The Wiz of Odds

Game of the Weak

Mike Hlas is an award-winning columnist with the Cedar Rapids Gazette and force behind The Hlog. Each week, he will break down the biggest mismatch in college football. Considering the increasing number of uncompetitive games, Mike's task is more challenging than keeping the neighbor kids from taking the helium balloon for a spin.

Ron Zook pumped life into a dormant Illinois program. Then the air immediately seeped out of the tires, and things are right back where Zook found them.

The Fighting Illini were more like the Comatose Illini before Zook arrived and in his first two years in Champaign-Urbana.

Illinois was 1-11 in 2003 and 3-8 in 2004. Enter Zook, who somehow transformed Florida from a national power to a face in the SEC crowd.

Zook's first two Illini teams were 2-9 and 2-10, but the man recruited hither and yon to bring big-time talent to the eastern Illinois prairie. Everything came together nicely in 2007 with a dynamic sophomore quarterback named Isaiah "Juice" Williams.

Illinois won nine games and reached the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1983. Then the Illini played a team that really knows how to recruit. USC brutalized them, 49-17.

Juice is still in Champaign (Isn't that called a mimosa?), but the winning is long gone. Illinois went 5-7 last year, and things have only gotten worse.

The Illini are 1-4 this season, and 0-3 in the Big Ten. They got systematically destroyed by Missouri, Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan State.

But now Zook (career-record 42-48) faces a foe on his team's level. Illinois visits Indiana in the Game of the Weak.

Game of the Weak

Mike Hlas is an award-winning columnist with the Cedar Rapids Gazette and force behind The Hlog. Each week, he will break down the biggest mismatch in college football. Considering the increasing number of uncompetitive games, Mike's task is more challenging than hiding the full details of his interaction with a former NFL player not affiliated with Oklahoma State University.

At the University of Colorado’s senior football banquet last December, Coach Dan Hawkins stated what he wanted from the 2009 Buffaloes.

"Ten wins and no excuses."

In March, Hawkins said: "It was a challenge to the team . . . I don’t ever want to back off excellence as the bar. I want to keep that bar high, that standard high.

"To me, the expectation of excellence, the standard of excellence, I always want it high. I want it present in their minds. I believe in that philosophy."

In September, after the Buffaloes were 1-2 with losses to Colorado State and Toledo, Hawkins said: "The thing is, I never made that statement. Somebody put something on the Internet and everybody runs with it. When I talked about the expectation of excellence, what I talked about was the expectation of winning 10 games. But what came out was I guaranteed it and promised it. I didn't say, '10 wins, no excuses.' But why let the truth get in the way of a good story?"

Well, Colorado can still win 10 games. All it has to do is beat Texas in Austin Saturday night, win the rest of its regular-season games, and win the Big 12 title game. Throw in a BCS bowl victory, and you have an 11-3 mark. Who'd have thunk it after the Buffs fell to 1-3 with their loss last week at West Virginia?

Game of the Weak

Mike Hlas is an award-winning columnist with the Cedar Rapids Gazette and force behind The Hlog. Each week, he will break down the biggest mismatch in college football. Considering the increasing number of Bowl Championship Series teams scheduling games against cupcake opponents, Mike's task is more challenging than trying to spend some alone time with Kate Gosselin.

The highest price ever charged for a regular-season game involving a Big 12 conference team wasn't for a Nebraska-Oklahoma battle when both were dynasties.

Nor was it any of the OU-Texas Red River Rivalry games in Dallas.

Or a Texas-Texas A&M Thanksgiving battle.

No, it's the $300 price tag put on the high-end seats of the Arkansas-A&M game Saturday at the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

It took courage (or a different word) for the Aggies to charge that much for this game, let alone for season-tickets, after they went 4-8 and Arkansas was 5-7 in 2008.

"It's two great universities and the start of something really special as far as the matchup between those two teams," A&M coach Mike Sherman said in March. "I've thought that Texas and Oklahoma have had something special and I think that Texas A&M and Arkansas are going to have a similar thing. I think that in itself is worth it.

"I think that going into that stadium which is without a doubt one of the most elite stadiums ever built in the world ... I think that is a plus as well. Yeah, I probably would pay the $300."

Of course, Sherman makes $1.8 million a year, so he can afford to light three C-notes on fire for something frivolous.

Game of the Weak

Mike Hlas is an award-winning columnist with the Cedar Rapids Gazette and force behind The Hlog. Each week he will break down the biggest mismatch in college football. Considering the increasing number of Bowl Championship Series teams scheduling games against cupcake opponents, Mike's task is as challenging as getting more than five miles from the nearest Subway.

Greg Schiano and Ralph Friedgen are both in their ninth years as head coaches at Rutgers and Maryland, respectively.

They have taken different rollercoasters that have had nice heights, but have taken them to current mediocrity. Schiano's first two teams were 2-9 and 1-11. Friedgen's first three squads were 10-2, 11-3 and 10-3.

That was as good as it has been at Maryland under Big Ralph. No double-digit wins or upper-echelon bowls since that glorious three-year run.

Schiano, meanwhile, sent Rutgers to gloriously new heights in 2006 with an 11-2 mark after the Scarlet Knights experienced only five winning seasons in the previous 24.

Two 8-5 seasons followed, records padded by conquests of Army, Morgan State and Buffalo.

Both teams were 8-5 with bowl wins last year. Both are in the doldrums now. One will be down and out after they face each other Saturday in College Park.

Game of the Weak

Mike Hlas is an award-winning columnist with the Cedar Rapids Gazette and force behind The Hlog. Each week he will break down the biggest mismatch in college football. Considering the increasing number of Bowl Championship Series teams scheduling games against cupcake opponents, Mike's task is more challenging than serving as Lou Holtz's translator.

Why, Joe Paterno, why? Why do you keep scheduling Temple?

Is it to remind Philadelphia that your Penn State program is still the boss of college football in Pennsylvania?

Is it for the automatic win to pad your total for the most all-time major-college wins?

Or maybe you just enjoy beating up the little guy?

It's going to happen again Saturday in State College. Paterno is 25-0 against Temple, and Penn State is 33-0-1 in its last 34 games against the Owls. The last time Temple beat the Nittany Lions was in 1941.

They're meeting for the fourth consecutive year in the Game of the Weak. Chapter 4 is sure to be like the first three. The Nittanies outscored the Owls by a total of 123-3 in those outings. It was 45-3 last year, with Penn State outgaining its guests by 401 yards.

What a thing to do to a former player of yours, Joe. Al Golden, one of your tight ends from 1987 to 1991, is in his fourth year as Temple's coach.

Game of the Weak

Mike Hlas is an award-winning columnist with the Cedar Rapids Gazette and force behind The Hlog. Each week he will break down the biggest mismatch in college football. Considering the increasing number of Bowl Championship Series teams scheduling games against cupcake opponents, Mike's task is more challenging than getting a South Carolina congressman to act respectfully during a presidential address.

It's never fun to see two college football teams meet when both are struggling to gain some sort of positive identity.

Bad real life can be harsh. So it is Saturday when two teams on the rocks are thrown together on their sport's jagged shore.

Division I-AA bottom-feeder Idaho State wearily travels to Norman, Okla., to face a battered Oklahoma Sooners squad.

Idaho State, 1-11 last year, hasn't enjoyed a winning season since 2003. It began this season with a 50-3 walloping courtesy of the maroon meanies of Arizona State.

The Bengals had a measly 37 total yards against ASU. They had five turnovers, zero yards in kick returns. Were it not for a 54-yard field goal by Jarrett Huck, Idaho State would have taken a doughnut home to Pocatello.