The Arch Rival Game...

The unofficial start of the 2007 College Football season gets underway this weekend with the Arch Rival game when the Illini take on Mizzou. (Go Illini, Oskee Wow Wow!)

But what's hard to take is how both of these teams are perenial losers. First of all, look at their records since 1984, the start of the "modern era" of college football when the NCAA was forced to open up television to national markets. Missouri is 100-157-5 and Illinois is 114-146-5. Sure there are teams with worse records, but both these teams have no excuse for being so bad.

Mizzou is the only Division I school in the entire state of Missouri which includes the two large markets of Kansas City and St. Louis. You'd figure they would figure out how to recruit sooner or later.

But honestly, I couldn't care less about Mizzou or their problems. It's the Illini that causes me to bleed orange and blue. And they have no excuse either.

Illinois is the flagship school in a state of nearly 13 million, including the massive talent hotbed of greater Chicago. We've had the likes of Halas, Grange, Nitschke and Butkus -- four of the most hallowed names in the history of the sport wearing the Illini colors. We've got a statewide fan base that eagerly funded a $120 million stadium expansion, without the legislature or the university proper donating a dime. The bottom line is we have the two most important factors in building a successful program: recruitable players and popular support. We have fantastic indoor facilities, huge stacked weight rooms, and academic support centers. And most importantly we have membership in the Big Ten conference that annually offers us chance to chase all the glory and exposure imaginable. Heck the Big Ten has it's own TV network that I get here in Raleigh!

Yet we haven't managed a winning season in six years -- or back-to-back winning seasons since 1989-90. We did manage a 10-2 year in 2001 but somehow failed to capture any momentum from it, going 9-26 the next three seasons and getting coach Ron Turner fired. We followed that up by hiring Ron Zook, who has gone 4-19 in two seasons here. Heck we couldn't even beat Ohio last year. And that's not Ohio STATE, that's Ohio U!

But still here it is, the dawn of a new season. All the optimism (warranted or not) has returned. So on Saturday afternoon when the new batch of Illini take the field I'll be on the couch drinking a beer and cheering them on. (Or at least taping the game on the DVR) Because when they play Missouri we know that they are just as likely to lose the game as we are!

Go Illini. Oskee Wow Wow.