Purdue 46, Illinois 7 POSTGAME

#26      

Hoppy2105

H
Little Rock, Arkansas
Hoppy2105
Spoon House said:
lol @ these people already calling Lovie a dead man coaching.

I sure am glad cooler heads than yours will prevail, if for no other reason than the buyout.
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Lot of emotion flowing right now. Lovie still has until year 4-5 to show what he’s creating.

He still has the youngest P5 team right?

If he gets one more win he will have met my expectations this year.

I know the way we lost sucked...but all teams (good and bad) put up stinkers. Michigan State, who just beat Penn State, lost to Northwestern last week.

As long as he gets one more win this year, I won’t start to doubt.

Edit: I will say something seems wrong with the D. Need to address it...
 
#27      

Dbell1981

D
Decatur, IL
Dbell1981
Mostly freshmen secondary. Sucks but its reality. The suspended kids really hosed the team especially on defense. Bush needs to quit trying to act like a 1 man show and share the pigskin. Frustrating game to say the least. Not sure if the defensive scheme is bad or the players are just too inexperienced to know all the different adjustments. One has to think that the whole system is not yet understood by quite a few on the defense. I'm sure Hardy would like to send more heat but these freshmen corners are no where near ready to play 1 on 1 while we send 6. Just young team that's going to be frustrating to watch the rest of the year. Hopefully the freshmen and current verbals dont get discouraged and go elsewhere.
 
#28      

Soxfreak64

Soxfreak64
Bloomington
Soxfreak64
The problem is that fans are tired of the collective shoulder shrugs from the staff in the middle of season 3. Those show in multiple ways, some of which are entirely reasonable—others not so much.

1. The typical calm and cool Lovie won’t ever reflect fan frustration after a game. And that, IMO, is fine.
2. This stubborn insistence that “the system works” on D is just insane. It doesn’t. And it won’t next year either.
3. The warning signs of a willingness to punt on this season by trying to preserve MJ’s redshirt.
 
#30      

BRucks

BRucks
BRucks
SKane said:
If you are age 30: Illinois will have 12 more football coaches during your life expectancy.

If you are age 40: Illinois will have 10 more football coaches your life expectancy.

If your are age 50: Illinois will have 8 more football coaches your life expectancy.

If you are age 60: Illinois will have 6 more football coaches your life expectancy.

If you are age 70: Illinois will have 3 more football coaches your life expectancy.

If you are a kitten: Illinois will have 3 more football coaches your life expectancy.
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I've had a dozen in my time (14 if you count interims). Lovie may well overtake Valek or Moeller for the worst of the lot. Of course, Valek came in after the slush fund. Attendance may be the thing that does Lovie in. Last year's attendance was the worst since 1970. Prior to that was 1945. So far this year we are running behind both last year and 1970. Dark times in CU.
 
#32      

Ryllini

Ryllini
Lombard
Ryllini
The gift that keeps giving, Mike Thomas, fired the perfect coach for this program in Ron Zook. I think Lovie can turn this thing around, but by the time he gets it going, he will be heading off for the sunset. This program absolutely can not fire Lovie this soon. We have to let him play it out, hope it works out, and have a successor in place. You fire a coach, let alone 3 in eight to ten years, and you can kiss this program goodbye.
 
#33      

BRucks

BRucks
BRucks
Ryllini said:
The gift that keeps giving, Mike Thomas, fired the perfect coach for this program in Ron Zook. I think Lovie can turn this thing around, but by the time he gets it going, he will be heading off for the sunset. This program absolutely can not fire Lovie this soon. We have to let him play it out, hope it works out, and have a successor in place. You fire a coach, let alone 3 in eight to ten years, and you can kiss this program goodbye.
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Zook's QB coach was on the other sideline today and he schooled Lovie.
 
#34      

coryfor3

C
coryfor3
It’s very disappointing. I love Illinois and football games. Some great memories at Memorial Stadium. But they’ve killed so much tradition and the team is always terrible and not even competitive with middling Big 10 teams. Killing tradition is bad enough. Being awful is bad too. One or the other and I could take it. But football games are now almost unbearable and a waste of time and hope and resources. This program is dead.
 
#36      

TDCumm16

TDCumm16
TDCumm16
Ryllini said:
I think Lovie can turn this thing around, but by the time he gets it going, he will be heading off for the sunset. This program absolutely can not fire Lovie this soon. We have to let him play it out, hope it works out, and have a successor in place. You fire a coach, let alone 3 in eight to ten years, and you can kiss this program goodbye.
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Agree with this... too much doom and gloom here. I’m just as disappointed as the next with the dashed glimmer of hope we had coming off our first 5 games. We have to let Lovie build this thing - young players are coming in and those in the program showing signs.

Just too inconsistent. We played below our level and were exposed. We’ll have another game this year we play above our level and surprise someone. Nature of a young team.

Agree with the key observations
- Bush worse game - Purdue made him look bad. Not ready to give up on him but the leash is now short.
- our good O stunk. Was it bush? OC? Purdue? Whatever it was ball was not in our playmakers hands today - id rather sink with Epstein and Corbin
- D was the D we’ve seen all year. Purdue was the first team that made us pay from the start. USF and PSU both gave us penalties and turnovers where we bent but held most of those games. Didn’t catch those breaks today
 
#37      

Neidermeyer

Neidermeyer
Faber College
Neidermeyer
TeamWilliams said:
Exactly. And there aren't many others. One simple fix is to stop giving the board dillusions that we are Harvard and make our admission standards for our athletes the same as the NCAA standards.

We put ourselves at a huge disadvantage this way.

One of my HS classmates ended up getting offers to Duke and NW for football but couldn't get into U of I until a last minute increase in his gpa so that he could play for his State.

Illinois was better at the time and he was going to Duke or NW barring the "B+" he got in Spanish in order to get his gpa up to get into U Of I. Without it, he was going to Duke or NW for football.
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Someone should tell Stanley Green our schools is full of "smart" kids
 
#38      

JJE

JJE
Bethalto, IL
JJE
I drove up today from St. Louis. High expectations for a competitive game, instead we all got a heaping pile of garbage. Stadium was pretty full. The fans never had a chance to cheer for anything. I get it, this is Lovie’s “second” year. The we are young argument is getting a little old though. I don’t know what the answer is, but what if we lose out, there’s no way you can sell the fans that this ship is moving in the right direction. The football team just seems like the never ending project that never goes anywhere.
 
#39      

FinalFour88

FinalFour88
Charlotte, NC
FinalFour88
Personally, I thought AJ Bush looked good today. Maybe I'm watching a different game. LOL The wide receivers did him no favors. And the defense is atrocious. Things are not going well right now. We weren't competitive at home against a 2-3 Purdue team.
 
#41      

FinalFour88

FinalFour88
Charlotte, NC
FinalFour88
JJE said:
I drove up today from St. Louis. High expectations for a competitive game, instead we all got a heaping pile of garbage. Stadium was pretty full. The fans never had a chance to cheer for anything. I get it, this is Lovie’s “second” year. The we are young argument is getting a little old though. I don’t know what the answer is, but what if we lose out, there’s no way you can sell the fans that this ship is moving in the right direction. The football team just seems like the never ending project that never goes anywhere.
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Totally agree. This is our third year in a row being a "young team." That excuse doesn't work for me anymore. I don't see another win on our schedule. And if anyone thinks we'll beat Nebraska, I say no way. I think the Huskers will beat us by at least two scores.
 
#42      

coryfor3

C
coryfor3
JJE said:
I drove up today from St. Louis. High expectations for a competitive game, instead we all got a heaping pile of garbage. Stadium was pretty full. The fans never had a chance to cheer for anything. I get it, this is Lovie’s “second” year. The we are young argument is getting a little old though. I don’t know what the answer is, but what if we lose out, there’s no way you can sell the fans that this ship is moving in the right direction. The football team just seems like the never ending project that never goes anywhere.
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I get it takes time to rebuild. But why do other bad programs get turned around after a year or two and we don’t? Syracuse and Iowa state and central Florida and Arizona and Arizona State, Washington State...I could keep going. Programs that were in a real bad place and came back quickly in recent years. If we were losing, I’d have hope. But it is the same complete beat downs no matter the team, no matter the coach, no matter the AD. Program is just rotten.
 
#43      

ktal

ktal
ktal
Didn't get to see the game today, and after seeing the score that's probably a good thing. I was really hopeful that we'd be competitive today, but that clearly wasn't the case. The disparity between the number of carries by Bush is the RBs is shocking. But is that part the OC or was that all on Bush?

If I'd seen the game I would probably be feeling the 'death of hope' that appears to have afflicted many of the posters here. I really don't want to go back to that. I guess I'm glad I missed the game. Ooof
 
#44      

KevinC

KevinC
KevinC
Please remember that most of these young men are freshmen and sophomores. Not only have they not come close to their peak strength but, their understanding of the game is extremely limited. To even bring up year 1 of Lovie is foolish IMO. Those were another coach's kids and definitely should not be held against him. The only thing that I dislike with Lovie is his desire to pound the ball on the ground. I realize that many on this board want even more of that but, if throwing the ball is such a negative, why are there so many here that are frightened to death of teams that throw it. If a team doesn't throw it on a regular basis, it will be very difficult to do so when the need arises. Everything speeds up during games as opposed to practice and, guys are a lot more relaxed when there is a need to throw it when they have become use to it. It also keeps defenses from putting up 8 man fronts on a regular basis. For those that need examples, see Ohio State and Alabama.
 
#46      

Hoppy2105

H
Little Rock, Arkansas
Hoppy2105
coryfor3 said:
I get it takes time to rebuild. But why do other bad programs get turned around after a year or two and we don’t? Syracuse and Iowa state and central Florida and Arizona and Arizona State, Washington State...I could keep going. Programs that were in a real bad place and came back quickly in recent years. If we were losing, I’d have hope. But it is the same complete beat downs no matter the team, no matter the coach, no matter the AD. Program is just rotten.
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I don’t know about those other teams, but WSU took 4 years to build their program.
 
#49      

Deleted member 19448

D
Guest
Deleted member 19448
Today was everything that Illinois football has been since the mid 90’s. Every hint of momentum in the program is followed by a huge turd of a performance. Typically at home.
 
#50      

Subortus

S
Subortus
The Illinois coaches should be ashamed of themselves. Purdue and Illinois have approximately the same amount of raw talent on their respective rosters this season, but the Purdue squad came to play while the Illini squad looked completely inept. There is plenty of blame to go around, but in my opinion this disaster was primarily caused by a lack of effective coaching.
Lovie Smith was quoted during the week as saying that he wanted plenty of students and alums to attend to the game so that they could see the shape that the program is in now. Careful what you wish for, Lovie...