Minnesota 40, Illinois 17 POSTGAME

#53      
Time to turn the page. We’ve been on this one for far too long. I’m officially checked out, and I have to believe that the rest of Illini nation is as well. Until there are significant coaching changes, nothing will change.
 
#54      

Deleted member 29907

D
Guest
Really disappointed in Rod Smith's play calling too - he's fallen in love with the hope of a big pass play and we have zero anticipation for blitzes. This offense is not creative at all and I am not talking anything complex -
 
#55      
I'm not really much of a college football fan (insert your own joke here) and only watched a little of the game, but what I did see it sure didn't seem that Peters was very good. Is it him, the offensive scheme or the lack of talent around him???
I would argue ALL OF THE ABOVE. The O-Line did an acceptable job with pass protection but the Minnesota defense came ready to stop the run and our guys couldn't open holes. They killed us at the line of scrimmage. Peters made some terrible throws. I mean,... on occasion he misses his receivers by 3-5 yards from 15 yards away. That won't work. And our receivers had the usual complement of drops. Ricky Smalling was a disaster area today! Three drops, although one was on a penalty and didn't matter.

Minnesota is just clearly a lot better than us across the board. I'm not sure if our scheme was bad,... when your passing game stinks it makes it easy to defend the run. If there are offensive coaching problems,... maybe it's just a failure to get the QB and receivers synced up in practice. Peters does not make quick decisions, and he can't fire the ball into tight areas. And he plays to avoid interceptions so he is tentative,... he needs his wide receivers to be very wide open before he'll throw it to them. ??? I'm going to shut up now,...
 
#56      
MN came in averaging 115 rushing yards/game. They got what, almost 400? At one point late in the game they were averaging 8 ypc between the two main backs.

Lovie said the tackling needs to improve. Well you can’t teach guys to stand up and strip instead of hit and wonder why we don’t tackle anyone. And you certainly can’t get better without live tackling occasionally in practice. This isn’t rocket surgery.

I see one possible win left. Rutgers is the only chance I see, and they shouldn’t even be in the B1G. Time to reboot, but I’m not sure I want JW making that hire. If he consults Guenther and Ron Turner like last time there isn’t much hope I can see.
 
#57      

skyIdub

Winged Warrior
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#60      

Deleted member 4333

D
Guest
Smart move by Lovie to make himself D coordinator. We can’t fire him, because then we have no one to run the defense

I'm guessing Miles is linebacker coach in name only. I bet he is acting defensive coordinator. That would explain at least some of the crap we're seeing.
 
#62      
Lovie had his usual surly press conference saying nothing but cliches and not really answering any questions. He knows where this is headed. I agree with the guy who said if you don't practice tackling, how will you get better at it. We have too many fragile guys.
 
#64      
I'm not surprised by the poor showing on defense. A bye week is not enough to fix what's going on. I am surprised the offense was this bad. This MN team will give up points and yards. 250 or so total yards for IL, less than a 100 on the ground. No rhythm. I thought Robinson did okay nuder the circumstances. But i don't think Peters or Robinson are the best choice to run this offense. I think Williams is and i don't care if he's "ready' or not. If this guy is the future QB of this team get him on the field, so he will be much more prepared for the start of next season. It's not whether or not he's going to fare any better than the other 2 at this point. You want him to have the experience going into next year unless your planning on playing Peters or Robinson ahead of him , again, which i think would be ridiculous.
 
#65      
I'm not surprised by the poor showing on defense. A bye week is not enough to fix what's going on. I am surprised the offense was this bad. This MN team will give up points and yards. 250 or so total yards for IL, less than a 100 on the ground. No rhythm. I thought Robinson did okay nuder the circumstances. But i don't think Peters or Robinson are the best choice to run this offense. I think Williams is and i don't care if he's "ready' or not. If this guy is the future QB of this team get him on the field, so he will be much more prepared for the start of next season. It's not whether or not he's going to fare any better than the other 2 at this point. You want him to have the experience going into next year unless your planning on playing Peters or Robinson ahead of him , again, which i think would be ridiculous.

Throwing Isaiah out there against Michigan or Wisconsin will do absolutely nothing to get him ready for next year. I’ve seen too many kids ruined by moves like this.

This conversation shouldn’t be had until Rutgers week.
 
#67      
I disagree with you COMPLETELY Twangers. These kids aren't girls scouts their competitors. They love to play the game and won't go into a "football coma", because they take a whoopin;. Get him on the field!!
 
#68      

LJ22

Chicago, IL
Very sad that this is how Lovie's tenure with us will be remembered. I was on the bandwagon. Could have gone so much differently.
 
#69      

illini80

Forgottonia
Throwing Isaiah out there against Michigan or Wisconsin will do absolutely nothing to get him ready for next year. I’ve seen too many kids ruined by moves like this.

This conversation shouldn’t be had until Rutgers week.
I tend to agree.

Is the injury that had him out today the same one he's been dealing with all season?
 
#74      

TwoElevenEastDaniel

Cochrane's-Orchid-Tonic
It seems like last year, the offense depended on big, explosive plays. This year, since they're not coming, the defense is now depending on turnovers and big plays. There's no consistency of execution.

I have always held Lovie Smith the man in high esteem. But Lovie Smith the college football coach is 4-25 in conference. That's inexcusable and reeks of the worst kind of coasting on reputation.
 
#75      

TwoElevenEastDaniel

Cochrane's-Orchid-Tonic
"From Sunday through Friday our football program has exceeded all expectations, in every way," he said. "But on Saturday, we struggled. We've been up and down and sideways a little bit." This was Notre Dame's AD upon firing Tyrone Willingham. Willingham was 21-15 playing a brutal schedule.