Eastern Michigan 34, Illinois 31 POSTGAME
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Illiniaaron
- Geneseo, IL
Les Miles went to Kansas of all places. I think he's good.
That’s because he got one offer after an extended absence from employment in the coaching profession. Kansas. It will be a challenge to hire an employed coach with an attractive resume if we are not his only offer.
There's a coach out there for us somewhere. Just comes down to making some smart choices and some good fortune. I just hope Whitman has been preparing a list.
My Observations and sad rant: Arrived at 10:30 and traffic was a breeze and the parking lot had tons of great spots left, knew right then the crowd would be sparse. Perfect day for a football game and it seemed no one really cared. Did not see many tailgaters as I walked up. Five of us walked in without delay and found seats on the 50 yard line on the west side with an empty row in front of us and another behind us. Block I was an embarrassment with the top 1/3 empty on the left side and 1/2 empty on right. The sparse crowd is mostly 50+ years old along with some families with little kids. The stadium plays music no one knows except maybe the players and 200 students in the student section. (At Wisconsin the entire crowd will stand and loudly sing as they regularly play classic tunes like Brown Eyed Girl). The "Stand up and Shout" audio spots and the Nick Offerman videos are getting old. I think the in-game production leadership is really dropping the ball. The Illini dance team dances to tunes no one knows and they get hardly a smattering of applause. The Cheerleaders are good, and the Marching Illini are great, but how hard it must be for them to do what they do for a program like this. Half the crowd left after the halftime show. The scoreboard, ribbon led signage, fireworks, sound system, new restrooms and concessions, etc. are very nice. All said, I would care a lick about any of these details if we could win a football game. I've attended every home game I have been able to attend since 1977. I remember when the 80's belonged to the Illini. I remember the 84 team. I remember standing room only. When I was a student the entire campus shut down as we all went to the games. Sadly, the student's don't care, even though student tickets are the same price they were 30 years ago. I used to have a group of 30 people who got season tickets together, now its just 8 of us. We used to plan all week for our tailgates, now no one wants to. Believe it or not, it used to be that if you had an extra ticket you could be someone's hero, now I have to call 10 friends before someone says yes. Today two of our group left after halftime and another two at the start of the 4th quarter. They made no effort to make their schedule work around the game. It used to be that no one planned anything in the C-U area on a football Saturday. I sat in the sparse crowd by myself til the end. The drive home was a walk in the park. Hardly any traffic. Students and the local community have just stopped caring about Illinois football. My 18 year old son is now a freshman at Illinois and he can't even remember a winning football team. His best memory was when he was 6 years old and got to spend a week with his grandparents while my wife and I went to our last Rose Bowl game. He now has no interest in attending the games with me. He prefers studying or working on Saturdays instead. My family has been season ticket holders since the early 80's, myself since 1986. I don't want to add up how much money and time I have investing in Illinois football. Why is our football team so bad? Why, Why, Why??? Will any of my friends or family even want to go to the Nebraska game next week? I can't even look forward to a night game! ugh. I need some kleenex. whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, sniff sniff.
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Deleted member 569417
D
Guest
This is such a myopic perspective.
Did you think an NFL coach that took a team to a Super Bowl would come to a program like Illinois in January 2016? People take jobs all the time for money or because they wouldn’t otherwise get an opportunity.
We have had opportunities to make good hires. We make bad hires because the people leading the program are incompetent. It has nothing whatsoever to do with “oh poor wittle Illinois. No one would ever come here”. It is simply the function of incompetent ADs hiring bad coaches.
This statement seems highly contradictory of itself. You make the statement that people accept jobs in some cases because they have no other opportunities and then go on to state that this isn’t a “poor wittle Illinois” situation but instead merely poor management. That’s odd. If the only reason a coach accepts the job here is because we’re his only offer, that very much IS a “poor wittle Illinois” situation and at that point, our management team is simply doing the best with what it has.
Big time programs land coaches who WANT to be that school. Low level programs land coaches because “This offer is all I have”. That’s how we hired Lovie Smith in the first place. If you fire Lovie, you don’t go and hire another Lovie.
6 sacks of Peters, 8 penalties for 90 yards at the wrong times, seems like EMU rarely had one, injuries to 2 starting safety/CBS and starting DT Walker sure didn't help either. Plus terrible clock management at the end of 1st half. Need to tighten up and I know we have been pretty vanilla on offense. Maybe we shock the world next week.
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Well, we did score 31 points which should win games, especially against such an average team. Imo, the loss falls squarely on
the defense. I don't see any improvement in the defense from last year.
When I played athletics, I saw coaches, including college, who simply said play ball; who never improved individual players. They never offered even a single bit of advice on how to improve. They got their paychecks and evidently that was enough. Those kind of coaches are a dime a dozen, yet get paid big bucks. Then there are coaches who improve individual players. I don't see the illini football coaches improving players. Very sad.
the defense. I don't see any improvement in the defense from last year.
When I played athletics, I saw coaches, including college, who simply said play ball; who never improved individual players. They never offered even a single bit of advice on how to improve. They got their paychecks and evidently that was enough. Those kind of coaches are a dime a dozen, yet get paid big bucks. Then there are coaches who improve individual players. I don't see the illini football coaches improving players. Very sad.
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illini80
- Forgottonia
Unfortunately your experience mirrors 1000’s of others. And it doesn’t need to be this way. As others have said, they have watered down the traditions to the point of irrelevance and the games on their own are simply not fun to watch. Hire some consultants, because whoever is making the decisions has no clue what they are doing.
LOL, I don’t think so but it’s close. Creighton has 3, Lovie has 4.
Would have liked to see R Smith throw a few quick passes to tight end or slot over the middle with so much pressure on, Peters. I don't think Lovie will be let go even if they win only one more game. I think Whitman is in for another year and i know i'm going to get fried for this, but so am I have the same concerns as everyone else, but i think they're on the right track offensively and are bringing in some slid recruits although more are needed, especially on D.
illini80
- Forgottonia
The defense was bad, but we almost expected that did’nt we? The offense should have been able to control the game imo. We looked great at times, and inept for much more of the time. Really, we were just bad today, except for that field goal which was terrific.
Cook
- Richmond, VA
What's the purpose of having all those coach comm headsets if no one is screaming CLOCK at the end of half? Also wondering just what in the hell this staff does talk about on them at all...
Don't we have someone responsible to help with in game management, who keeps everyone up to date on time outs, clock situation, when to go for 2, calling out when a fake kick is likely, recommending when to try a fake, giving field position observations, etc?
Don't we have someone responsible to help with in game management, who keeps everyone up to date on time outs, clock situation, when to go for 2, calling out when a fake kick is likely, recommending when to try a fake, giving field position observations, etc?
Most teams have that person. His title is Head Coach.
The commentators were jumping on Brandon for that but Lovie needs to recognize that his QB is unaware that the clock is running, run himself down to the official and call for a timeout. That’s his job.
It’s embarrassing to think that we used our timeouts worse than a coach that used one before the game even started.
Oh I'm definitely not optimistic. If I had to bet, I'd say we win 1 more. But we're a mediocre team in a mediocre division. Anyone who says there is no way we win 4 has not been watching the other teams on our schedule.
IllFanInMi
I
Guest
I’m a MSU fan second to Illinois, mainly due to my wife’s family and my kid.
Got to the parking lot at 10:00 after an hour drive from Gran Rapids for a 4:00 kick, about 12 of us from our neighborhood went. Tailgating was well underway and by noon campus was a madhouse. Stumbled towards the stadium around 3:00 and saw more madness and tailgating right outside the gates.
72,000 fans, most of whom left in a state of shock from losing at home to ASU. 20 minutes just to get out of campus because nobody stuck around for some post game cocktails other than ASU fans, who were acting like they won a playoff game.
I would have liked to see Sparty win for my kid, but thankfully wasn’t bothered by the loss. My point here is it was a great day and great college football environment, sorry to hear what it was like at CU.
Been an Illini fan my whole life as I was born in Chicago, but never have made it to the campus. It’s on my bucket list, so if you ever have trouble filling those seats, I’m all in
Nick Allegretti must have been an exceptionally good player because the OL play has dropped off considerably. Maybe the change in OL coaches has something to do with it?
Peters had a below average game - you can't miss that many wide open receivers who generally haven't been dropping the ball.
30,000 foot view - below average teams like Illinois need to have a fast QB that can scramble - much harder for defensive coaches to scheme.
Agree with the poster who complained about the atmosphere at the games; need to think outside the box here but there is near zero momentum. Free beer for students? There's only so many people on the I 74 corridor and they're generally old.
I'd give this team a C grade on the "Illini curve" - there have been worse Illini teams over the years and there's at least a chance that they can win most games on the schedule.
Hope for the best.
Peters had a below average game - you can't miss that many wide open receivers who generally haven't been dropping the ball.
30,000 foot view - below average teams like Illinois need to have a fast QB that can scramble - much harder for defensive coaches to scheme.
Agree with the poster who complained about the atmosphere at the games; need to think outside the box here but there is near zero momentum. Free beer for students? There's only so many people on the I 74 corridor and they're generally old.
I'd give this team a C grade on the "Illini curve" - there have been worse Illini teams over the years and there's at least a chance that they can win most games on the schedule.
Hope for the best.
I still want Mike Leach.
Great to see the receivers catching the ball this year. Only remember one drop today, Sidney.
Need more dbs now! Also IW will know the system better, be bigger and ready next year if not this. They won't change coaches now unless we tank the rest of the year. Worried how our defensive backfield holds up, and they'll dictate the results.
Lots of smart people thought that the Lovie Smith hire was a smart one at the time. (FWIW, Brian Cook at MGoBlog gave a thumbs up -- not that I'd have any reason to follow that website...) He'd come off a bad string in Tampa Bay but he'd coached on two Super Bowl teams (as a DC in St Louis and HC at Chicago) so he'd had some successes. He was mainly an NFL guy so he wasn't an obvious candidate for college jobs, but he had some familiarity with the midwest in general and Illinois in particular so it sort of made sense that he'd be interested in the U of I. I can't recall any criticism of the hire (unlike Brady Hoke's stint at Michigan, not that I'd know anything about that...) or any warning signs at the time, so if you want to beat up the administration over this you're doing it based entirely on hindsight.
Illinifan533
- Normal, Illinois
I guess the only upsides I can see right now are that Whitman will have a chance to hire a coach under more normal circumstances (but it's Illinois football, so it wouldn't surprise me if something bizarre happened), and that the guy he hires will inherit a slightly better situation than Lovie did.
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