In the wake of utterly damning comments by Urban Meyer about the state of the Florida locker room when he took over, Ron Zook did what he does best.
He played dumb coy.
The former Florida and current Illinois head coach responded to the verbal blasts made earlier today by the current UF head coach, and did exactly what he did during his time in Gainesville.
Took a whole helluva lot of talent and turned it into a whole helluva lot of “WTF?”
In comments made to Florida Today, Zook blamed the ancient, pre-renovated locker room — “I wasn’t the one who built” the space — for the spate of shorn freshman eyebrows under his watch.
“I don’t promote hazing and I don’t believe in it,” Zook said as he shielded the hair above his eyes from aggressors. (We’re making the shielding thing up. We think.)
Zook went on to defend and trumpet his record of playing freshman — as opposed to, you know, the accusation of his upperclassmen hazing them — before playing dumb coy yet again.
“I’ve been gone a long time. I doubt if anybody there even remembers who I am.”
Well played sir. Well played.
Your integrity is questioned, and you go with the “Who? Me? Huh?” defense?
Again, well played.
Zook is an idiot, plain and simple. There is a reason he is supposedly on the hot seat after only 4 years at Illinois.
He certainly left Meyer with a good deal of talent, but people underestimate the talent he inherited at Florida. Spurrier left plenty of future pro’s and Zook did nothing but lose 5 games per year.
Unfortunately, in addition to talent like Leak, Caldwell, Moss, Siler, etc., Zook also left a bunch of me-first, completely undisciplined players that accounted for most of the arrests under Meyer’s tenure.
Meyer has proven that he can recruit just as good (if not better) than Zook AND he can win with inherited players or his own recruits.