Yesterday I celebrated the beginning of the Illini football season by starting a blog post looking at the 12 coaches Ron Zook will stare down - and no doubt intimidate - on the opposite sideline this season. Unexpected fatherly duties prevented me from finishing that post before the start of yesterday's game.
Today I'll complete the post, starting with the third game of the season.
3. Sept. 17 v. Arizona St. - Dennis Erickson
Erickson likely needs no introduction. He's twice coached in the NFL (for the Seahawks and the Niners) but hasn't done all that well (40-56). His greatest stretch came as the head coach for Miami (so dirty) in the early '90s where he won two national championships. Still, as anyone who watched The U knows, those were really Jimmy Johnson's teams. His more impressive accomplishment is turning around the Oregon St. Beavers in the late '90s-early '00s, leading them to a top 5 finish in the 2000 season. He has ASU clicking on many cylinders at the moment and will present a strong challenge to the Zooker. In dispatching Erickson, the Zooker might actually break a sweat.
4. Sept. 24 v. Western Michigan - Bill Cubit
Cubit played WR for Delaware in the '70s before starting his coaching career in the mid-80s as defensive backs coach at Central Florida. He bounced around for awhile, eventually rising to offensive coordinator for several D-1 schools (Mizzou, Rutgers, Stanford) before taking the head job at Western Michigan in 2005. Cubit has been a nemesis of Zook's in the past, drawing blood with a victory over the Illini in 2008. No doubt Zook is now wise to Cubit's non-BCS guerilla tactics, and can counter them with the might of his BCS-bred heavy cavalry (Ford, Young, Ferguson, Prosch, Pocic, Thornton, Cornell).
5. Oct. 1 v. Northwestern - Pat Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald, the second-youngest coach in all of D-1 football, rose to fame as a stud LB for Northwestern in the mid-90s. After serving 5 seasons as Northwestern LB coach, he was promoted to head coach in 2006 following the sad death of Randy Walker. He's had marginal success at Northwestern, primarily the result of cupcake non-conference scheduling. He suffered a near-mortal wound at Zook's hands last November at Wrigley Field, as Zook's boys ran up over 300 yards rushing in a dominant Illini victory. With that beatdown fresh in his mind, I wouldn't be surprised if Fitzgerald doesn't even show up for this season's game.
6. Oct. 8 at Indiana - Kevin Wilson
The long-time assistant at several schools, Wilson is in his first year as head coach at Indiana. He apprenticed for 19 years at various schools under the now-deceased former Miami (OH) and Northwestern coach, Randy Walker, and more recently worked under Bob Stoops at Oklahoma. In his short tenure at Indiana he has shown both steely resolve (winning the recruiting battle for Gunnar Kiel) and total ineptitude (losing yesterday to Ball St.). Knowing Zook, he will not show any mercy on Wilson, even if it is the guy's first season at the Hoosier helm. I wish Wilson luck.
7. Oct. 15 v. Ohio St. - Luke Fickell
I won't deny this fact: Fickell looked impressive on the sideline Saturday during the Buckeyes win over Akron. Fickell played nose guard for the Buckeyes in the mid-90s, starting 50 consecutive games, including the '97 Rose Bowl where he played despite having a torn pectoral muscle. Not only that, he seems to be handling the current adversity in Columbus with aplomb. The Zooker may have his hands full with this young warrior from the Land of Buckeye.
8. Oct. 22 at Purdue - Danny Hope
Hope spent several years jumping around as an offensive line coach (including time at Purdue) and then five years as the head coach at Eastern Kentucky before joining the Boilermakers for the 2008 season as Joe Tiller's assistant head coach. He took over for Tiller a year later and now, in his third season, has basically run the program into the ground. Yes, that is an exaggeration, but the Zooker should have little trouble with Hope this season.
9. Oct. 29 at Penn St. - Joe Paterno
Who? I don't think I've heard of this guy. And I can't find anything written about him online or elsewhere in the press. This guy is a total unknown.
10. Nov. 12 vs. Michigan - Brady Hoke
A round, pudgy-looking guy, Hoke has never coached a game for Michigan (at least as the head coach) that wasn't called due to severe weather. Hoke is an old school guy who spent 8 years as a Michigan defensive assistant before taking head coaching jobs at Ball St., San Diego St., and now Michigan. I've said from day one that this was a good hire for Michigan, and nothing I saw yesterday changed that fact. Except for the fact he apparently can't control lightning. Zook can control lightning. Advantage Zooker.
11. Nov. 19 vs. Wisconsin - Bret Bielema
I'm going to go ahead and announce Bielema as the Zooker's archnemesis. Bielema played LB for Iowa, and then joined the Hawkeyes as an assistant coach for nine years. He spent one year as the co-DC at Kansas St. before joining Wisconsin as the DC in 2004. Barry Alvarez named Bielema as his successor in 2005, and Bielema has been riding the coattails of Alavarez's work for the past five years. Bielema may be an okay coach, but he has no business running a program as successful as Wisconsin has been the past few years. It's time for Bielema's wake up call and the Zooker is just the man to do it.
12. Nov. 26 at Minnesota - Jerry Kill
This guy won at Saginaw Valley St., he won at Southern Illinois, he won at Northern Illinois, and he almost pulled the upset in his debut game for Minnesota on the road at Southern Cal. He also beat kidney cancer. And his last name is "Kill." I like this guy. I may feel the slightest bit of remorse when Zook steps on his neck this coming Thanksgiving weekend.
It's going to be a great season.
