#AskTCR: Reliving 2005, Next Season’s Win Totals, and What is a Zip?

There are two ways to ask The Champaign Room your questions. You can tweet them at us on Twitter using the hashtag #AskTCR -- it makes it easier to keep track -- or you can email them to us at repplin1@gmail.com. And if you've got a personal question and you're worried about your privacy, just tell us. We'll change your name to Cuonzo Martin when we publish it on the site. And remember, you can ask us ANYTHING. It doesn't have to be about Illinois or even sports.

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We’re good! Always a great day to be an Illini fan. We could be Michigan fans...

***Following Monday’s National Championship Game***

For whatever reason, sports TV insists on showing you the same thing you just watched multiple times over and over while one relatively normal human being and a crazy person sitting next to them channel thoughts about the thing you’re watching. It’s all part of an odd ritual that usually involves slow motion camera footage, on-screen graphics, and an all-too-often opportunity to use the restroom facilities that big corporations use to advertise their products or services. I think they call them commercials...

Welcome to civilian life Joe, otherwise known as the “offseason”

The beautiful thing about Illinois fans is that most of us have experienced more loss and frustration in our lifetime, than winning championships. Being an Illini fan is like dancing on a rug, with someone constantly pulling that rug out from underneath you. Over time, that starts to hurt. But some falls hurt more than others. Whatever age you are, or whatever year you joined the massive conglomerate of colorful and passionate fans we call “Illini Nation”, learning our history is just as important as experiencing the present. Learning which years hurt more than others, or what it feels like to come close, but come up short. Like ‘83-’84, ‘88-’89, ‘00-’01, and of course ‘04-’05.

The most important thing about following a team that has never won a national championship, is that you’re not following them alone. “Never” means that none of us have experienced what it’s like to win it all. “Never” spans such a long period of time, that you can’t experience it on your own. You end up sharing it with people you care about the most, and people you never even get to meet.

So feel ALL the feels guys. Good, bad, happy, sad, all of it. Doesn’t matter if you’ve been a fan since you were born, or if you started following the Illini 5 seconds ago.

Stimulants and depressants are generally quick fixes. Most of us prefer the liquid depressant type, but in moderation (of course). And if you don’t drink, just walk into KAMS. The collective haze in that building and your shoes sticking to the floor will give you a nice buzz in a pinch.

Is it technically missing class if the class doesn’t exist?

2001 by far. 6 Illini players fouled out in that game with the team being whistled for 36 total fouls. Arizona was only called for 23 with NO players fouling out.

For around the last 18 years, North Carolina gave upwards of 3,000 students (about half of which are athletes) grades in classes that either did not exist, or ones that were created to boost GPAs for eligibility. Academic advisers allegedly steered students to take the fraudulent classes, with the steering being “most prevalent among the counselors for the revenue sports of football and men’s basketball.”

For more on the scandal, check out this article from the USA Today website.

Think I’m going to take Groce, simply because the Akron Zips are in the MAC conference with a fairly easy schedule. With 27 wins last season and three of their starters returning to the lineup, the Zips could easily put up 25+ wins in a non-power 5 conference next year with the talent they already possess. Have to think that Underwood and Archie will end up in the 22-24 game range next season.

There will be a Big Ten West division title on the gridiron, and a Big Ten Championship on the hardwood by 2021. Book it.

If you consider Lunardi had NC State, Ohio State, Indiana, and Texas in his brackets last season instead of South Carolina, Illinois is most definitely not screwed. Let’s be this year’s South Carolina.

Zip is actually short for Zipper, which was a brand name for a 1925 rubber shoe covering developed by the BF Goodrich Company of Akron, OH. Kangaroos was chosen by a committee 30 years later after officials decided the school needed a mascot, and the student council accepted the decision without vote. Let’s say there was some...mockery of the decision (even in the ‘50s).

Straight up, man to man combat, I’ve gotta go with the Turtles and Earthworm Jim. The ninja combat ability of the Power Rangers and the Turtles would be essentially a stalemate, with the advantage to the Turtles having combat weapons.

However, if the Rangers are able to use their Megazord, it’s no competition.

Once an Illini fan, always an Illini fan. Heck, our very own Mark Primiano was covering Illinois athletics from the campus of Kansas State Univeristy at one time (we recently relocated him to a penthouse suite in Vegas).

I’m thinking we might need to start an ambassador program (similar to the Blackhawks) for fans that are relocated to other schools/other parts of the world. We’ll get back to you on that. For the time being though, feel free to follow/like/reply/comment to anything and EVERYTHING. We love y’all. You’re ALWAYS welcome here.