I read a column today from the ND beat writer in the Sun Times. The question: Why does Zook get a pass, when Weis gets pounded. What follows was a long description of all of what he thought was a myriad of failures and disappointments. His math shakes out to be 6-6 > 5-7 why not we fire Zook instead????

Look if you are going to say Weis is being unfairly treated, fine. If you want to say that Zook deserves more criticism, that is also fine. But do not try and mix the two, its like comparing apples to hand grenades.

Here in no particular order is why this column makes no sense.

-If he reads his own paper, he would know, Zook has gotten quite a bit of criticism.

-Zook never claimed a "decided schematic advantage" over his opponents

-Zook has had decent recruiting classes, but has never had 3 straight top 10 classes like Weis has, you tell me who is not getting the most out of their talent.

-Notre Dame has  a gigantic booster organization, a much larger stadium, a much larger athletic budget, a network TV deal for all of their home games, and a sweetheart deal with the BCS. Illinois has none of these advantages.

-Charlie Weis is suppposedly making somewhere between 3-4 million a year to lose football games with these advantages.  Zook makes just over a million point five.

-And perhaps most of all, Illinois  football has suffered quite a bit in recent years, and isn't expecting BCS game every year, just a winning record. With all of the advantages Weis enjoys, and the ridiculous amount of money he is making don't you think he should be answerable for his arrogance and his failures?

Pointing out the shortcomings of another coach does not excuse the shortcomings of yours. Coming from ND beat writer, I can't figure out why he wrote this column, and now he says, Zook needs to beat Ohio State to salvage his reputation. Sure it would help, but I think getting the Illini to a winning record and back to a bowl is much more important, win or lose at OSU.  It seems pretty apparent that this guy knows very very little about Illini football.