The University of Illinois football team has a bye this week. Feel free to insert your joke here about how the Illini are 27-point underdogs against "Bye."

For those who missed it, Illinois fell to 2-5 last Saturday with a humiliating 45-0 loss to Michigan. The Illini have not been competitive in any of their five losses -- each defeat coming by 28 points or more. The lopsided nature of the losses has first-year coach Tim Beckman under siege from Illini Nation.

It has gotten so bad for Beckman that some fans are longing for the return of the hapless Ron Zook, who was relieved of his duties last November after compiling an abysmal 34-51 record in seven seasons at Illinois.

I'm no fan of Zook's and would never want him back. But just for fun, here's a little numerical comparison between Beckman and Zook:

In five losses under Beckman this season, Illinois has been outscored by 149 points -- 208-59.

During the final 16 losses of the Zook Era -- and those losses were accumulated over a period of three seasons -- the Illini were outscored by a mere 146 points -- 484-338.

So, basically, Beckman has gotten his rear end kicked more in one half-season than Zook has in the last three years. Not good, folks, not good.

In fairness to Beckman, Zook's first Illinois team (2005) was outscored by 166 points (230-64) in its first five losses. Thus, we can conclude Beckman's first year at Illinois has been better than Zook's was -- but only slightly.

Oskee oww oww.