Ron Zook won more games than all but four Illinois football coaches, knocked off No. 1 Ohio State and took his '07 team to the Rose Bowl.
But, like so many other UI coaches, he couldn't sustain success, getting fired after seven seasons. "Mostly lows," Loren Tate says in this week's podcast, 'Tatelines: Unedited,' "but certainly the one great season."
Zook and Tate did not get along. "We are not on speaking terms," Tate says, "He probably blames me for getting fired."
Angered by what Tate wrote early on, Zook invited the columnist to his office to watch game film.