Pregame: Illinois at Purdue, Saturday, October 26th, 11:00am CT, BTN

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#152      
Now saying up to three inches of rain in West Lafayette Saturday. A muddy track and a downpour would seem to work to our benefit.. especially the downpour
 
#154      

Deleted member 654622

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This isn't 1968, players come off of ACL injuries all the time and perform just as well as they did prior to the injury. It is a question mark, but hardly huge. Your statement to the contrary indicates a lack of understanding of the medical involved. Your statement that anyone disagreeing with you isn't credible without any basis, is not fact, as the Dude in the Big Lebowski said, "It's just like, your opinion, man."
The Big Lebowski Opinion GIF by The Good Films
https://giphy.com/gifs/thegoodfilms-film-the-big-lebowski-dude-MPuTZQqOmYKPK
 
#158      

Hoppy2105

Little Rock, Arkansas
Any word on Smalling or Betiku?

Lovie has kind of an odd way with injury reporting right?

If they are out for the year, it gets reported openly but if not, he doesn’t disclose much (if any) info.

How long did it take to report Beason being out for the year after his injury? If we’ve passed that length of time then maybe no news is good news.
 
#160      
The likelihood of rain gives me hope, but I still think we lose by ten. We haven't yet shown a respectable pass defense.
But I thought Wisconsin would be 56-3.
 
#161      

Deleted member 654622

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I'm going to be that guy walking with my daughter and her soccer team in the local Halloween parade watching the game on my phone with an earbud in. Let's hope they don't give me reason to spout profanity out into space
 
#162      
Purdue would love to win this one, i guess.
I hope Illinois can defeat the Boilermakers.
 
#164      

Deleted member 645583

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ILLINI: this ain't no trap game. Dont look ahead! Win this one! C'mon men!

GO FIGHTING ILLIIINI!
 
#166      

breadman

Herndon, VA
I believe I have mentioned this before. Because of what they did to us last year at our homecoming, the revenge factor is there. We will win!! "It's as easy as that"
 
#167      

Deleted member 533939

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Why does the rain help us? That sounds like some "Bear Weather" nonsense.
 
#169      

IlliniKat91

Chicago, IL
Why does the rain help us? That sounds like some "Bear Weather" nonsense.

Because their run game is atrocious and it's hard to throw and catch a wet football.

Doesn't mean we can't blow it, just that Mother Nature may be giving us a little hand. We still need to be focused and execute.
 
#170      
This quote from Craig is the only thing I disagreed with in his article:
Illinois has been one of the luckiest turnover teams this year.

Luckiest? I don't call it luck when it's the one defensive thing Lovie preaches more than anything else. If anything, we focus TOO much on turnovers and not enough on tackling, positioning, and dumb penalties.

But luck? No. I don't think so.
 
#171      

Deleted member 46511

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I HATE that I feel this way... but I can't help but recognize a few things that are seemingly being overlooked Bc we won last week.

For this post, i'll only focus on the clock management at the end of half and games.

First half.
After 5 or 6 straight weeks of opportunities, we are still, one of the, if not THE worst D1 team at the management of this.
Lovie Smith, after choosing to use no timeouts, for three weeks earlier this season, with chances to score at the end of the half of very close games… this time (and for the 2nd time in 3 weeks), INEXPLICABLY called timeout AFTER... yes AFTER his team failed on third down, resulting in giving the opposition extra time. I repeat, we called timeout... to punt.
(On 4th and 4, in our own territory.)
Let that sink in.
No coaching staff in America has been worse at clock management in the first half 2 min drill.

---
End of Game.
It would be very easy, to simply call the last drive… perfection... because did we score? Yes. Did we win? Yes.
However... It's worth looking under the hood.
We obtain the ball with 2 1/2 minutes to go in the game, roughly. Needing to go 40ish yards for a FG chance and 70ish for a TD. (I didn't look up the yard line.)

We proceeded, in hurry up mode... to run... wait for it...
4 plays... in 1:50. (check the tape. That's not an exaggeration.) and this was with multiple first downs and clock stoppages to move the chains!

(you can tell me we wanted to leave nothing on the clock for Wisconsin... great... and I will tell you, without question, that THAT is a decision you make when you have REACHED FG range, and you can kneel to force timeouts, and such, not when it's still in question. and it was undoubtedly still in question.)

The clock only stopped at the :40 mark, after the miracle run by Dre... because WISCONSIN used their first timeout... bc their coach is smart enough to realize it's his only hope.

WE did not manage the clock on the last drive, and likely would have effed it up... had WISCONSIN not managed the clock for us, using all 3 of their timeouts. (The last 2, not overly relevant.)

I was a staunch Lovie supporter, am a huge Illini supporter, and love love love this win...

but everyone is pretending that we've "figured it out" potentially. I watched our kids win DESPITE some really obvious coaching blunders.

unless Lovie hires someone to manage the game and the clock (he is NOT going to figure this out. It's been 20+ years and he's literally at the bottom of D1 at this), this WILL cost us more games

Only SLIGHTLY better coaching/Gameplan/clock management, and we beat both EMU and Nebraska.
Think about our season, then.

We played a great game. Our plan worked vs Wisconsin. Enjoy it. Hats off. the players may have turned a corner. Lovie and staff need to catch up.
 
#172      
End of Game.

I'm confused about everything you said after this point. What would have been you preferred method of ending the game involving the clock? We got the ball with 2:32 left and ran the clock out to kick a field goal. Looking at playclock, we ran plays that took 30 seconds, 32 seconds, and 35 seconds resulting in a first down and only 55 seconds left. Wisconsin calls a timeout, we proceed to run it three more times, milking clock, causing wisconsin to use timeouts. We kick a field goal with 4 seconds left in the game.

That's the way every coach under the sun would do it.

The only play call I think was run quicker than I would have liked was the second play after the wisconsin timeout (the play before the Dre Brown run).

I mean, there's a lot of things that still need to be tweaked, and yes, a win masks some things, but I'm not certain end of the game clock management in this particular game is one of them...

EDIT: I have my Wisconsin timeouts wrong. The wisconsin timeout was not until AFTER the Dre Brown run. The rest of what I said I stand by, though.
 
#173      
This quote from Craig is the only thing I disagreed with in his article:


Luckiest? I don't call it luck when it's the one defensive thing Lovie preaches more than anything else. If anything, we focus TOO much on turnovers and not enough on tackling, positioning, and dumb penalties.

But luck? No. I don't think so.

To call it luck is both right and wrong.

On the right side, recovering a fumble is not a skill. It’s very literally luck that should occur with no more predictability than a coin flip. This season we have recovered something like 90% of the fumbles we have forced. That’s incredibly lucky, as that percentage does not project forward with any level of sustainability. HOWEVER, forcing a football is a skill and because we are forcing fumbles at incredibly high rates, the volume of fumbles we will recover at even coin flip odds tells you that we are going to have a turnover rate that is higher than an average football team. That is where he is wrong.

Lovie has plenty of faults but he’s doing something right here. I hope we keep after it.
 
#175      
Maybe I'm crazy but I kind of like when we aren't running plays blazing fast on offense.

Peyton Manning was the master of this for years. You run basically a no huddle to keep them in the same defense(obviously you still make subs when needed). But you don't rush to snap the football.

Holding the defense, seeing how they set, and then making adjustments within that framework is very effective and somewhat of a lost art.

Before anyone says anything, yes I know Peytkn wasn't typical. The adjustments also dont have to come from the QB.
 
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