The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl: Its not really the end, its not really the beginning.

Hailed as the poster child of the excess of the bowl season, the Illini's trip to San Francisco to face UCLA is at best a reward for two teams with disappointing years, and at worst a pointless money grab. Pile on top of that the fact that both schools have replaced their head coaches, and 90% of the remaining staff will not be part of the new coaching regimes, you have a recipe for a game that is tough to justify as a springboard for the 2012 season.

What does a solid defensive performance tell us if Terry Hawthorne and Whitney Mercilus leave for the NFL draft? What does a great showing by Reilly O'Toole or Nathan Scheelhaase tell us if one will transfer, and the other will be running a completely different offense in 2012? Illinois enters this game at 6-6, just like they did the Texas Bowl last year, but its an entirely different 6-6, where we don't even know what direction the arrows are pointing.

So what is it exactly that I am looking forward to in the Kraft Fight Hunger bowl? A good damn football game is maybe all I can really ask for. I want to see just one football game with everything left on the field, nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I want to see Whitney Mercilus blow up a few more quarterbacks while he is still wearing Orange and Blue. I want to see what happens when you give Donovonn Young the ball 20+ time a game. I want to see A.J. Jenkins torch another defensive back for a touchdown.

Almost none of this will have an effect on the future of Illinois football, so this will be a more like a swan song for the Ron Zook era at Illinois than anything else.

To some extent I regret the fact that I, and other parts of the Illinois fanbase aren't more excited about this game. Bowls don't come around all that often here, and bowl wins even less often, so there should be some appreciation for that. There is no certainty that Illinois will be taking a step forward in the next couple years, and they might even take a step back, but what I do know is that there will be some damn good football players taking the field for Illinois in San Francisco on Saturday, playing for my Alma Mater, and that deserves my respect.