Your Home of the Oregon ILLINI. Oskee Wa Wa!

I missed the 2nd half of this one and something tells me that was a mistake. Actually, I had another more urgent engagement but in seeing this result I couldn't be prouder of the Fighting Zookers from ILLINOIS. Nobody has come within 17 points of the BUCKS all season (including Texas), much less the 7 points (17-10 loss) by my squad today at home in Champaign. This could have been the upset of the century (so far). Instead, it came down to an on-side kick which they recovered and that pretty much sealed the deal for our 5th straight loss, ugh.

A message was sent today to the rest of the BIG-10 and the nation, for that matter. You just don't walk into Memorial Stadium and expect to win. Those days are OVAAA! Will will protect our house. Our new motto: EXPECT TO WIN. What's that? Oh, it must be the collective sigh of relief in Columbus tonight as the guys in RED escaped with their #1 ranking, living to fight another day with their national-title dreams.

This must have been a tale of two halves after trailing 17-0 at the break. To hold the vaunted BUCKEYE offense to 0 oints in the 2nd half must have been amazing. But, this young ILLINI defense is getting better each and every week. You've heard me talk about this for the past month. We didn't play like a team who's lost 5 straight games. Sure this was another loss. And I'm not saying that I like hanging my hat on losses and losing seasons. We deserve so much more, but this is really turning out to be a turning point for my team. With the exception of the RUTGERS game earlier this year (and they're pretty good aren't they?), we've been competitive in each and every game this year. The 2-8 record is misleading and could easily be 7-3 or 6-4. The worst is behind us. I can't wait for next season.