The Dead Zone

On Wednesday I spent just about my entire day watching soccer. It was great. I've reached a point where I look forward to Boxing Day more than Christmas Day because I'd rather watch the entire day watching the Premier League than I would the NBA. I also got to watch Aston Villa -- my EPL team for some reason that is now lost to me -- get drilled 4-0 by Tottenham only three days after I saw the Villans lose to Chelsea 8-0.

It was while watching yesterday's game that I realized that watching Aston Villa play soccer is a lot like watching Illinois play football. Only the season lasts nine months rather than three.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because there's nothing else to tell you at the moment. We've reached a dead period in Illinois sports as for some reason the school decides to let the players go home and spend the holidays with their families just like you and I. There's no news to report on -- congratulations to all our athletes for managing not to get arrested, seriously -- and there have been no games to watch, either.

In the last 11 days the Illini have played one basketball game. The loss to Mizzou. And we still have another couple of days to wait before taking on Auburn at the United Center in Chicago.

It's that dead zone.

The good news is that after the Auburn game the Illini will head into Big Ten play. The day after New Years we'll be in West Lafayette to take on a Purdue team that's been sub-par at best this season, and after that it'll be a steady diet of about two games per week instead of one game for every two weeks.

I just hope it gets here quick because I'm running out of stupid Photoshop ideas and there's no more soccer to watch until Saturday.

Thank god for bad bowl games*, I guess.

*Remember that time Illinois won bowl games in back to back seasons?