Heath's Random Thoughts

This last weekend a surprise in the bowl announcements occurred when the 9-3 Fighting Illini were invited to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA to face the USC Trojans on New Years Day. The Illini had finished the regular season tied for second with Michigan in the Big Ten and ranked 13 in the nation. There were several teams ranked ahead of them that did not get an invite to a BCS bowl and had less than 3 losses. Throw on top of this that Michigan had beat the Illini earlier in the season (a game I had the unfortunate privilege of seeing first hand) and were invited ahead of them.

The reasoning that the Tournament Of Roses bowl committee gave was that, traditionally the Rose bowl invites a PAC-10 team and a Big Ten team to compete in this annual bowl. Before the BCS (Bowl Champion Series) was implemented in the 90's it was always the case that the best team from each conference would attend. Once the Rose Bowl joined the 6 BSC bowl games this began to change. Since the Championship game will be played for the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans and the (eye role) Ohio State, who finished first in the Big Ten will be playing for a national Championship, the Rose Bowl had to choose the next best team in the Big Ten. This left them to choose between Illinois and Michigan who both tied, in record, for second place. Even though Michigan beat Illinois, the committee decided that Illinois had played a better season over all and had the best chance of making an exciting game against the heavily favored Trojans.

So now Illinois is slated to take on a Trojan team that is currently a 14 point favorite. Not many experts are giving Illinois a chance in this game siting USC's consistent experience playing in big games, a relatively higher talent level from player to player, and that Illinois has a fairly young and inexperienced group of players. I argue that Illinois has shown (at times) some real confidence and maturity beating Wisconsin when they were the number 5 team in the nation and later upsetting number 1 OSU. So they definitely have the tools to pull off a major upset.

Ultimately though, no matter what the outcome it has been an amazing run for this year's Illini. After winning on 4 games over the past 3 season prior to this one, Coach Zook has engineered a major turn around not only for this season but for the entire Illinois football program. This team will have even more talent coming in next season with experienced young players already on the roster, they should be one of the top ten teams in the nation starting next season. After enduring some really embarrassing seasons as an Illini fan its great to see our program moving in a positive direction. Now, lets just hope that coach Zook doesn't pull a Bill Self on us and use his success here as a stepping stone to another program. It would be great to see him show loyalty to a program and fan base that admires and gave him a chance after Florida gave him the boot.