Nathan Gregory is the managing editor at The Reflector. He can be contacted at [email protected]. The main headline in the Oct. 26, 2004 edition of The Reflector sums up an historic win for Mississippi State’s football program. It reads: “Under-Dawgs shock No. 20 Gators.”
In that game, many assumed Florida would roll into Starkville and hand then first-year head coach Sylvester Croom a lopsided conference loss. Ron Zook, who was in his third year as the Gators’ head coach, was subsequently relieved of his duties.
Three years later, both Zook and Croom silenced their critics and led their respective programs to surprisingly successful seasons.
Zook, who took the challenge of rebuilding a maligned Illinois program, led the Fighting Illini to nine regular season wins and a Rose Bowl berth in the 2007 campaign.
Of course, we all know how well Croom did this year, leading the Bulldogs to eight wins, including a triumphant Liberty Bowl victory over Central Florida in December.
Both of these coaches did so well, in fact, that they found themselves in the running for the annual Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year award. After weeks of fan voting, Zook and Croom wound up being the top two candidates for the honor of best coach in Division IA.
The problem here is that the fans’ opinions can only go so far. Fan voting only makes up one fifth of the winner selection process (The media and a “Hall of Fame Committee” combine to make up the other 80 percent).
This means that, while the common football lover gets largely shunned, a group of College Football Hall of Fame members and a biased media play a much larger part in the decision.
Upon hearing that Croom was in contention for the award, I joined many fellow fans in voting for him as much as I could, but Zook took home the honors despite overwhelming support from the Bulldog faithful.
With no disrespect toward Zook, who has done a great job of putting Illinois football back on the map, I’m still scratching my head and questioning the credibility of the selection process.
Sure, Zook led the Illini to a mammoth upset over powerhouse Ohio State, but Croom picked up several of his own and had to deal with more adversity along the way.
A quite noticeable hurdle is the grueling schedule he had to endure. The Southeastern Conference is clearly the best in the nation as affirmed by the number of bowl invitations and bowl wins.
The SEC sent nine of its 12 teams to post-season play this year – more than any other conference – and seven of them earned wins. No other conference was that successful, and lest we forget that one of those wins was the national championship. While Illinois weathered quite a storm in a respectable Big Ten conference, the stronger of the two groups is unquestionably the SEC.
Croom also deserves credit for getting through such a schedule with a relatively young team. He got through one of the toughest schedules in Division IA without nationally-renowned college star athletes. He simply convinced his underrated players that they could be just as good if they came together as a team.
More proof that Croom is probably more deserving of the award is the Liberty Bowl win over Central Florida. Granted, the Golden Knights aren’t what many would call a powerhouse, but they did have the nation’s leading rusher in Kevin Smith, and MSU’s defense contained him and kept him from being a factor while nabbing several interceptions.
Zook didn’t have as much luck in the Rose Bowl, as the USC Trojans hung more than 40 points on his defense.
It’s worth noting that both of these bowls took place after it was announced that Zook had been voted coach of the year, but Illinois’ embarrassing post-season loss leads to the possibility that the Hall of Fame Committee might have goofed this time.
Despite one committee not giving Croom what he deserved, it is also worth noting that he was voted SEC Coach of the Year, a distinction no MSU coach had received in more than 35 years.
For the few who might still be trying to steer the Croom-bashing bandwagon, it’s probably a good time to abandon ship. After a few years of building, Croom is now the engineer of a well-oiled machine, and being selected as SEC Coach of the Year is a testament to how much he’s turned things around in a mere four years.
Not only has Croom converted skeptics into believers, but he’s done it the right way. It’s about time he finally starts getting the credit he deserves.