Ron Zook is wearing the “Coach February” label after Illinois stumbled to a 3-5 Big Ten season, 5-7 overall.  Zook is known as a superb recruiter who has rounded up impressive talent on February signing days but he’s produced only one winning season in four years at Illinois. The Illini, 9-4 last season and a Rose Bowl team, had a majority of their starters back from last season but they are among the conference’s biggest flops in 2008.  A low point was a 23-17 loss to Western Michigan earlier this month before 12,865 fans at Ford Field in Detroit.  Junior quarterback Juice Williams led the Big Ten in total offense and passing offense per game, but Illinois faltered on defense.  Illinois earns a D grade and a cap D for disappointing.

Desperate Michigan would probably love a D.  Instead the Wolverines receive an F in coach Rich Rodriguez’s first season in Ann Arbor.  How could it be anything else for Michigan, 9-4 last year and a team that returned about half its starters?  The Wolverines were 2-6 in the conference, 3-9 overall.  You’ve heard multiple times the historic firsts about this season: most school losses in school history, first losing season since 1967 and 33 year streak of bowl games halted.  Michigan’s problems started with not having a quarterback who could fit into the new spread system Rich-Rod brought from West Virginia.  A 2009 recruiting class will help make the Wolverines better next season but 2008 will long be remembered in Ann Arbor.

Michigan State used the performance of senior players and the tough mindedness of second year coach Mark Dantonio to finish second in the Big Ten with a 6-2 record, 9-3 overall.  Senior running back Javon Ringer rushed for 21 touchdowns, best in the Big Ten.  The offense benefited, too, from a senior leader at quarterback, Brian Hoyer.  Senior safety Otis Wiley was among the conference leaders in interceptions and part of a Spartan defense that both performed well and failed.  The defense helped beat Wisconsin by one point and Iowa by three, but the Spartans gave up 45 to Ohio State and 48 to Penn State.  The Spartans weren’t quite ready to play with the league’s best but still they almost won the school’s first conference title since 1990.  They deserve their A-.

Northwestern used a senior group and a coach still young enough to be playing on Sundays to shock the Big Ten world with a 9-3 season, 5-3.  Senior quarterback C.J. Bacher was third in conference total offense.  Senior receivers Ross Lane and Eric Peterman were Big Ten leaders in receptions and before he was injured senior running back Tyrell Sutton was outstanding rushing and catching.  But Northwestern’s rise from 6-6 a year ago was partially attributable to a defense led by first year defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz.  He had been dismissed after last season from the same job at Wisconsin.  The man smart enough to hire him was Pat Fitzgerald, the 33-year- -old head coach already in his third season in Evanston.  Give the Wildcats a savvy A grade for the season.

In Iowa the lunatic fringe who had been disrespecting coach Kirk Ferentz after a 6-6 season last year and 3-3 start this season is now presumably cowering behind closed doors.  The Hawkeyes, 8-4 overall and 5-3 in the conference, played classic late season Big Ten football, winning five of their last six games behind a power running game and solid defense.  Junior running back Shonn Greene leads the nation’s runners with 1,729 yards.  The Hawkeye defense finished in the top three in the conference in scoring defense, run defense and total defense.  Orchestrating the defense was coordinator Norm Parker, an assistant at Minnesota in the 1970s.  Doesn’t matter whether he’s working with under recruited kids from Florida, or no name high schoolers from Iowa or Minnesota, they become players under Parker.  For juicing the most possible out of the material, rallying from that 3-3 start and playing wonderful football at season’s end, the Hawks earn an A.  By the way, Iowa’s four losses were by a combined 12 points.

Purdue and Indiana are in the same state so we’ll lump them into a final paragraph.  A little more than a .500 season was expected at Purdue in coach Joe Tiller’s last season.  Instead the Boilers, who experienced internal dissension and injury to senior quarterback Curtis Painter, finished 2-6 in the Big Ten and 4-8 overall.  Tiller won more games than any Purdue coach in history but he’s riding off to a retirement home in Wyoming with a D+ for the season.  Assistant Danny Hope will be his successor.  The last name is a positive start to the post-Tiller era.  As for Indiana, the Hoosiers fulfilled expectations, minimal as they were.  Picked for near the bottom of the conference, the Hoosiers finished 1-7 and in last place in the Big Ten, and 3-9 overall.  Wins were against Western Kentucky, Murray State and Northwestern.  The Hoosiers deserve an F including for their 62-10 loss to Purdue in their final game. A sad season, bad tradition and gloomy future.

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Timberwolves’ TV analyst Jim Petersen is a former McDonald’s All-American who played at St. Louis Park High School, later was a standout for the Gophers and played eight years in the NBA.  Petersen was asked recently if he’s disappointed in Wolves’ 20-year-old rookie Kevin Love, who is coming off the bench, playing an average of 23.6 minutes while averaging 8.3 points and six rebounds.

“No, because I know how hard his job is,” Petersen said. “I know he’s only 20 years old.  I didn’t expect him to have huge success right out of the box, although he’s impressed me in a lot of ways.

“He’s not been a disappointment.  I know how hard his task is to deal with grown men up here. He’s shown me a lot already. I think it’s just a matter of time before we say he’s our second best player, and there may be a time he may be our best player, but not yet.  I would still rather have Mike Miller and Kevin Love over O.J. Mayo even though Mayo is playing pretty well.”

Miller, 28, and Love came here on draft night, along with other players involved on both sides in a trade with Memphis.  Mayo has been taking a lot of shots while starting for Memphis.  He’s averaging 39.2 minutes and 20.6 points per game.

Petersen thinks Mayo may well become an NBA all-star game player but it’s too early to know whether he can achieve superstardom.  “He’s going to be an A player, it looks like,” Petersen said.

The Wolves host Phoenix tonight at Target Center and among the storylines for the Suns is that 36-year-old center Shaquille O’Neal is playing the fewest minutes per game of his career. Through games of last week he was playing 27.5 minutes per game while averaging 15.4 points and 8.6 rebounds.  Wolves’ 7-foot center Jason Collins likely will start the game guarding the powerful O’Neal, 7-1, 325.  Collins, who faced O’Neal when he was a rookie with New Jersey in 2002, told Sports Headliners he starts pushing O’Neal away from the basket when the big center’s team has the ball and “you can’t let him hit you first.”  Often the contact starts at the free throw line, sometimes at the three point line.

“I think the refs over the years have let you get away with more stuff against him because he is so big,” Collins said.  “…My going up against Shaq started my rookie year in the finals.  I was coming off the bench then.  It’s one of those things where you see how the game is going.  You just gotta be physical with him. … Like I said before, you can’t wait for him to hit you.”

Among the MIAC football award winners is league MVP Royce Winford, a two-way player from Augsburg.  On offense, the 6-2 receiver caught 75 passes for 944 yards and 12 touchdowns.  As a defensive back, he had three interceptions during conference play.

Concordia junior defensive tackle Travis Aufderheide received the 2008 Mike Stam Award as the league’s top interior lineman. Aufderheide had 4.5 sacks and 7 tackles for loss for a Cobber defense that led the MIAC in rush defense.

Carleton head coach Kurt Ramler is the MIAC Coach of the Year. Ramler, in his third season, coached the Knights to a 7-3 record, 5-3 in the MIAC.  Carleton had its first national ranking since 1992.  The Knights’ seven wins equaled the program’s second-highest win total over the last 50 seasons.

A vote of conference coaches determined award winners.

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With the Vikings and Bears both at six wins and five losses, and the Packers five and five, the NFC North Division race is nearly parity perfect.  The Packers will play in New Orleans tonight and after that all three teams have five remaining games each to determine a division champion and receive a “ticket” to the playoffs.

Which team will be at the top of the division when the final games are played on December 28?  Three Vikings expressed different views to Sports Headliners.

Vikings kicker Ryan Longwell is in his 12^th NFL season, three here and nine before that with the Packers.  “Well, I think the thing you see every year I’ve been in the NFL–bar none–the thing you see come playoff time is the hottest team gets in and the hottest team advances,” Longwell said. “…There’s going to be a team out of the three of us that’s going to get hot and hopefully we are that team. …I think that’s the key to separate yourself from this pack in this division.”

So are any of the three contending teams on winning streaks now?  Well, not really.  The Bears, Vikings and Packers are all on one game winning streaks.

Vikings offensive tackle Marcus Johnson has only been in the league since 2005 but has seen enough to know about attrition.  Asked what will determine the division champion, Johnson said: “I would say health.  Guys being able to stay in there and sustain. …Being that it’s getting late in the year and guys are worn out and beat up and everything.  So I think the healthier team has the best chance.”

Wide receiver Robert Ferguson, a former Packer like Longwell and eight year NFL veteran, speculates that the running game will be the determining factor.  “First of all, I’ve experienced this on numerous occasions with the NFC North,” he said.  “Seems like every other year is this type of situation with the NFC North.

“The teams are fairly level, fairly equal so I think it’s going to be the team that can run the ball in the bad weather and prevent the turnovers.  So the team that will be left standing will be the team that has their running game going.  It will always come down to that running game in November and December. …”

Ferguson didn’t reference the remaining schedules of the division contending teams but if his theory is correct then the Vikings should have an advantage.  The Purple’s remaining road games, at Detroit and Arizona, will both be played in domed stadiums, just like the Metrodome.

The Bears and Packers, though, will be mostly outdoors, possibly playing in freezing or sloppy winter weather. The Bears have three outdoor home games, plus trips to Minneapolis and Houston. The Packers also have three outdoor home games remaining, plus trips to Chicago and Jacksonville.

Hard to say which team has the easiest remaining schedule.  All three teams play two more NFC North games but the Packers and Vikings have one of those games against the winless Lions.

The Packers might have the best combination of talent and coaching to repeat as champions.  They’ve got plenty of experience, too, competing in the late season elements at legendary Lambeau Field, too.

There is a comforting thought if the Vikings are in the playoffs and exposed to a wintry field.  Ferguson thinks Adrian Peterson, the NFL’s leading rusher, is special on a bad surface, too.  “We call him All Day but he’s All Weather Guy,” Ferguson said.  “It doesn’t matter if it’s raining, snowing or whatever.  I think his speed does not falter at all.  That’s one of his strengths.  He’s All Terrain Guy.  It doesn’t matter with him.”

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