I think you're overthinking this a little.
Maryland 20, Illinois 17 Postgame
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I think it is a bit early to worry about the impact of bringing in QB transfers and converting “talented but flawed” prep recruits to WR. At least thus far, it doesn’t appear BB and his offense value dual threat QBs, and that is primarily what IW, Spann and Taylor (actually switched to DB I think) were. Collier was also a dual threat QB in HS, so it will be interesting to see what happens to him. According to 247, Illini have offered four QBs in 2022class (signed one) and three in 2023 class, and none appear to be of the dual threat variety. So other than possibly Collier in the future, position shifts likely won’t be an issue nor will those already made impact future recruiting. If anything they probably will help future recruiting since QB room isn’t as crowded now.
Obviously bringing in mediocre transfers at any position is not good, First, it is important to remember that BB didn’t bring in Peters, so whatever impact that had or didn’t have isn’t on BB. Second, though some people probably wanted to see IW win the job, given what BB likes to do on offense and their skill sets, I think most people expected Peters to win that job. BB has brought in what would appear to be two mediocre transfers — Artur and the guy from Northern Michigan — but that was mainly out of necessity because he felt he had to remake the QB room. As someone pointed out, finding a good transfer QB is difficult as there aren’t many good ones and those tend to go to the better schools. Given all that, I’d argue that Artur wasn’t a terrible pick up — rated fairly high as a prep and only a sophomore, so time to work with and develop him. Now after seeing him play, it is fair to wonder if he’ll ever develop beyond mediocre for the Illini but at least he still has time. And I don’t think having him here is going to scare off recruits nor do I think BB would have a problem elevating someone over him in the future.
I think with Peters moving on next year, BB might look in the portal to sign a QB next year out of necessity. But I do think he would prefer and is working his way toward relying on the development of 3 star (and hopefully a 4 star or two in the future) QBs. It’s just going to take some time Hopefully Donavan Leary is the first of those.
Lots of qb transfer, many good ones.
Mayfield, Burrow, Fields, Tate Forcier.
depends on fit.
Last QB /s
We're not getting the Justin Fields type transfers anytime soon. Peters may well be the ceiling on the type of QB transfer we can bring in until we start winning, and I don't know how we win with that caliber QB. Like an ouroboros of suckage. This is more a concern than a prediction btw, and just saying I'd rather the main focus be on finding and developing HS talent than continually relying on better programs' castoffs.
Agree. Won’t get that type.
It’s a vicious circle….get lower rated recruits, don’t develop them, let’s get highly rated transfer!!
Now go the transfer route, doesn’t work out, let’s get them out of HS and develop!
I agree that you can’t consistently be relying on transfer QBs. However, If we are relying on in house guys next year, I think it’s a disaster. I trust Bret to find a transfer QB way more than Lovie. He does need to start finding some HS QB though and i think Leary is a good start.
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
Meh. I look at the QBs that BB had success with at Wisconsin and see system guys, not studs, with maybe the exception of Wilson's transfer year. They were all solid QBs, no doubt, but Scott Tolzien, recruited as a 2-star, was 21-5 as a starter at UW. Shoot, in 2006 UW went 9-4 with Tyler Donovan as QB. Those teams all had monster OLs and solid RBs, so I have every expectation that BB will build toward a similar system here.
Control the game.....and don't lose the game for us. That is what BB wants out of the QB. Solid defense and stout running game to go with it.
Illwinsagain
- Cary, IL
I can't wait for that to be the case.
lots of parallels being a Cubs fan and Illini football fan.
2016 was UNBELIEVABLE for me and it gives me hope Illini can win the B1G conference again.
I dont have any hope whatsoever for aspirations beyond that.
People are complaining about sitkowski but he's good enough that he won't cost us games. For us to win though we need wide receivers that can regularly get separation and an o-line that will give him time in the pocket and holes for our RBs to run through. We can probably find a couple decent WRs in the portal but that O-line is going to take some time.
I’m obviously not in practice and don’t know what their reads are, but I was really surprised we never gave to IW on the jet sweep. From where I was sitting they didn’t cover it one time. Played the run up the gut every time. Just seemed strange to me. Maybe Peterson saw different in the box.
In his presser, Peterson said that the QB can decide on giving IW the ball on the jet sweep based on how he reads the defense pre and post snap.
Yeah but then shouldn’t the OC be like “hey they haven’t covered the jet action one time” I need to call a straight up jet sweep?
The fact that he never called a straight jet sweep makes me think he saw something up there that I couldn’t see from my seat.
The edge player could have been playing the jet straight away by not engaging with the tackle/TE and getting outside contain.
If I was game planning for us, that is how you take away one of the few weapons we have on offense.
We have to at least keep showing it in hopes one time the end crashes down and IW can run for days.
Some of you must have been listening to my son chant "JET SWEEP, JET SWEEP" during the game. Our OC did not gain much favor among the faithful with his poorly executed plan. Lots of blame to lay here, but BB and TP are making the big bucks to set up plays that will allow the offense to score.
Some bad play calls, a lot of bad execution by the players though too. Bad blocking and some bad routes. Hands get tied at times when you can't get push up front.
The sad part is the O-Line was supposed to be a real strength. Outside of the 2nd half against Neb, they have looked really bad
Think a lot of it is adjusting from the spread/zone blocking scheme. Bart is legit just gotta give it a little time.
But weren't we already running zone scheme? Wisconsin especially under Alvarez and BB ran single cut zone blocking scheme with huge OL. Bart puts on clinics about zone scheme mainly focused on A and C gap power concepts (what we are seeing as the majority of our play calls). They have been working together and in the zone scheme before unless I am mistaken about what our running scheme was before.
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