Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Dec 16, 2009 -> 12:51 PM) How could he even improve his stock? I know he could certainly damage it. I'm sorry but this is not a wise move. You take the millions when you have the chance. Because he's not a lock to get a really high pick. From Kiper today: What's your take on Benn entering the draft? Mel Kiper (1:08 PM) He's a guy who's coming out with very little buzz. Normally juniors come out with buzz. He had a QB situation at Illinois that wasn't very good. He was banged up early in the season. They kind of limped home and finished the season 3-9. This was a team that was not what they thought he would be. Benn was up against it because he didn't have the personnel he needed as a WR. He's a hard worker. He has a little bit of Marvin Harrison in him from that stand point. He's not coming in with momentum. You have to go back and look at sophomore and freshman film and you'll like what you see. I thought coming into the year that he could be top 15, now you're looking at a second rounder." The fact is he was a highly touted recruit that everyone said was "NFL ready" the moment he stepped on campus. But he stepped onto a campus full of morons so he didn't really have a stage to do squat. Is someone going to draft him? Sure. Is it going to be in the first round? Hopefully. He could have come back this next season (supposedly to be the focal point of a pro style offense...we'll see how well that goes) and improve his draft stock and make millions more. I certianly don't fault him for going. I'm just saying he's risking getting a mediocre salary by leaving early (even if it is more than we'll all make in our lives), so it's not a slam dunk decision.

The difference is that those people don't have XX millions who follow them in a life-time war against an enemy. I think it's a lame argument, but essentially by taking these people away from a military protected institution you're supposedly inviting more of an opportunity for them to attack somewhere in the US. Say by taking over a nearby grade school and holding people hostage until they release them. Say guard number 1 and 2 have kids in that school, they may be more willing to let them go. The chances of something like that happening have to be about .000001% though.

Durbin!? Very good?! And I think they're all bums for the record. Not a one does anything for their state, it's all for them and their campaign war chests.

Even if it's not criminal there should be personal liability on those people. I can't imagine that some of the heads of those institutions would get off if someone brought a suit for breach of their fiduciary duties, but it hasn't happened yet, and I'm not sure why. Well you guys certainly follow this stuff closer than I do, but in my passive reading about the economy I just don't see any active response to what happened. What has the government done to make sure this won't happen again? All I see is proposed legislation like this McCain thing. Has anything actually been passed? Did the SEC get more funding to actually enforce it's own laws? Are they taking anonymous and non-anonymous tips of wrongdoing seriously? In a general sense it just seems like "Wall Street" made billions, lost billions, were bailed out, and now are back to business as usual.

Along the lines of enforcing the regulations that have been in existence, is there a reason we can't enact criminal penalties for the heads of these gigantic financial institutions who take tens of millions of dollars a year as bonuses/salaries, yet manage to lose billions in the process? Why hasn't the government gone after these people at least on the theory of breaching their fiduciary duty to their shareholders? I mean, clearly you can't go around indicting people for poor management, but over leveraging so much that everyone and their mother thinks "wtf are you doing?!" Wouldn't the threat of criminal penalties be enough to at least make these institutions think twice about what they do? At this point what's the check on them? They can completly f*** up again in 5 years and they know the government will be there with a blank check. Also, does it sicken anyone else that Obama (and McCain....everyone really) promised a gigantic change of how Wall Street does business in order to protect "main street," yet not a damned thing has been done in this regard? There's absolutely nothing stopping financial institutions from doing exactly what they did 3-4 years ago.

Unfortunately Illinois no longer recognizes common law marriages. And in any event it was 7 years and we've only been living together for 4-5.

I have a question that may or may not be related to this topic: So I'm engaged, soon to be married (next October). I currently have no health insurance, but my future wife does. She asked her employer (a pretty progressive, very large hospital near the loop) if I could be added on her health insurance. They said no, not until they recieved a marriage certificate or license (whichever you get after the ceremony). She pressed the issue, and said that we'd been living together for a number of years. The HR person asked if she was getting married to another woman (apparently my gender was never brought up). My fiance said no. The HR person says, "oh well that's too bad. If you were gay we could sign you up today as a domestic partner, but since you're not, we can't do anything until you're married." Discrimination? And/or just a f***ed up policy?

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Dec 15, 2009 -> 11:02 PM) I would hardly call this pork at all. You gotta put them somewhere and you sure as hell have to staff the place to keep it safe. This isn't like giving IL a ton of money to build an empty prison and hire a bunch of people to guard air. Supposedly a billion(!) federal dollars involved for Illinois. That's pretty significant for a couple hundred inmates.

Should have been Obama. Noble Peace prize, Person of the Year, Greatest Person to Have Lived Since Jesus - all much deserved praise. (half kidding)

In an article I just read about Jake Locker (talking about the possibility of him suffering an injury, like Sam Bradford): "Yet history indicates that the Oklahoma QB's injury is both rare and surmountable. Of the 252 senior quarterbacks drafted in the last 20 years, CBSSportsline.com draft expert Rob Rang cites just 13 who suffered injuries as seniors. In all instances, the impact on draft status was minimal." He also goes on to mention a guy like McGahee who completely ruins his knee, but still gets drafted in the first round and makes his millions. Couple this with the insurance policies these guys already have, and I don't think the injury thing is as big of a deal as it's made out to be. After all, there's nothing stopping a guy getting a career ending injury in summer workouts for the team that drafted him, ruining his career forever (in both cases the few millions he gets from insurance or a signing bonus is going to have to support him for his life - how rough). Maybe Locker wants a 2nd Heisman run? To be more of a national name and therefore increase his draft stock? I dunno, maybe he just enjoys being THE man in Washington and bangin lots of coeds? As for Benn, looks like he's got a 2:00 press conference today to announce his plans.

Some people are against this, and I dunno why. Lots of jobs + lots of money = good all around. I've heard people say this'll just give "them" more of a reason to attack us close to a metro area, but that just seems silly to me.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 15, 2009 -> 02:27 PM) The mock site that I like is done by Scott Wright (he used to post on a board called nfl-fans that id sometimes frequent), he currently has Benn at 16 as of November 9th. http://www.draftcountdown.com/sub/Mock-Draft-B.php Most of the other mock drafts I trust arent out yet, but Benn will most likely appear in the 15-20 range. After the combine you may see him projected as the top WR. It is a really weak year for WR, and it wouldnt surprise me if Benn surpasses Dez White as the #1 projected wr (especially because Benn should have better measurables). Im not sure what sites you are looking at that dont have Benn being drafted at all, they may be ones that dont have underclassmen in the mocks (some sites dont put the underclassmen in until they are 100% gone). I was looking at ESPN's mock draft/big board they released today. They do say Benn is the 2nd best junior WR, but don't have him in the top 32 picks or the top 25 overall. But it's ESPN, and it's still early.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Dec 15, 2009 -> 12:56 PM) Sounds like Vic Koenning will be Illinois's DC. Sounds like another really good hire, Georgia was actually targeting him as their DC. So basically, it looks like Zook is being made into a recruiting figurehead with some really good assistants around him to do the actual coaching. I hate getting even remotely optimistic about Illinois football but this may actually work. Absolutely the best situation possible. As I said before, let Zook be the recruiting coordinator with the title of head coach. Give these coordinators a ton of money (Petrino is 2 years at 495k, is that a lot for an OC in college?) and let them run the team.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 15, 2009 -> 11:41 AM) Benn is already being projected as a mid first round pick. Nothing to worry about besides for a career threatening injury. I think the more appropriate statement is that Benn has very little to gain by staying in the NCAA. Could he work his way to the top 10? Sure, but he will lose an entire year of salary and will also hit FA one year later. If he was projected 2nd round or later, Id agree that staying in school is probably for the best. I haven't seen a mock draft with him in the first round, let alone a mid-first round. Which site(s) are you looking at? And injury is a risk, but so is leaving early, not getting drafted, and then not getting a contract (unlikely in his case, but still. he could be playing next year for michael crabtree money)

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Dec 14, 2009 -> 11:45 PM) Would you stick around and play in this s***? I wouldn't. He is a first rounder. Only 2 things going Illinois' way: 1) Mom wants him to stay 2) He could play a year with his brother At this point he has nothing to lose and everything to gain. He's a borderline 1st rounder (completley unproven, so it's all based on potential, which I'm sure everyone sees), and even if he has the same type of season next year he'll be the same. Assuming what Petrino says is true, he's going to bring a pro-style offense and he wants Benn to lead the conference in receptions. So i'm sure his stock will go up. The brother thing kind of annoys me. The ONLY reason he's even getting a sniff from Illinois is his brother. He's a convicted felon. I'm all for 2nd chances and all, but I think a kid that works his/her ass off and gets a perfect 4.0 or is really good in band or something deserves a full scholarship more than he does.

QUOTE (MurcieOne @ Dec 14, 2009 -> 01:43 PM) Why? Hester is starting because they couldn't be happy with keeping the NFL's greatest KR a KR. They had to get too smart for their own good and change him into a WR, to prove they are smarter than everyone else. Hester is a gadget player on offense with the upside of being the greatest KR the league had ever seen. Now he is overpaid and out of place. I'm not sure there was anyone in the league besides the dummies at Halas Hall who actually thought he was a number 1 receiver. He is at best a slot receiver and I think I'd rather have Knox in that position. Bennett is starting because he was last year's third round draft pick, who couldn't scratch the field last year because he was unable to learn the plays. Now they have to prove that he wasn't a wasted pick so he must start above DA. ARGH!!! f***ing Bears! I'm gonna disagree here with the Hester thing. First, he's a playmaker, and you don't keep a playmaker on the sidelines for 90% of the game. If he becomes a reciever with mediocre skills, he's easily one of the top 10-15 guys. He's shown the flashes of why they (and he) wanted him to be a WR. It didn't work out, mainly because of the offensive play calling, not because they can't coach him up or because of his lack of skills. He gets jammed a lot, but so what. If Cutler had 5 more seconds for each pass Hester could beat his guy and go deep a heckuva lot more. More importantly though, this nonsense about him being the best KR in history. He was for a couple of years. But so was Hall in KC, and Howard in Green Bay and yadda yadda. Both are no longer in the league (Howard fizzled out pretty shortly after that SB MVP). THere are other examples I'm too lazy to look up. Those guys don't stick around and have 6-7 year careers. You hope to get 1, maybe 2 years of greatness out of them, and that's exactly what they got out of Hester. Not only that, but his contract is totally reasonable and completely based on his performance as a WR. So it's not like we overpaid for him. (For once, the Bears management actually made a good move there.) Now, for the game....if the entire coaching staff doesn't get canned after this year, I'm done being a Bears fan. Seriously. I'm damn near there with Illinois. Both are full of f'n retards that couldn't coach a JV team, let alone a major conference college program/nfl team. It's f'n pathetic that fans continue to pay money to go to games to watch a crap team play. I can't say this about Illinois, but the Bears should be a YEARLY CONTENDER for the division, MINIMUM. The level of mediocrity is just amazing. They're literally becoming the Chicago Cubs of the NFL (except for the fact that they have probably the most tradition out of anyone in the sport).

QUOTE (T R U @ Dec 7, 2009 -> 12:35 AM) I just enjoy being the infected, thats the best part I've got a group of 4-5 friends that all play this game religiously (2-3 nights a week). Scavenge is a great addition, survival is just ridiculous (i consider a silver the most ungodly of achievements. I can't imagine how people get gold). We're just starting to go through the campaigns on expert. Pretty f'n tough. I'm also interested in the College Hoops 2010. I've got it on my xmas list, so I guess I'll give my review in a couple of weeks.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Dec 14, 2009 -> 10:16 AM) I have high hopes for Charest working with a real OC. If he can work on that funky delivery (has some sort of weird double clutch thing going on), I think he can be a really solid college QB. From what I saw in some of the games this year, against Minnesota for example, he's reading the defenses and making the right reads. Anyone want to wager on Benn's chances to come back? Unless he's somehow not a 1st round guarantee, I'd say he's gone.

QUOTE (dasox24 @ Dec 13, 2009 -> 05:50 PM) Did he actually call the plays at Arkansas or did Bobby? Either way it's a good hire, but if Paul was running the offense like a true OC, then this is a great hire for Illinois. However, offense wasn't nearly as much of a problem as defense this year, so it'll be really important for Zook to fill that DC spot with someone legit. The offense probably had the most talent of any team in the Big Ten, but still managed to be one of the worst. Honestly we have nowhere to go but up at this point. There's enough talent there to make a bowl game. But of course talent on paper means nothing (as Zook has repeatedly shown us). Perhaps Petrino is thinking that if he does really well as an OC he can replace Zook next year. I'd love for Zook to stick around as a recruiting coordinator. I'm happy the Juice Williams era is finally over. He was great for the programs initial rebuild, and of course the 2004 game against OSU won't be forgotten, but he was so awful in so many games. He was an athlete, not a quarterback. I hope whoever takes the reigns next is a QB first, athlete second.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Dec 11, 2009 -> 04:32 PM) RG has done a good job with his basketball hires and has done well with the non revenue sports. Kruger, Self and Weber were all good hires and Weber could be the guy that actually gives Illinois stability and makes us into a 2nd tier elite program (not traditional elites, so not on the same level as UNC, Kansas, Kentucky, etc. but possibly on the same level as MSU, UConn, etc. at the national level). But the job he has done with the football program has been really poor. And the biggest issue has been holding on to coaches too long when they are on the decline. If you fire Zook now, the guy basically did his job to a certain extent. He dramatically upgraded the athleticism and talent and even gave the program one great season. Instead you hold on to him too long and now there is the possibility the next coach has to start from scratch again. I'll give him credit for the bball program, but it's not like it was in the tank and he resurrected it. The bball program has been consistently in the top 10-15 in terms of winning and getting to the tournament (hence the #6 all time ranking, *cough brag *cough). If you're the admn I dunno how RG, after making this decision, is allowed back on campus. This is now the third time in my lifetime (only 27, have been following Illinois football and basketball religiously since about 8) that we've had a s***ty coach come in, given 1-2 years to build the program, have a good year, given a completely illogical extension by proving absolutely nothing, and then allowed to completely dismantle it again. Tepper, most definitely Turner, and now Zook. And you're right, this is EXACTLY what you hired Zook to do - restock the program with talent. We got lucky and had a great year in 2005. But that's it. He's shown ZERO improvement since then. I've normally been a Zook apologist, but christ at the end of the day his teams are just awful and there's absolutely no excuse why this years team shouldn't have won a minimum of 8 games. What kills me is that even though Illinois isn't a powerhouse, it's a friggin Big Ten school with a connection to Chicago. Clearly there's enough there to recruit good players from all over the nation. If he could find some up and coming coach the guy would be given a pretty talented team to work with, and he might even be able to talk some of the players into coming back and not transferring (and/or not changing their commitments). This is going to be like that 2004 game against Rutgers where we literally looked like a varsity high school team the entire season. You wanna talk about ISU having a shot against Illinois? Look at the next couple of years in football. f***ing pathetic.

I have a feeling the 5.2 million dollar buyout is the biggest hurdle. I guess that's the biggest thing - how is this financially a good move? Season ticket holders are dropping like crazy which I'm sure the admnistration loves considering the gigantic addition and upgrade project they just completed (and now have to find the money to pay for). Who in their right mind is going to pay for those tickets when you know that next years team is just going to be awful? Also, how is RG still the AD? What has he done exactly? I'm not even sure when he started as AD, but there's been 3 GOOD years of Illinois football in the last 3 decades - 1984, 2001, and 2005. The rest they've been absolutely horrible. I know the school has become more basketball oriented, but it's sad to know that a "traditional" powerhouse from about 1920-60's, with 2 of the greatest players of all time in college AND the NFL, can't get it's friggin act together and actually demand a winning program. I say scrap the whole lot of them. RG, Zook, all of his assistants, everything. I agree with you that this move essentially dooms us for at least 2 crappy seasons before we have even the hope of being a bowl team.

I'm the opposite. He's a refreshing voice, even if I disagree with a fair amount. Here I totally disagree with him. He basically accuses people of assuming that these guys are saints and don't do anything wrong, but then himself assumes that each one of them is a sex-crazed rock and roller (and that we'd all be doing the same thing if we were in his shoes, which i don't think is true). His rant about ESPN is spot on. I can't stand to listen or watch much of what they offer, but unfortunately they're the only big game in town anymore. The race one is just...off base I think. Is that a contributing factor to the craze surrounding this? Maybe...I guess...involuntarily. There are so many other factors at play though - it broke on thanksgiving weekend, so everyone and their mother talked about it (literally); he's choosing ass-ugly women to be with, including porn stars that specialize in double P (all heightened by the fact that he married a freakin 10); he's not just doing it for the sex, but appears to have serious feelings for a few of them (so it's both physical AND emotional cheating). And I love that for comparisons he chooses Andre Rison and Mike Tyson. Do they really compare to Tiger Woods?

DePaul 2007, civil litigation. My advice - work your ASS off in school, get as many internships/externships/part-time jobs you can find and network. It took me over a year to find a solid gig, and many of my classmates still work as clerks or have given up and started their own firm (with varying degrees of success). The market is insanely oversaturated right now, so you really gotta stand out (i.e. with grades/accolades or with connections). But hey, great career choice!

QUOTE (He_Gawn @ Dec 8, 2009 -> 12:18 PM) Hah sorry, I'm 21 and it will be her and her twin sisters 21st birthday. Looking for some good bars and good entertainment. Maybe a nightclub one night, not really my thing, but I'm sure we'll go. I take it a bottle of Jack and a hotel room is out?

Ah, I forgot about that dominating force in Normal.