DaChief4ever
- Urbana
SO Epstein is THE man now.....is Lovie going with the hot hand now..kinda miss Foster.
Huge difference between a drop and a receiver doing their best and getting a hand on the ball. Crouch is our best option, but if he doesn't improve I'm not joining Robert in looking for six wins.
Keep in mind, that as good as the defense was, if we don't get the pick six, its 13-7. If we don't force the fumble while they're driving late in the first half its at least 13-10 and possibly 13-14. We fell on all (4?) of our fumbles.
I'm glad the defense was awesome tonight.
. . . This is Lovie Smith football.
If he can win with Jay Cutler at the NFL level, he can win with Crouch at this level.
He did see the open field and ran--or more accurately dove--it into the endzone. Although, c'mon Chase, let's make sure you save up that body to start at least a half dozen more starts. Actually, ten.I may be in the minority here, but I hardly think Crouch is the detriment some of you are acting like he is.
What is the meaning of the defensive coaches' orange shirts. Said 3+.
I may be in the minority here, but I hardly think Crouch is the detriment some of you are acting like he is. After week one, it was pretty obvious that we could have had Peyton Manning as our QB, and he wasn't going to get anything done with the penetration that our OL gave up. Last night, though, the OL played their minds out, and Crouch looked 1000x better. Is he going to be a Heisman candidate? No. But, to read some of you say things like "he's not a D1 caliber QB" is just wrong.
It can't be stated enough what VAIllini35 just posted: "Check the tape - both Dudek and Malik dropped passes right in their gut." Not only did they drop those passes, they were both dropped in absolutely critical situations.
Crouch also made two very bad plays that were pretty much 100% on him. There was the one play where I'm pretty sure he threw into 11 on 1 coverage... and the interception (though I'm willing to split the pick about 80-20 with whoever called a pass play there...)
Even with those two huge drops and Crouch's misplays, Illinois had two great 7+ minute offensive drives that were crucial to the win last night. Crouch was a major part of that. His passing is subpar, I'm not naive enough to think anything other than that, but he does service as an adequate QB for our team right now.
This is Lovie Smith football.
If he can win with Jay Cutler at the NFL level, he can win with Crouch at this level.
Wait. What? Two days ago WKU was a 7.5 point favorite and high scoring team and we had a young defensive line that couldn't be expected to shoot straight and and and.
Here's a little look back:
It's going to be a disappointing game for Lovie.
Hilltoppers take a heartbreaker in Champaign
Western Kentucky to end it's 0-6 winless streak against the Big Ten.
WKU wins 31-24.
WKU win probability 67 percent
Illini will have to be better than they were
WKU wins
More choose WKU
Hilltoppers have more firepower
I could go on, and yes, there were some picks for Illinois, but even those who did choose the Illini said it would be close and a lot of scoring by WKU. No one saw WKU getting shut down on offense like they were. So a message for all those Doubting Dougs our there, your crow is waiting...and it's served cold.
Disclaimer: I didn't make prediction...but I don't call myself an expert, or particularly knowledgeable for that matter. Just a note, though, to those who said Illinois will go 2-10 for 2017...they have to lose every game for the rest of the season to do so. Yeah, it could happen.
And I accurately predicted that we'd score 20 points........I do believe I predicted a 31-17 victory for the Illini [emoji41] ...not too far off...
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Check the tape - both Dudek and Malik dropped passes right in their gut. Hardly 'doing their best and getting a hand on the ball'
Does anyone know where the referee crew for this game was from?
Yet the game was still 4 hrs
Game lasted 3:26, which is pretty much right at D1 average. Wouldn't mind if they could speed it up by 20-30 minutes.
He's not the detriment some are making - it puzzles me what people are expecting. He's playing above average and better than I expected. He did score one of our TDs and had several nice runs when we were running the clock.
Thinking we collectively need to raise the bar relative to our QB expectations.I also agree the criticism of Crouch is off base. He played well for what he can do. He made some great throws and made some not so good ones, and one bad interception.
He showed toughness and leadership. He's not the next Tom Brady, but he can get us to a decent record this year. The idea that "he's not a division I QB" is absurd. He will do better for us than Lunt ever could.
Thinking we collectively need to raise the bar relative to our QB expectations.
Even though we have generally sucked in football since Butkus left school, we ARE accustomed to seeing some pretty decent quarterback play over the last 35 years (Dave Wilson, Tony Eason, Jack Trudeau, Jason Verduzco, Jeff George, Kurt Kittner, Juice Williams, Nathan Scheelhaase). And all of them could accurately complete a 20 yard post pattern against really good Big Ten competition. I don't think we're going to see much of that this year.
Still, hopefully we can eek out 4 more victories with Crouch under center. Go ILLINI!!