You know what they say about putting lipstick on a pig, right? Well, Illinois head coach Ron Zook can put as much lipstick on Saturday’s 20-17 win over the University of Louisiana-Lafayette as he wants, but it’s still an ugly win over an inferior team.

“Instead of it being a negative like most of you’re going to write about, to me it’s a positive,” Zook told reporters after the game. “Maybe the offense got their game out of their system so we can come together there in the Big Ten and be ready to go.”

Let’s hope so, because I think Penn State is a little better than the Ragin’ Cajuns.

For the second straight week, Zook mentioned in his post-game interview that the team was suffering from a lack of emotion.

“Football is an emotional game and for whatever reason we’re not flying around like we got to fly around,” Zook said.

While the defense put together its best performance of the season so far, and junior running back Daniel Dufrene rushed for a career high 126 yards, the day was defined by Illinois’ uninspired play.

Nowhere was the lack of emotion more evident than with quarterback Juice Williams, who had another poor day passing with only 147 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Juice shrugged his shoulders and threw his arms up in frustration most of the day, but near the end of the fourth quarter, with his team winning by only seven after a late ULL touchdown, he had an outburst of anger on the sideline.

“He was being a leader and telling us we actually have to play,” senior center Ryan McDonald said. “It’s something we shouldn’t need somebody to tell us. That’s something we have to get corrected. We have to be excited to be here.”

A group of fans whose seats were behind the Illini bench gave Juice a standing ovation for his “speech,” but yelling isn’t going to help the problems for this team. If that were the case, then I’m sure Zook’s head would have exploded by now.

No, the issues here seem to run much deeper.

“You talk to guys right now and there’s a lot of them that don’t feel real good,” Zook said. “We work too hard not to feel good when you win.”

Maybe the team has motivation issues when playing against opponents they are supposed to beat or maybe the players have some sense of entitlement that they are going to win every game as long as they show up. But something just isn’t right.

Perhaps the fans and the media expect too much out of the 2008 Fighting Illini football team. Remember a few years ago when a 20-17 win over a team like the Ragin’ Cajuns was cause for riots up and down Green Street? Now, we’re expecting something similar to a Rose Bowl appearance. People often forget this team has a lot of inexperienced players at key positions, so maybe there is a little bit of an emotional hang over from last season’s success.

“I wish I had an answer for why we’re not out there flying around with emotion,” Juice said in puzzlement after the game.

The players aren’t the only ones that seem confused. Look at us. We’re complaining after a win. I feel dirty that I even have to write a critical column about a victory, but this is the state of confusion this team has us in.

First, the defense can’t stop Eastern Illinois’ running game and now the offense can only muster 13 points (Brit Miller provided the other seven) and 341 yards of offense against ULL.

In the immortal words of Lil’ Jon, “What!?”

Last season, Illinois rolled over Western Illinois and Syracuse to build up some momentum before conference play. Now, the 2008 Illini are getting ready to take on the Big Ten with more questions than answers heading into a huge match-up on the road with the Nittany Lions.

Illinois does a have a bye week before traveling to Beaver Stadium, which will certainly help physically, but Zook should get out his Rorschach test kit and use this time to psychoanalyze his team’s collective mentality.

“We’re going to do it fast and with some intensity,” Zook said about his approach to practice over the upcoming bye week. “That’s how we like it.”

Well that’s great coach, but speed and strength don’t mean anything if you don’t have the mindset to use it properly. Let’s use these next two weeks to straighten that out.

Until then, we can continue to slap lipstick on the unsatisfying 2008 Illini, but at the end of the day it’s still the Illinois football program. That reason alone should have fans a little worried … even after a win.

Kyle Betts is a graduate student. He can be reached at [email protected].