Zooker on the hot seat at Illinois?

[O-town Gator]

"Yes, you've heard this before.

Only this time, it's in Champaign, Ill., not Gainesville.

Ron Zook is back on the hot seat. The Illinois coach, late of Florida, has produced one magical season in five years."

More: http://www.gatorsports.com/article/20100616/articles/100619536?p=1&tc=pg

 

[AK Gator]

I'm honestly rooting for the guy. I hope he never even comes near a Gators sideline again, but I hope he can turn things around for himself and his program at Illinois. I don't imagine too many people are surprised that his great recruiting plus marginal coaching hasn't led to too many great moments. Even when he had a name like Florida to lure recruits with he wasn't able to produce all that much in terms of results. If you only give him Illinois to woo the kids, they can't expect that much more out of him. So, here's to a solid season for the Zooker and his bid to keep his job!

 

[O-town Gator]

The Zooker's biggest problem is that he didn't learn from his past mistakes at Florida that ultimately cost him his job. Micro-managing his assistants, poor problem solving, poor gameday strategy and clock management, and weak leadership led to his demise here and has his job in jeopardy in Champaign. Add to that the fact that he had a rather lackluster incoming recruiting class for 2010, has been met with dissent from former Illini players (Rashard Mendenhall and Arrelious Benn), and that has him sitting in a precarious position right now.

Illini fans are already calling for Zook's head, as evident by a Fire Ron Zook Facebook page and the following sites: Fire Ron Zook, Illinois Edition and Give Zook The Hook. Illini boosters want him gone as well:

http://www.saukvalley.com/articles/2009/12/11/r_d8etzn6drkmuv9s1vic1_w/index.xml?__xsl=/print.xsl

 

[Leakfan12]

Surprise he wasn't fired after last season.

 

[TenGator1]

if the boosters want him out, hes screwed. He would have to win the National Championship to keep his job. At least beat OSU which is basically the teams best accomplishment to this point. Let's not forget what USC did to them in the Rose Bowl a few years ago.

 

[O-town Gator]

Another point to add in the "cons" column where Zook is concerned is his failure to develop the talent he brings into his programs. He may possess the recruiting skills necessary to attract the top talent, but on the other hand he lacks the skills to develop that talent to its fullest potential. One Iowa-beat sportswriter dubbed Zook one of the "biggest wasters of talent in college football", and he was spot-on.

So many are still saying "Meyer won with Zook's players" back in 2006 after our Naitonal Championship run, but they don't stop to realize that (1) had it not been for Urban Meyer coming to Florida, Chris Leak and his teammates wouldn't have been coached up to the higher plateau that they were, and (2) the other 40% of the roster was either recruited by Meyer or, in the case of the older upperclassmen, Steve Spurrier.

I don't know about Illinois, but at Florida under Zook the team's overall academic performance was nothing to write home about. When Urban arrived, we had key players such as Ray McDonald, Dallas Baker and Steven Harris close to being academically ineligible - and the team's overall GPA was in the lower 2.0's which is unacceptable.


To paraphrase what George Santayana once said: those who fail to remember the past are condemned to repeat it. The Zooker is a perfect example of that.

 

[AK Gator]

I think if Zook could get on as a coordinator or an assistant and just be a big part of a school's recruiting drives he would find his niche in the college ranks. He just doesn't have what it takes to lead a team in all the ways he needs to. Hell of a nice guy, so you hate to see him, in all likelihood, winding down his days as a coach, but he really hasn't earned the right to lead teams with his track record.

 

[O-town Gator]

I think if Zook could get on as a coordinator or an assistant and just be a big part of a school's recruiting drives he would find his niche in the college ranks. He just doesn't have what it takes to lead a team in all the ways he needs to. Hell of a nice guy, so you hate to see him, in all likelihood, winding down his days as a coach, but he really hasn't earned the right to lead teams with his track record.

If he has a knack for discovering talent, he may be better off going back to the NFL as a talent scout. IMHO the Zooker isn't coaching material.

Even as one of Spurrier's defensive assistants back in the mid-90's, Zook was demoted on account of his job performance.

 

[AK Gator]

If he has a knack for discovering talent, he may be better off going back to the NFL as a talent scout. IMHO the Zooker isn't coaching material.

Even as one of Spurrier's defensive assistants back in the mid-90's, Zook was demoted on account of his job performance.

Huh, I was not aware of that. You've got a point with talent scout then.

 

[TenGator1]

Didn't Meyer make an obscure comment once about what he inherited when he came to UF. How the Freshmen were separated and hazed by the upper class men. Most Gator Fans have the same opinion about Zook "Great recruiter, bad coach"

 

[AK Gator]

I used to be the mascot at the Oaks Mall - Oak-ee the Turtle in case you're curious - from August of 2005 until late 2005. I used to have to use the mall office (closed on weekends) as my "dressing room". One day, after I had clocked in and was half dressed, the door to the mall owner's office opened up and out he walked and asked me if I wanted to watch the football game with him. His buddies from out of town got caught behind an accident on I-75 or something and were late. I told him I had clocked in already but since the game had started he said that the mall wasting $30 wouldn't be the end of the world. So, for the rest of afternoon I hung out in his office and watched the Gators lose to Mississippi State Bulldogs while dressed in a mesh shit and pants with "turtle" colored cloth over the arms and legs.

When Norwood ran in that last touchdown the manager - who had been pretty frustrated the whole game - got up and walked over to his trophy case full of signed Gator gear and grabbed a football Zook had signed for him when he became Coach, tossed it in the trash can, muttered "I love that man, but I'll be damned if his sorry ass isn't fired for this", and then walked out got in his car, and drove away.

This will always remain my fondest memory of Zook - being paid $30 to essentially see him get fired.

 

[O-town Gator]

Didn't Meyer make an obscure comment once about what he inherited when he came to UF. How the Freshmen were separated and hazed by the upper class men. Most Gator Fans have the same opinion about Zook "Great recruiter, bad coach"

Indeed he did, and the Zooker took offense to it - obviously he can't take constructive criticism, either. Urban Meyer won't tolerate any of that crap - incoming freshmen now are made to feel welcome; the black stripe on their helmets they wear now isn't as humiliating as being made to feel sub-par, getting beaten up in the locker room and having your head shaved. I also like Meyer's mentoring approach better; each freshman has a "big brother" and often is asked to sit with an upperclassman during a team meeting or during some instructional session.

Zook was more of a "drinking buddy" to the players; Meyer is more of a father figure who commands respect by the way he carries himself.

 

[AK Gator]

Indeed he did, and the Zooker took offense to it - obviously he can't take constructive criticism, either. Urban Meyer won't tolerate any of that crap - incoming freshmen now are made to feel welcome; the black stripe on their helmets they wear now isn't as humiliating as being made to feel sub-par, getting beaten up in the locker room and having your head shaved. I also like Meyer's mentoring approach better; each freshman has a "big brother" and often is asked to sit with an upperclassman during a team meeting or during some instructional session.

Zook was more of a "drinking buddy" to the players; Meyer is more of a father figure who commands respect by the way he carries himself.

Another thing that I love about Meyer's style is how high he has elevated the meaning of being a Florida Gator. Not just in national prestige through winning far more than he loses (Go :gator but also in the minds of his players. My girlfriend had a class with Carlos Dunlap during Fall '09 and after he was arrested he wasn't even allowed to wear clothing with a Gator logo on it. Every other player in the class was decked out in Gator gear to various degrees and he just sat there in regular clothes. That subtle level of pride in the program is a huge step up from the Zook years where accountability and consequences didn't exactly define the program.

 

[O-town Gator]

Interesting thread on an Illinois board about Zook's recruiting - so much for that "master recruiter" label his apologists and others like to tack on: http://www.illinihq.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=15023

 

[FrozenGator]

Another thing that I love about Meyer's style is how high he has elevated the meaning of being a Florida Gator. Not just in national prestige through winning far more than he loses (Go :gator but also in the minds of his players. My girlfriend had a class with Carlos Dunlap during Fall '09 and after he was arrested he wasn't even allowed to wear clothing with a Gator logo on it. Every other player in the class was decked out in Gator gear to various degrees and he just sat there in regular clothes. That subtle level of pride in the program is a huge step up from the Zook years where accountability and consequences didn't exactly define the program.

Really? If so, I'm even more impressed. That's a really imaginative and deeply impacting way of doing team discipline.

 

[O-town Gator]

Really? If so, I'm even more impressed. That's a really imaginative and deeply impacting way of doing team discipline.

I'm glad Coach Meyer handled it that way. He makes it clear that players are not entitled to wear that Gator uniform; instead, it's a privilege.

Unlike the Zooker, with Urban Meyer the tail doesn't wag the dog. Like AK said, there's a sense of prestige around the program that was missing under Zook; losing is not acceptable. I recall Urban telling Eric Wilbur back on '05 that there were too many "soft" players on the Gator team at that time, and just before the start of the season he made his players earn their way back into the locker room to try and take some semblance of pride in the program and in themselves.

Under Zook it seemed to be more of a sense of the inmates running the asylum, based on the lack of initiative and order in the locker room. The "players-only" meetings called during the Zook era told me that those kids knew he was a push-over and was not an effective problem solver. There was no way that we could be a championship-calibre team with poor leadership coming from the top and no real team unity; had Zook not been fired things would have gone from bad to worse.