gatnom

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 19, 2013 -> 02:17 PM) My worry continues to be the cap space...in this sense. Long is, IMO, likely to get close to $10 million a year. Maybe more, just off of how much people will pay for O-line help. If that's the case, the Bears will not have the room to sign both him and Melton (along with the cap holds). So, are you willing to let Melton walk in order to sign long? Create a D-line weakness to shore up the O-Line? I think you have to as well. The Bears are going to have to start winning games with offense sooner rather than later, and the only way to do that is to fix this O-line. In my experience, you really just don't pick up a good left tackle picking in the 20's most years, which basically leaves free agency as the only option.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jan 15, 2013 -> 07:54 PM) I think from a certain point of view that this is actually backwards, that KW was the conservative one and Hahn is the gamblers. KW traded away unproven prospects for proven veterans. I don't care how good the prospect is they are still suspect until they prove it at the MLB level. So KW was trading the gamble for the proven player. Hahn on the other hand seems willing to hold on to everyone and gamble that either the players will improve or that his prospects will come through. Again it's still too early to say it for sure but it appears he is patient and willing to wait for the right deal and not afraid to go into the season with his own players. Thus KW is the more conservative (going more with the proven player) while Hahn is gambling on unproven players. I really hate this line of thinking. ALL players are gambles on some level or another. Dunn was one of the most consistent players in the majors for nearly a decade, and as soon as he comes here he falls off a cliff. Alex Rios is also a "proven" MLB player. How much faith do you have that he will be worth $12.5 million next year? Veterans are less likely to outright bust (at least in the early years of their contracts), but are significantly more damaging when they do. It's also pretty unlikely that they ever significantly outperform their contracts in the way a prospect can. You need to achieve some sort of balance if you wish to have some measure of sustained success.

Plus, pretty much the only players who have value are the young guys we're already building around, so we'd probably be further away from contention by going full rebuild right now. If we had some unretainable veterans about to hit free agency, you might have an argument for rebuilding, but as of right now I don't see anybody lining up for Alex Rios and Gavin Floyd...

QUOTE (danman31 @ Dec 23, 2012 -> 02:48 PM) Griffey made just about every big shot Illinois had last night. I think it's pretty clear D.J. Richardson was the goat. He had some of the worst shot selection you'll see. Griffey did what Griffey does. Shot well from behind the arc and did nothing else particularly well. Richardson was awful.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 17, 2012 -> 09:56 AM) I just wish we would have folded earlier so we can get a nice draft pick. We NEED OL and LB, most importantly an Urlacher replacement. Knowing our luck, we'll pick two spots too late and end up with Chris Williams instead of Ryan Clady again.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 16, 2012 -> 04:13 PM) Sometimes you need your QB to step up and make a play, or to have a game where he doesn't make the big mistake(s). Jay Cutler has shown no ability to do those when he's facing a tough challenge. I just don't think he has it to carry the team. You can still win with a QB like that, but you have to build around him and try to turn him into a manager. Basically, stop letting Cutler make the big mistake. I thought Cutler looked pretty good last year making something from nothing. I'm not saying that he's great or anything, but he has, albeit briefly, "stepped up" in the past.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Dec 1, 2012 -> 11:19 PM) So I was watching Mankind: The Story of All of Us, and they said that Genghis Khan raped so many women, that 1 in 200 males today is a distant relative of his. Sure enough, someone did a study and can actually make this argument. And we thought Wilt was dirty. It's good to be the king.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Nov 24, 2012 -> 02:00 PM) It cant get worse than this. If you know hes not the right guy you ditch him. Someone else could surely turn recruiting around in less than 4 years. I don't think you can know right now that he's not the guy, but I don't really want to start that argument. I'm just saying that if I were an up and coming coach, I wouldn't touch Illinois with a thirty-nine and a half foot pole right now.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Nov 24, 2012 -> 01:50 PM) Meh, college coaches tend to be pretty confident individuals and if a guy is getting 5 or 6 times his current salary he will take a shot. I wouldn't be looking at current D1 head coaches because we won't be able to get anyone good from those ranks, look to assistant coaches like Monken from Oklahoma St. or coaches from the lower ranks that are proven winners and go that route (if OSU was willing to hire Tressel there is no reason Illinois can't take a similar approach). There are a lot of capable coaches out there, go out and find one. I'm just saying that firing Beckman means 4 straight bad to terrible recruiting classes... It'd be tough for anybody to succeed in that scenario.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Nov 24, 2012 -> 01:17 PM) He shouldn't get a second year. This team only has a handful of good football players but it is incredibly obvious that Beckman is a bad football coach. Who would be dumb enough to take the job?

QUOTE (Jake @ Oct 28, 2012 -> 11:21 AM) I could never figure out why we didn't just keep Zook as the head coach in name...let him recruit...and get someone else to run the show on gameday. Besides the fact that it would never work, Zook actually couldn't recruit the last two years of his tenure.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Oct 27, 2012 -> 06:39 PM) I know it's not unheard of. And I was one of the last people here, or elsewhere, to really become disappointed with TB and the staff. I want to believe he can get the job done, and I'm really not the "fire the coach!!!!" guy. And I'm not saying that yet, but this is pretty disheartening. Week after week after week. Same mistakes, same sloppy ass football, I'm seeing no signs of life, no signs of being competent (at least on the field, recruiting is a different story but that's not the top issue right now). There hasn't been reason to really have any hope that things can be turned around. That's the worst part right now. It's not even the fact that we're losing, or not making a bowl game. It's how we're doing all of this. This is a reasonable take on the situation. I think my main thoughts on the whole situation are that even if we kept Zook, we would still be having a losing season right now, IMO. Assuming Koenning stayed as well, our defense would probably be a lot better, but still noticeably worse than last season because we lost some of our better players and have had some key injuries. We went after coaches like Sumlin willing to pay millions per year, and we ended up with Tim Beckman. Unfortunately, that's where our program is right now. Hopefully, the recruits he brings in are good enough to overcome the coaching. At the very least, he shouldn't leave the next coach without an offensive line or defensive backs.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Oct 27, 2012 -> 06:06 PM) Show me something from him that makes you feel good about the future. And if you can do that, list another few. Would love to see this list. Making excuses of injuries and talent is great, but what makes you feel good about this staff? It's been f***ing clown college, period. There's no way IU has more talent than UI, so talent, which you keep going back to, is not an excuse. And correct me if I'm wrong, isn't IU without their starting QB as well? We gave them what 17+ points? We should have won today. Unfortunately, the team did what it has done best for awhile now (into the Zook era) and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Can the current coaching staff be expected to have all of our old problems fixed in one year? Our current recruiting class is currently ranked 36th by Scout and 27th by Rivals. We'll see how many kids he can keep on, but recruiting was the real strength of this staff when it was put together. He also seems to have more of a plan with regards to recruiting instead of just ignoring things like defensive backs and offensive tackles. It's also hard to know just how good our offensive staff is because of how bad our line has been. From the sounds of things, the players are having a hard time moving on from the last staff and buying into the current one. 2-3 things is all I can come up with. Maybe they fire the DC. All I know is Beckman is going to be here for a few years, so I'm going to give him a chance. It's not unheard of for a new coach to have a bad year to start out.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Oct 27, 2012 -> 05:51 PM) What exactly is your point, that we should be satisfied with this? We lost to f***ing IU at home after an open week. Sorry for having such "high" expectations expecting more than 2 wins this year, with one being against a high school team, and not to be blown out by almost every real team, and show some sort of clue in the coaching department. Yeah, way off there, don't know what I was thinking. Well, at the very least s***ting on your first year head coach isn't going to help anything. I expected 6 wins myself. The DC has been horrible, and I hope they fire him after the season. However, you can't deny that we've had a lot of injuries, and a lot of Zook's best talent has already left the team (or never even arrived). How high above IU do you see UI?

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Oct 27, 2012 -> 05:42 PM) Were getting 2 wins, getting blown out, and not improving. I have no idea what the f*** you are talking about. You weren't aware of the injuries? Or, the lack of talent?

I don't get Illinois fans. We had almost no talent ready to replace the players who left the program after last year, and the schedule got more difficult. The highest expectations couldn't have been much more than 6 wins. I didn't expect Illinois to be this bad, but I also didn't expect Illinois to be good. And, with the amount of injuries we've had, it's kind of hard to expect much more than we've gotten.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Oct 27, 2012 -> 12:14 PM) Well Illinois is clearly the more physically gifted team and is dominating the game except for their numerous expected stupid decisions and plays. That's Ron Zook for you.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Oct 6, 2012 -> 05:11 PM) Can we fire Beckman yet? No.

Looks like Wisconsin will cover the spread after all.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Oct 6, 2012 -> 04:37 PM) Wow, Illinois just took one up the ass from the refs. This is a f***ing joke. That was a clear fumble and recovery by Illinois. Not to mention the free 15 yards they got from the "illegal" hit.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Oct 4, 2012 -> 07:22 PM) CPS/Simeon connections are getting much stronger. Hopefully, they can get Charles Matthews out of St. Rita in a few years (connected with the Meanstreets). It would be cool to have somebody from my Alma Mater playing basketball at U of I. Although, who knows how good he will be in a few years. It's so hard to project high school players, especially since so many from Chicago get overhyped early on.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Sep 29, 2012 -> 02:58 PM) If that was the case he would of left from the get go and it wouldn't of been a drawn out process, he pretty much was uninvited by Beckman. I don't think either of us are close enough to the program to know that. All I know is that he was offered the job from the get go, and he decided to go elsewhere. Beckman has been looking very poor in the coaching department so far, but I think a lot of people overestimate where Zook left the team as well.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Sep 29, 2012 -> 01:15 PM) It's tough to watch this year and I'm pissed we didn't keep our defensive coordinator from Zook's squad. It's football so have to give him at least 2 years but disappointing season. The defensive coordinator wanted to leave.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Sep 26, 2012 -> 09:31 PM) I don't know if anyone here plays WoW, personally I don't, but I was wondering if anyone could explain the Kung fu panda motif they have going on I am seeing in the commercials In either warcraft 3 or its expansion, one of the neutral heroes you could pick up from a mercenary shop was a "pandaren brewmaster" which could be construed as a kung fu panda (though wc3 came out 5+ years before the movie). I think they are putting in the monk class too, so it probably just goes hand in hand.

QUOTE (Brian @ Sep 15, 2012 -> 03:21 PM) I still wouldn't get too excited fom what I have seen from him in high school. Not like he is bringing Jabari with. The quotes from his father make it sound like he's bringing Demetrius Jackson with, though.