Rutgers Repays The Favor, ESPN2 Gets Bored

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I have no idea how that relates to Illinois football, so here's some thoughts on the game.

The first half just might have been one of the worst in the last five years of Illinois football. It's only rivaled by last year's PSU Homecoming debacle. It was also a perfect example of how finicky momentum is in a football game. After Illinois stopped RU on the Knights' first possession, the defensive unit was as fired up as ever. Not more than 25 seconds later, a 78 yard punt took UI right out of it again due to a misjudgment by E.B. Halsey in his return to New Jersey. This set up the snowball of suck. Four plays later, a blocked punt led to a touchdown that viewers later found out was Ron Zook's fault for not having the right blocking scheme out there. Special note: this is not a bash Zook column because it's really hard for a football coach to block an entire defensive line. More on this in a bit.

After RU took a 7-0 lead, Illinois had a chance to regain some composure with a scoring drive. It had about as much chance as Canada winning a major war. Brasic was intercepted on third down, and RU hit the pick-six for a two score lead. RU had a 14 point lead while having the ball for less than 2 minutes. I thought people only pulled this crap off when playing video games. Score after score piled up along with another Brasic interception as the second quarter rolled on. By halftime, it was 30-0 and ESPN2 began trying to figure out how to hold an audience for the rest of the game.

They figured out a plan at the start of the fourth quarter as viewers were redirected to a game with not one but TWO actual football teams playing against each other AT THE SAME TIME!!!! By the time ESPN2 switched back, there were only 40 seconds left and the game mercifully ended in a 33-0 RU rout. For those of you who want to watch this game called football, tune in to NBC around 2:30 for PSU vs. ND and don't miss tonight's game on ABC at 7, OSU vs. Texas.

Malbert's Good, Bad, and Ugly:

The Good: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, surely you jest. Okay, if I had to pick something....................ummmmmmmmmmm.............the defense only allowed 3 points in the second half after RU had stopped trying at the end of the first quarter.

The Bad: I didn't see it out there, but apparently we have this group of guys called an offensive line. Not sure if the team actually does have one, but you theoretically need one to win a football game. If any of you know of the whereabouts of this mystery group of guys, call the Unsolved Mysteries hotline so we can figure out just what the hell is going on.

The Ugly: The punting game got a few lucky rolls as the game went on, but it was still a lot of suck. The running game got no help from the O-line whatsoever. Brasic's and Juice's passing was horrendous. And third down conversions? Try 0 for 12. Also, color analyst Mike Gottfried needs to learn how to coordinate his tongue and lips to accomplish a task known as speaking--preferably in English.