Illinois 30, Toledo 28 Postgame
GallopingGhost
- Denver, CO
I agree.
Toledo is going to go on and win the MAC again. They are legit pretty good.
I love a win- first gotta say our QB was great. WR group was very solid. Those were big question marks coming in and
However we need to clean it up. Our penalties on 3rd and long alone, gave Toledo 16 points. All of them would have ended incomplete and 4th down punts. So our sloppiness kept this game closer than it should have been.
I get the sense we didn't show all our cards defensively....we were very passive for the most part, a lot of 3 man rushes and not much blitzing. I imagine the scheme will be different against Kansas. The penalties were the most frustrating part of the game for me. Luke looked very good and the O-Line will get better. It seems we had similar issues last year before we found our groove
Toledo is less than 2/1 money to win the MAC they are good I'm just worried about Brets identity being bad on both sides of the ball with Luke saving his ***
There are ways I could have believed we somehow lost tonight, but losing the line of scrimmage to a MAC team is scary. Always been his strength.
There are ways I could have believed we somehow lost tonight, but losing the line of scrimmage to a MAC team is scary. Always been his strength.
I am 75 years old and a proud Illinois alum ('73.) I have been watching football - grade school, high school, college and pro for about 74 years. I have never seen such a weak, passive, regrettable performance as our defensive line did today. Bad tackling and NO PASS RUSH. DL is one of our strengths??? SMH.
Wasn’t very good tonight in the pocket either …
I’m not too upset with the defensive game plan as much as I am with the substitutions … Injuries forced freshman to get their first snaps … But man if that’s the best McCantos can tackle I might lose my mind … I was assured by our coaches that if Rooks was healthy he was next in line to play based off his fall camp I think that’s an upgrade … Linebackers have work to do … OL has MAJOR work to do … Specifically the new guys …
Luke is a DUDE … Period … Impressed with our WRs … But man, we are thin there in terms of proven guys …
Not having The Law Firm in on a couple of those 3rd downs is pretty questionable …
All in all … Good teams find a way to win … We lose that game a couple years ago …
Kansas won’t be easy … Bret will make adjustments and the boys will be ready …
I’m honestly just glad that we’ve got a football team I look forward to watching and actually have an excuse to tell the Mrs. I’m busy every Saturday during game time and I don’t have to hear about how we got our
handed to us in the office on Mondays anymore … 
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Washington's catch was fantastic and so clutch, but so was Altmyer's throw. Our RT #73 got destroyed on that play, (Totally unacceptable in that situation) and yet Altmyer stood firm and made the pass while taking a big hit. If I'm a defensive lineman against Gesky all I do is a spin move. I hope he figures that out because he almost single handedly cost us the game. Major props to Altmyer and Washington!
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Crazy scenario:
On that 2 point conversion attempt after Toledo went up 28-27, they did that shovel pass that went incomplete.
Had we intercepted that pass and returned it, we would have taken the lead 29-28 and gotten the ball back with 3 minutes to go.
I feel like we would have then played conservative, have to punt, and Toledo would’ve gotten the ball back with ~2 minutes left for a chance to win it with a field goal.
On that 2 point conversion attempt after Toledo went up 28-27, they did that shovel pass that went incomplete.
Had we intercepted that pass and returned it, we would have taken the lead 29-28 and gotten the ball back with 3 minutes to go.
I feel like we would have then played conservative, have to punt, and Toledo would’ve gotten the ball back with ~2 minutes left for a chance to win it with a field goal.
Law firm not putting out good tape against this team where O line was their weakness as a MAC team might be disastrous for them I really hope I'm wrong.
Re group lets see it.
Werner had a Toledo guy on and said they could compete with us everywhere but our D line would bully them.
Yikes.
I don't like this thought per se, but I appreciate the hypothetical and acknowledge that you are likely right. I think we're going to need to trust the offense more than the defense until proven otherwise, and there was little chance of the staff making that realization under duress in game 1.
If my count was correct, there were 13 MAC OL on NFL rosters at the start of last season, and in this year's draft an EMU OL was taken in the 4th Rd.
This year, Toledo's OL (based on their 2-deep, I think these guys started today) includes a Miss. State transfer, Rutgers transfer, and Nick Rosi is on the Outland Trophy watch list.
To say we played a mere "MAC OL" is a bit unfairly dismissive, but the real point is that we basically know fudge-all after one week of football (as is always the case, and is why it remains completely stupid to even have polls any sooner than, say, week 4).
Toledo is good, have a good coach, good program, etc.
I'm psyched for our offense once we put it all together.
This year, Toledo's OL (based on their 2-deep, I think these guys started today) includes a Miss. State transfer, Rutgers transfer, and Nick Rosi is on the Outland Trophy watch list.
To say we played a mere "MAC OL" is a bit unfairly dismissive, but the real point is that we basically know fudge-all after one week of football (as is always the case, and is why it remains completely stupid to even have polls any sooner than, say, week 4).
Toledo is good, have a good coach, good program, etc.
I'm psyched for our offense once we put it all together.
I agree that appeared to be the game plan. However, it certaily seemed that the defense was better when they sent 5 rushers. It wasa little frustrating watching them rush 3 guys. The DBs played better than I could have hoped for.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
BTW , that we WON..............................the armchair QB's are out tonight ........Is it a full moon or what........Yikes........
SMH .....for some illogical reason I thought the Fighting Illini , coming back from a 19-7 deficit and WINNING the game might quell the usual negative banter so often professed here lately , but again I am wrong in my belief that a great win tonight would be praised and cherished instead of the needless picking apart of our weakness' after the FIRST GAME OF THE SEASON......
silly me...........snarkyness has a foothold here and won't be tamed in the near future............all opinions are to be posted and I wholeheartedly support that stance , but some reasoning and logic should accompany all the snarkyness.......
Again , the radio color guy for us , Martin O'Donnell stated close to halftime that the refs would need to soak their flag throwing arms in a bucket of ice water or their arms might break off with the number of penalties in the first half.......
I'm already looking forward to next weeks game , on the road , against a Big 12 opponent.........I really really am.............
JMHO.......................
If Luke has to run that much in our games, and.O line is that bad. He will not last past game 3. I sure hope the O line improves quickly gels!
It's as if you don't know who we are...
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
I'm more than well aware of who we are since I've been a member here for 16 + years.......it just doesn't add up since we have been starved for numerous years with poor play and embarrassing blowout losses to now have a winning attitude roster full of talented players finally and the program on the rise for there to be this kind of morose juvenile feelings after coming back from a 12 point deficit to win the game in an exciting finish.........
I guess my optimistic approach to life and sports doesn't allow the societal grumpiness to seep into my thought process......
I would hate to be so ambivilent to success and only see the bad in life and sports to not enjoy what happened last night with that exciting win..............Oh well , it's not my cross to bear and I'm glad i still have enough cranial processing to see the good in our win....to each their own..........I really really mean it...........................
As others said better, I suspect that might have been the plan. "We're much better than them, but their QB is elusive. Just gotta contain them". (We just didn't execute that well in the early going.)
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Right? Even the announcers all but pointed out the tremendous effort to fight through the tackle before the ball got there, yet no flag.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
One thing I left out last night was the lack of holding calls on the mud hens O line ........there were numerous times I saw blatant holding being done on our D linemen without a call made .....one play where their QB was flushed from the pocket one of their O linemen was holding our player with a handful of our jersey and the other hand wrapped around the waist of our player like a tackle being made........
maybe it was a result of the nine penalties called on us that made me upset with the calls made , but I doubt you wil ever see that officiating crew making calls in a playoff atmosphere........JMHO
The head referee looked ominously similar to the ref that worked last years loosier game with the awful call on an obvious TD play by the Illini being missed.....
maybe it was a result of the nine penalties called on us that made me upset with the calls made , but I doubt you wil ever see that officiating crew making calls in a playoff atmosphere........JMHO
The head referee looked ominously similar to the ref that worked last years loosier game with the awful call on an obvious TD play by the Illini being missed.....
When I first got hired at my current school, Casey Washington’s HS (pflugerville) was in our district. He didn’t play basketball, but he was in the front row of their student section, which was directly behind our bench at their gym, wearing an Illinois hoodie and just talking crazy student section type crap towards our bench. As a coach, you can hear a lot but you don’t listen to any of it and let it bother you. His stuff was funny though. I have liked him since that day. I told him good luck at Illinois and that’s where I went to school on the way out. I think he was shocked that someone else in the gym cared about Illinois football lol
While the crew was awful tonight and it did seem that the flags were primarily flying in one direction, especially with the no call on the very obvious hold you mentioned that prevented a sack and maybe a PI call or 2 that should've been thrown that weren't, we deserved many of those flags tonight.
Fact is we just weren't disciplined and made some terrible mental errors on 3rd downs keeping us from getting off the field and Toledo off the board.
The good news though is that you can fix undisciplined mental errors with a good coach, especially when they show up in game 1. And I do think we have one of those. And for that reason I'm not worried about the flags due to lack of discipline. They'll be worked out tomorrow if they weren't already worked out at halftime.
Finally, while the crew wasn't good, ultimately they didn't have that big of an effect on the game as the flags that hurt us the most were self-induced.
Other than too many on here throwing in the towel on the game, team and season before second half started, just the usual.