is below.  The end.

Hey go listen to me talk

See you at the spring game tomorrow.

I’m wearing Orange on Saturday.  Because I’m totally pulling for the Orange team.  Because I’m a total front-runner.

They held a draft last night for the spring game rosters, and here are the results.  Because I’m a humble public servant, I will now break down what I believe will be the starting lineups for each team.

Orange Offense

QB: Scheelhaase
RB: Young – Days
OL: Cvijanovic – Hill – Pocic – Sands – Flavin
TE: Davis
WR: Whitlow – Rock – Frysinger

Blue Defense

DL: Staples – Howe – Teitsma – Denmark
LB: Cooper – Brown – As. Williams
CB: Hawthorne – Ramsey
S: Thomas – North

And when we’re going the other way…

Blue Offense

QB: O’Toole
RB: Ferguson – Becker
OL: McDowell – Thornton – Feldmeyer – Karras – Heitz
TE: Viliunas
WR: Lankford – Harris – An. Williams

Orange Defense

DL: Buchanan – A. Spence – Foster – Kynard
LB: Bates – Dickinson – Fuller
CB: Green – E. Spence
S: Hull – PNY

Orange defense for the win. That’s how I see this game breaking down. Green offensive linemen like Scott McDowell, Jake Feldmeyer, and Teddy Karras having to stop a defensive line of Buchanan, Foster, Spence, and Kynard. Goooood luck.

Here’s the match-up problems I see. Yes, match-up problems. During a spring game. Leave me alone.

+ First off, both Supo Sanni and Darius Millines are injured, so that’s a big blow to the Blue team.  (Which really isn’t a blow because they were probably picked last since they can’t play but LET ME HAVE MY FUN.) I also heard that walkon-I-keep-talking-about Ben Mathis is injured as well.  So that moves freshman Nick North in at safety next to Earnest Thomas (who was a linebacker last year).  Orange team quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase is licking his chops.

+ Also, before we go further, the format: No kickoffs (too many injuries) and all punts will be fair-caught.  So my hopes of seeing special teams awesomeness are already shot.  All drives after scores will start at the 30, and all drives after punts will start at the spot of the catch.  They’ll kick field goals, but without a rush.  And the second half will have a running clock.  Oh, and it might rain.  BUT YOU SHOULD STILL TOTALLY GO.

+ As I said above, I think the Orange defensive line dominates the game.  A freshman offensive tackle trying to stop Mike Buchanan? Green center Jake Feldmeyer attempting to hold off Akeem Spence?  I predict a lot of time for the Orange DL in the blue backfield.

+ I also think the Orange offense will be able to throw on the Blue D.  North, Thomas, and Ramsey trying to contain a 4-wide offensive set?  I think that’s advantage Orange O.  Of course, the Blue D does have Terry Hawthorne, so maybe he can cover the entire secondary on his own.  Seriously – he might be able to shut down an entire side of the field.  Because he is the Black Cat.

+ One place where I think the Blue Team had a big advantage is at linebacker.  Bad News Brown and Ashante Williams, both starters, get to play with Ralph Cooper (a sophomore linebacker you’ll like).  On the Orange side, it’s Henry Dickinson sliding over to MLB flanked by Houston Bates and true-freshman-early-enrollee TaJarvis Fuller.  Maybe Reilly O’Toole and the Blue offense can exploit the inexperienced linebackers on the Orange team.  Or maybe Reilly won’t have time to even think about exploiting a soft spot with Akeem Spence and Mike Buke in his face.

+ One thing I’d really like to see: Nathan hooking up with Jon Davis and Matt LaCosse early and often.  Maybe even Justin Lattimore, too.  Tight End is our deepest position on the field, so I’m anxious to see how Gonzales/Beatty will utilize them.  We need a nickname for our co-offensive coordinators.  Beatzales?  Gonztty?  How about GonzoBeat.  That’s it right there.  I’m curious to see how GonzoBeat will utilize our tight ends.

+ Looking over these rosters one more time to see if I missed anything, I do see that all of the receiver experience is on the Blue team.  Reilly O’Toole probably has more weapons at his disposal than Nate (and he gets Josh Ferguson, too, who will probably get more play than a coming-off-an-injury Donovonn Young, so that’s another plus).  Maybe I’m selling the Blue team short here.

+ Proposed MVP’s:

Offense: Miles Osei
Defense: Michael Buchanan

I’m not sure if the touch sack rule will be in effect (I’m guessing it will, as they’ll try to protect Nate and Reilly), but if it is, I think Michael Buchanan can get his hand on Reilly about 7 times. Maybe 2 of them would be actual sacks during the season, but the touch sack rule makes it easy on defensive linemen to make play after play.  Just have to reach out and touch someone.

I picked Osei because I’m anxious to see how they’ll use him.  I like Miles Osei with the ball in his hands, so I’m hoping tomorrow is a bit of a coming out party, with a few runs here and a few screen passes there.  Did I just say tomorrow?  Yes I did.  I got so amped up writing this that it felt like a Friday night Stream of Consciousness post for a second there.  I’m hoping Saturday is the coming out party for Osei.  And I’m hoping it doesn’t rain.  And I’m hoping my team wins.

Only Orange.

ZOMG Spring Game in four days!  I have put Bruce Weber to bed on his cute little purple pillow and I’m ready to talk football.  Specifically, the Spring Game.  More specifically, Everything I Want To Learn On Saturday But Probably Won’t Because They’ll Keep The Playbook Simple So As To Not Give Anything Away About This Offense Before The Season Opener.

And I’m serious about that.  We probably won’t learn anything from this game because of two things: 1) the aforementioned closed playbook, and 2) they’re drafting “teams” for this, so you’ll see the first string offensive tackle lined up next to the third string walk-on offensive guard.  Some defensive lineman will have a huge game, and many will claim him to be the star of the show and the next breakout player, but most likely he’ll simply have dominated an inferior, green opposing lineman.  Sorry to ruin your buzz.

But you should still TOTALLY GO.  Because it’s Illini football, and everything’s new, and some defensive lineman just might have a huge game.  Here’s four questions I want answered in this game-that-won’t-answer-any-questions:

1) Do we have any depth in the secondary?

Four “starters” return.  I say “starters” because even though Justin Green got starter minutes at corner last year, he wasn’t technically a starter (Tavon Wilson was).  But we were in a 5-DB set the vast majority of the time, so Green is a “starter” in my book.  And with Hawthorne and Green potentially making up the best Illini corner tandem in quite some time, plus two starters returning at safety from a defense that was 3rd nationally in passing defense last year, things are looking up for the defense.

But what if there’s an injury?  Because there are always injuries.  What players are ready to step in and play?  And with three of these guys graduating this fall (Hawthorne, Green, and Sanni), I’d also like to see what the future looks like.

So on Saturday, I’ll probably watch more Eaton Spence than any other player on the field.  With Valdon Cooper having transferred and Jack Ramsey (another backup corner) also injured, Eaton Spence is pretty much a lock to start in 2013.  Saturday is our first chance to see if he’ll be ready for that.

I’m also looking for safeties.  Who backs up Sanni and Hull?  Is Earnest Thomas a safety now or his he bouncing between S and OLB?  Can my boy Ben Mathis go from walkon to 2013 starter?  What about Nick North or that preferred walkon from the 2011 class, Austin Abner?  Who will be the future?

2) Who will be our utility infielder?

That’s an ALE original right there – utility infielder.  It’s the name I’m using for a position I’m anticipating.  I watched some extended highlights last night of Toledo’s game against Ohio State last year (because that’s what bloggers do at 1:15 in the morning).  In that game, Toledo’s all-everything player Eric Page was actually all-everything.  He split wide and went deep.  He lined up in the slot and ran crossing routes.  He lined up on the outside and caught WR screens.  He motioned into the backfield and took a handoff.  He caught screen passes.  He even took a snap in the shotgun and threw for a 2-point conversion.

I’m not saying our offense will be Toledo’s offense.  We might do more of what Billy Gonzales did at Florida and LSU, or even some things that Chris Beatty did at West Virginia and Vandy.  But in a lot of those offenses, and especially at Toledo, they had a utility guy (like Jeff Demps at Florida) who did a little bit of everything.  We’ve never had a guy like that.  So… do we have a guy like that?

Josh Ferguson is probably the most likely candidate, given that he’s small and dart-y with good speed.  But maybe some of our wide receivers can fill that kind of role.  (Sadly, we won’t get to see if Darius Millines can be that guy because he’s out with an injury.) Whoever it is, I’m anxious to see a few playmakers emerge on offense.

3) Will we see a difference on special teams?

Again, in a scrimmage, it’s hard to see improvement in these areas.  When the returner brings the kick back to the 44, you either have a vastly-improved return team or a porous coverage unit.  And splitting the squads will make this even harder to determine, because the final coverage and return teams won’t be playing next to each other.

But you can see differences in scheme and execution.  Especially in punting situations.  What will our punt coverage scheme look like?  How will we set up the blockers for a punt return?  I’m anxious to see what’s different from last year.  OK, and I’m anxious to see actual execution as well.

And kickers – will we see a kicker emerge on Saturday?  It’s a five-way battle at this point – sophomores Patrick Dunn and Nick Immekus, and freshmen Taylor Zalewski, Baron von Mieghem, and JJ Blau.  I did that from memory, by the way.  ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

So which kicker emerges?  I’m still in the “Immekus for kickoffs and Zalweski for place-kicking” camp, if only because that was my camp last summer and I have not one piece of new information since then.  That, and Tim Beckman tweeted that Zalewski won the kicking competition at practice last night by booting a 57 yarder followed by a 52 yarder.  So put me down for Team Zalewski.  We’ll have shirts and everything.  And then scholarship freshman Ryan Frain will win the job this summer.

(And yes, it’s “Brennen VanMieghem”, but he’ll always be Baron von Mieghem to me.)

4) Black….Cat..Black….Cat..

I want you all to know that every time I type that, I put in the correct spacing for the chant to match the Janet Jackson song.  Four dots after the Black, 2 dots after the Cat. If we were back in 7th grade band, and Mr. Lanewski were telling us how to count out the proper rhythm for Black Cat in 1-e-&-a 2-e-&-a style, it would be “Black-e-&-a-2-CAT-&-a Black-e-&-a-2-CAT-&-a”.  Thus, four beats after the Black, 2 after the Cat, repeat.  Tomorrow, we’ll cover other forms of syncopation.

The most exciting thing for me in all of Illini sports right now, more so than the new AD or the new football coach or the new basketball coach, is the fact that Tim Beckman plans to play Terry Hawthorne both ways this fall.  This is a topic so important in ALE history that it was covered in the very first post 3+ years ago.  I also dedicated one whole point of the 19 Point Plan to playing Terry Hawthorne both ways.  I’ve mentioned it several times over the years, the most recent being the day before spring practice opened a month ago.

So you can see why I broke into song at the news.  Three long years of waiting, and now my boy will get his chance.  He finally gets his chance to return kicks in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl… and he puts up 31 of our 70 total punt return yards in one game (yes, 12 games under Zook… 39 punt return yards. One game under Koenning with Hawthorne returning punts… 31 yards.)  Now, he finally gets a few plays on offense.  Possibly starting Saturday.

I’ll be the guy in the stands with a single tear running down his cheek.

Speak no ill of the dead. Focus on the future, not the past. All of these stop signs are in front of me, but I can’t not blow right past them. Bruce Weber keeps talking, lies keep being spun, and I have to say something. If you’re not interested in any of that, please stop reading. Tomorrow, I’m in full ZOMG SPRING GAME IN 5 DAYS mode. Tonight, truth paste.

The source of my unrest: this article. A simple article written by the Manhattan paper about their new coach and his history. With so many excuses and untruths that I simply must set the record straight. Please go read the article. If you agree with everything, here’s your second opportunity to stop reading. I’m serious – if this doesn’t interest you, just wait for tomorrow’s football post. Last chance. Here we go.

It was the morning of Feb. 11 when things took an ugly turn for Weber and the Illinois men’s basketball team. Mike Thomas, in his first year as the Illini athletics director, went on radio to answer questions from Illinois fans, and when Weber’s job security came into question, Thomas didn’t give his coach a vote of confidence.

“As I’ve always said, I will assess the situation at the end of the season,” Thomas said at the time. “I need to look at the total body of work and all of the things that come into play as far as making those decisions. Because those are important decisions and they affect a lot of people.”
The perception from coaches and college basketball analysts around the country was that Thomas made a critical mistake.

“Thomas is a new athletic director and everyone knew Bruce wasn’t his guy,” said ESPN college basketball analyst Doug Gottlieb. “Most people thought Bruce was on the hot seat, and even though we think that, it’s not really how you should handle it when you’re an AD.

“The moment he didn’t lend his support was the moment Illinois’ season torpedoed. It’s in direct correlation there. Somebody has to have your back even if they mean it or not. That sure as heck didn’t help.”

Completely false. I know Tom Izzo and Gene Keady and Doug Gottlieb and others keep repeating this, but it’s simply not. true. If Mike Thomas’ non-vote-of-confidence was a torpedo, then it was the dumbest torpedo in the history of maritime warfare, given that it was aimed at a ship that was already 90% under water.

How do I know? I lived it. So did you. We lived the last five years, four of which where the basketball team finished well below preseason expectations. Last year we were ranked #16 in mid-January, and then finished 20-14. This past season we were #22 in mid-January, and then finished 17-15. Mike Thomas had nothing to do with that.

This whole thing was very simple. A coach who had underperformed, and an athletic director who, after a season-sinking 5 of 6 losing streak with losses to Penn State, Minnesota, and Northwestern (at home), simply said “I’ll evaluate at the end of the season”, something that every athletic director on earth not named Ron Guenther would have done. He was sub-.500 in conference over six seasons at that point. That gets you fired at Wofford. And Mike Thomas was supposed to give him a vote of confidence? I seriously don’t understand.

“I think it’s so important to have support,” Weber said in an interview on Wednesday evening. “When you don’t have support I think you coach defensive, you coach not with the confidence you need to. It was hard. It was really hard on our kids more than anything.

“When the situation occurred I think we lost our spirit — the heart of our team. We kept battling. We battled every game. But it hurt the team — especially a young team that was very fragile. It just created a tough situation.”

Is it coach? It’s important to have support? “When the situation occurred” you think the team “lost their spirit”? Then please explain why you made these comments on February 15th, four days after Mike Thomas appeared on the radio.

“The sad thing about the whole thing, and I guess it’s my fault, is instead of creating toughness and developing a team, I coached not to lose all year,” Weber said.

“Instead of developing people, I’m worried about winning. Maybe sit Meyers down three weeks ago or a month ago or two months ago. And Brandon (Paul). But that’s my fault. You’ve got to develop a culture and I think the last three years all I did was worry about winning instead of developing a culture and a toughness. And that’s my fault.”

So let me make sure I’m following here. It was “hard on the kids” to hear that the athletic director said “I’ll evaluate the situation at the end of the season” (if they even heard about it), but it wasn’t hard on the kids for you to get in front of the press four days later and speak in past tense about the season that still had six more games on the schedule? Am I taking crazy pills? Does any of this make sense?

Just because Gene Keady and Tom Izzo keep saying that it was the AD’s fault, we’re all supposed to believe them and just nod our heads when it gets repeated? It’s patently false. But now even our former coach is saying it. And it’s so disingenuous that I can’t stay silent. Please, everyone, stop saying Mike Thomas sank the season. He didn’t. It’s just not true.

“The season was going along fine,” Kevin Stallings, the head coach of Vanderbilt, said in a phone interview with The Mercury. “When the lack of support became apparent in a very public way, then it affected his team and it affected him.

“From that point forward it became a very, very difficult proposition because he knew he didn’t have any support. Everything became more difficult and then it became very, very difficult for him. You can see the writing on the wall when you’re doing well and you don’t get public support.”

Great, we have to add Kevin Stallings to the list as well. This is some outstanding narrative control. Stunningly impressive, honestly. Can someone send this post to a Vandy beat writer? I want someone to ask Kevin Stallings this specific question: “If Mike Thomas ‘affected the team’ with his non-support, how do you feel Bruce Weber’s post-Purdue game comments four days later ‘affected the team’?”

“I spoke at a journalism professor’s class every year in the spring and the fall,” Weber said. “He wrote me a letter when we were going through the turmoil. He said ‘Coach, you screwed up. You did too well too early and you raised the expectations.’”

People close to Weber say those expectations, from the administration on down to the fans, simply became too difficult to replicate over his tenure at Illinois.

“I really think that this business is very, very difficult nowadays for a coach to be in one place for very long,” said Stallings, who just completed his 13th season as the head coach at Vanderbilt. “If you don’t have Tom Izzo-type success — it’s very difficult with the Internet and talk radio — eventually they’re going to focus on your warts, focus on the things that are negative.

“I think in Bruce’s case, he went there and set the bar at a level that Illinois had never known in their entire history of their program. And then he became a victim of his own success. He created his own monster with that success. I think that is more common these days than people would think and it’s really a shame.”

OK, I’m on Candid Camera. I have to be. Someone wrote this article simply to push all of my buttons and they’re now filming me as I contort my face and bang on the keyboard. Well, I guess I’ll give a good performance.

Illinois Basketball from 1984 to 1989: Elite Eight, Sweet Sixteen, Second Round, First Round, Second Round, Final Four.

Illinois Basketball during the Kruger and Self years: Second Round, Second Round, no tournament, Second Round, Elite Eight, Sweet Sixteen, Second Round.

And then Weber ran us to Sweet Sixteen, Final Four, Second Round. Did those seasons “raise the expectations”? If I’m really honest… maybe? Maybe going to the championship game – a height we hadn’t reached in our previous four Final Fours – cranked up expectations a notch?

But certainly not to the level being claimed here. Every Illini fan I know would say that Bill Self, through his recruiting and his performance in the conference (at at Assembly Hall, where I believe he only lost once), cranked up our expectations to “we could be a national program and inch towards elite”. I know not one person in my life who would say that Bruce Weber “raised the expectations” at Illinois. Every single one of them would say that Bill Self raised the expectations, and once Self’s players were gone, Weber failed to meet them.

OK, I can’t do any more quotes from that article. This whole thing feels gross. I hate writing this. I hate that our former coach is apparently so insecure that he’s trying to re-write the narrative of his Illinois years. I wish beyond anything in the world that he would own all of the issues raised in this article. I’d kill to hear him say “Eric Gordon? Honestly – I made some mistakes there in failing to land other guys like Evan Turner and failing to offer guys like Robbie Hummel.” Or “Mike Thomas’ comments? I was the one paid to win basketball games, and I just didn’t win enough to keep my job – I’m taking the lessons I learned from that and applying them to this basketball program here at Kansas State.”

If he says that, I’m fine. Even happy for him. It was very painful to watch his final press conference with his wife and daughters in the background, and I said at the time that I hope he meant what he said in the post-Purdue press conference, because if he did, then he’ll be successful at his next stop.

But he’s not saying that. He’s not owning any of it. He’s making excuses and trotting out false narrative. And possibly worst of all, he’s not owning the losses that got him fired. He was paid to win basketball games, he didn’t, so he lost his job. It’s that simple. Yet instead of learning from that, he’s saying things like this:

“I think we maybe took a little higher level of a player. Maybe we didn’t search out the toughness that you needed and that’s why we probably didn’t win the close games that we needed to (this past season).”

Wait. Didn’t he just say…

“You’ve got to develop a culture and I think the last three years all I did was worry about winning instead of developing a culture and a toughness. And that’s my fault.”

So which is it? The second feels like owning it – like a realization that in the end, it’s your job as the head coach to build a team, and you didn’t do that. The first feels like an excuse.

I’m going with B. Please go back to that one, coach. Own it, and we’re good. Spin it, and I won’t be able to not write eight more of these posts. I love this team too much to tolerate any untruths and spin. Especially those from a former coach.