Zook has plenty to ponder after having his worst recruiting class in Illinois
Ron Zook is known for his ability to recruit the nation’s top talent such as Juice Williams and Arrelious Benn. However, his demise, as fans will proclaim, has always been his coaching and play calling. Well it looks like his recruiting finally caught up to his coaching. This year, the Ilini finished the recruiting season with one of its worst classes ever. Rivals.com ranked the class at 70 while Scout.com had them a bit higher at 60. Even so, it was a poor showing for Zook and the Big 10.
An obvious explanation for the poor recruiting is the Illini’s record this past decade. Last season the Illini were a disdainful 3-9. During Zook’s five year tenure, he amassed a combined record of 18-30 (.375). In his defense, he inherited an awful team from Ron Tuner that went 3-8 in 2004. But regardless, these are hardly the numbers that sway top recruits.
Additionally, kids want to be on TV and win bowl games. The last bowl game Illinois won was the MicronPC bowl in 1999. The drought is taking its toll, not only on the fans, but on high school athletes that never see Illinois on TV and when they do, they usually get spanked.
The irony of this situation is Illinois is loaded with highly touted recruits, but wisely, they went elsewhere. This isn’t to say that the athletes that signed letters of intent with Zook are bad, but they are just not the blue chip athletes that other schools were able to nab.
With the change of player and coaching personnel, maybe Zook can turn his luck around. If he doesn’t, he may have to start working on his resume, because he will get booed out of Memorial Stadium faster than a cork shoots out of a champagne bottle.
