Illinois Hokie's Recent Comments

Also, is there a reason to go for a postgraduate engineering degree if you don't plan to teach in the field? That's not a rhetorical question, I honestly don't know. It seems like with more technical degrees, all you need is a bachelor's to get into your field and then you have a natural career trajectory built in. With liberal arts/social sciences it seems there's a much greater demand for postgraduate degrees just to be able to hold a job in the field.

The quality of education in America is something that I could talk about at length, but I'm worried I'd risk breaking some of the community guidelines. I'll leave it at this: if we don't make some big changes to ensure a quality primary and secondary education and an affordable college education, the American worker will be at a significant disadvantage in a competitive global marketplace. There are other countries out there that are eating our lunch in this regard.

And sports medicine has made huge advancements since the early days. We understand injuries and how to rehabilitate them way better now, and not just concussions. A blown ACL, once a career-ender, is now a relatively routine rehab with a high success rate. With that increased medical knowledge has come a better understanding of how to approach playing and practicing the game. And we know now that the way we did it for years was really fucking stupid.

It's not quitting to say I want to make sure my injury is properly rehabbed and that my long term health is the primary driving factor in all decisions regarding my return to play. But by this account, Coach Beckman acted as though it was. With what we know now, there's no excuse for that.

This is very true, and kind of troubling, IMO. The idea that education's role is to prepare your for a specific career is a recent development, and the value of a well rounded general educating is diminishing. That scares the hell out of me, because a strong society needs a foundation of skeptics and critical thinkers.

This brings up the point of, what function is university education supposed to serve? There are tons of technical professions that provide better entry level income and competitive lifetime earning to fields requiring college degrees. But universities have a core curriculum for a reason. A friend/mentor of mine once told me, you don't go to college to learn a job, you go to college to learn how to think. Now to a degree, I think some of that self-aggrandizement for the college crowd, but I know my own outlook changed pretty significantly while I was at college.

I'm admittedly conflicted about this. The injury in question, a meniscus tear, is pretty common. That's doesn't mean it isn't potentially serious, though. A lot of football players play through the injury and wait for reparative surgery after the season. I can't think of specific names, but I know there have been Hokies who have done the same.

Still, it's a knee injury, and just because some players play through it doesn't mean that anyone should be compelled to. If this account is accurate, I do think Beckman crossed an ethical line by trying to convince him to play when he judged the injury sufficient to be pulled from full contact. It does seem that Beckman has established a toxic culture at U of I. I'd be surprised if it isn't prevalent in all of P5 football.

The athlete should make the call on when an injury is sufficient to require season ending treatment. Having said that, P5 football is one of the most competitive sports, and the athlete has to know and accept that packing it in means risking losing your spot on the depth chart. Injury should not, however, result in a loss of scholarship.

This is a gray area. Football players play hurt all the time, and they do or for reasons other than just the love of the game. IMO, it's the responsibility of the NCAA and its member programs to ensure that the decision to play hurt is made without coercion, and after providing the athlete with the best possible medical advice, including all prognoses. In that regard, I think Coach Beckman and U of I failed, and there should be consequences.

As for unionization, no. A third party oversight committee with binding authority would be a better solution.

Buzz is a type A personality through and through. He can handle the high stress moments and to a degree thrives on them. Meanwhile, last season Lefty damn near transformed into Grumpy Cat. I was worried about his emotional health going into the Virginia game.

I like the way you operate.

I do understand the snark. But I think it's worth pointing out that Brown's contract is worth $53.4 million, and the highest paid guard contract in the NFL is worth $51 million. So Wyatt is still gonna get paid playing inside.

Brewer took five sacks against WF, after taking six the week before against Duke. Brewer was 15-28 I'm that game, which is admittedly bad, but the pass rush coupled with good coverage by a future first round draft pick (Kevin Johnson) and an undrafted free agent (Merrill Noel) made it impossible for Brewer to throw anything except short dump offs. If someone has to be blamed for WF, it's the O line. But given the position they were in, I can't even fault them for that very much. Wade Hansen was in way over his head, and that's not his fault.

Neither Brewer's performance against Ohio State nor his performance Wake Forest should determine the starter in 2015. It should be who demonstrates the best command of the playbook and the best ability to execute it. Based on spring, that's Brewer. The only remaining obstacle is fighting off Lawson when he arrives this summer. How big a challenge that presents remains to be seen.

(That's a link...)

Sure. We need another TE