Pregame: Illinois vs Michigan, Saturday, October 19th, 2:30pm CT, CBS

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#352      
aaeismacgychel
mhuml32 said:
Josh McCray had his best game since the 9OT Penn State win and people are wondering if a guy with three career carries for one yard is going to make an appearance. Love Jordan Anderson but this is going even beyond the backup QB syndrome.

It's going to be very tough sledding inside against UM but would love to see the rotation get boiled down to McCray and Laughery. The blitzing this game is going to make Valentine almost unplayable this week.
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Agreed in that McCray has looked like himself this season for the first time since he was injured 2 years ago. Really happy to see it. The only argument I'll make with your post is the Valentine one. I agree he absolutely cannot be used in pass protection this game, however I think we might be able to use him for screens, swing passes mixed in with some runs especially if our oline is getting stoned at the line of scrimmage. But otherwise I agree with you- gotta be really careful with our personnel and corresponding play calls. A diet of hot routes and quick passes early to take some of the heat off the Michigan rush will be imperative in my opinion.
 
#353      
PleaseMakeABowlGame
aaeismacgychel said:
Yep, clear textbook offensive pass interference pick play right in front of the ref resulting in immediate advantage and a first down for Michigan
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22:49 -


This is but ours isn't...

Sure Jan GIF
 
#354      
cfp32
aaeismacgychel said:
Agreed in that McCray has looked like himself this season for the first time since he was injured 2 years ago. Really happy to see it. The only argument I'll make with your post is the Valentine one. I agree he absolutely cannot be used in pass protection this game, however I think we might be able to use him for screens, swing passes mixed in with some runs especially if our oline is getting stoned at the line of scrimmage. But otherwise I agree with you- gotta be really careful with our personnel and corresponding play calls. A diet of hot routes and quick passes early to take some of the heat off the Michigan rush will be imperative in my opinion.
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Very dependent on the flow of the game, but I would love to see 5-10 2 back formations with McCray and Valentine. Start Valentine wide and motion him to the backfield and vise-versa. Feel like we haven't seen much of this. Would also like to see a Valentine motion for a swing pass pump fake only to turn around and dump it off for a TE screen down near the goal line.
 
#355      
illinoistradition
Fighter of the Nightman said:
This might be the first day game I can remember since 2007 where we will have a TRUE home field advantage of which a Big Ten program can be proud. The 2016 UNC and 2024 KU night games were great atmospheres (especially the latter), but that seems a bit easier for a hyped up night game. Considering we need a crowd above 52k or so to truly elevate the noise and that we have been pretty disappointing since 2007, these are the only contenders since then I can think of:

2011 vs. Ohio State: This is when we were 6-0 and ranked #16 ... and we still only got 55k in the stands, showing how awesome our recent uptick in attendance has been. While I'm sure the atmosphere was good to START the game (it was a "stripe out"), the game itself was such a dud that I remember our fans being so taken out of it.

2010 vs. #2 Ohio State: Kind of a forgotten game, but it was a sellout (back when that meant almost 63k!) and we played them pretty close. I remember some hype after this one that we might actually have a solid team.

2009 vs. Michigan: Disappointing season, but we were still drawing big crowds (60,119 for this one) from the Rose Bowl season, and people never quite gave up hope that this talented team would figure it out. We were 1-7 going into this game, but we demolished Michigan 38-13 on a beautiful day, largely fueled by Hawthorne's epic rundown.

2008 vs. Iowa: After such a weirdly disappointing and up-and-down season, this win vs. Iowa (to break a losing streak that went back to 2000) in front of a sold out crowd gave this season some hope. We were 5-4 after this one with games vs. WMU (neutral), OSU at home and at Northwestern ... 8-4 seemed like at least a possibility. Instead, we'd lose all three, haha. I DO remember the crowd being pretty pumped for this one.

And to be honest, none of those atmospheres compared to what we had for day games vs. #21 Penn State or #5 Wisconsin in 2007 ... they were simply the best we've had since. Here's to hoping Michigan's game Saturday is as electric as we've seen Memorial Stadium in decades!!
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I can confirm as someone who was at the 2009 game against UM: there was nowhere near a sold out crowd. The student section even had kids with FIRE ZOOK painted on their chests or shirts, which they changed to HIRE ZOOK after we took the lead. It was a fun Halloween game though!
 
#356      
KBLEE
LJ22 said:
I'm hopeful that the second half would have looked much different if Xavier Scott were playing. He doesn't make the D-line better but a couple of Purdue's long passes would have been contested and/or picked. Hope he's 100 percent for this game.
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Seth Coleman didn't play much (any?) in the second half either. Anyone know if these guys are good to go?
 
#359      
Fighter of the Nightman
mhuml32 said:
Unanswerable question but would love to know the projected attendance for this game if there wasn't a seating constraint.
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Good and interesting question, if (as you say) unanswerable. What I can answer, though, is what Illini football could expect to get for regular attendance if we were consistently looking at 5-1 records and top 25 rankings. I posted the stats in a previous thread, but compare us to Iowa as far as "fundamentals" or whatever. For the "Region," I used Central Illinois and Eastern Iowa, as they are both regions that fundamentally throw their support behind the Illini and Hawkeyes, respectively, in a way the rest of the two states do to a lesser degree.

Undergrads: 37,140 for ILL vs. 22,130 for Iowa
Total Students: 59,38 for ILL vs. 31,452 for Iowa
MSA Population: 235,608 for ILL vs. 180,088 for Iowa
"Region" Population: 2.1 million for ILL vs. 1.4 million for Iowa
State Population: 12.5 million for ILL vs. 3.2 million for Iowa
Living Alumni (Main Campus): 518,457 for ILL vs. 288,478 for Iowa
Living Alumni (All Campuses): 827,412 for ILL vs. 288,478 for Iowa

The only reason Iowa easily draws 69,250 regularly and getting over 60,000 is a huge lift for us is because we've been bad ... period. We were putting 75,000 or more in the stands quite regularly in the 1980s because our fans were excited. While attendance is somewhat down everywhere due to the convenience of watching at home, there is no reason a consistently good Illini program cannot draw over 70,000 pretty regularly. Even if one INSISTS on the defeatist attitude that there is something in the water in Eastern Iowa instilling loyalty and pride in the Hawkeyes that we can just never replicate in at least Central Illinois (I fundamentally reject this), the math still favors us to SUCH a drastic degree that we only need to achieve like half the enthusiasm that Iowa generates to reach that 70k goal, haha. If we had Iowa/Nebraska-level enthusiasm in our state, we'd be drawing crowds of 90k or more.
 
#360      
Fighter of the Nightman
illinoistradition said:
I can confirm as someone who was at the 2009 game against UM: there was nowhere near a sold out crowd. The student section even had kids with FIRE ZOOK painted on their chests or shirts, which they changed to HIRE ZOOK after we took the lead. It was a fun Halloween game though!
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Well, I think people have posted before that your average crowd has like 10k no-shows or something ... so we really cannot hold our crowds to that standard, unfortunately. They do not make the "tickets scanned" number public anywhere unless it's for some specific article, so we are forced to treat the "tickets sold" number as our best estimate of butts in the seats.
 
#362      
Battle89
aaeismacgychel said:
Yep, clear textbook offensive pass interference pick play right in front of the ref resulting in immediate advantage and a first down for Michigan and then there was a no call or review of Michigan's QB's knee being down that same drive, also extending the drive. It bears saying, if we want to win this one, we need to be at least 8pts better than them as the refs will be gifting them at least 1 score. And nothing says tradition like the refs absolutely hosing us against Michigan. Now I need to take deep breaths before I start thinking about Fumblegate.
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Very much agree but LOL as I just posted this in the Purdue Post-Game Thread

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#364      
Indy Illini Fan
KBLEE said:
Seth Coleman didn't play much (any?) in the second half either. Anyone know if these guys are good to go?
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You know Bret wouldn’t like if I leaked out that injury info … Lol …

I’ll say this … We’ve had a good week of recovery … Get some more recovery and rest in today and we should be pretty healthy for the game …

Xavier Scott should be full go rodeo … I can say that …
 
#366      
Ramrod2010
illinoistradition said:
I can confirm as someone who was at the 2009 game against UM: there was nowhere near a sold out crowd. The student section even had kids with FIRE ZOOK painted on their chests or shirts, which they changed to HIRE ZOOK after we took the lead. It was a fun Halloween game though!
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Zook was pissed coming off the field at halftime.

Absolutely laid into that group (from the field).

Fun times.
 
#367      
aaeismacgychel
Something that hasn't been pointed out yet, I think, is that a win over Michigan coupled with a Nebraska win over a Indiana would mean that we would officially be in 3rd place in the B10 after tiebreaks, right behind PSU and Oregon. That would certainly be something with only 5 more regular season games to go.
 
#374      
ptgrd23
Our best chance to beat Michigan since the Zook days.
Strong team 5-1. At home vs weakest Michigan team in 5 years with no passing offense.
Need the Illini defense from first 3 quarters of Purdue game that held them to 3 points.
While this team may be on par with our Rose Bowl teams it is the best start we have had since Juice Williams 2006 team.
I am so excited. Great job by Bret to get us here!
 
#375      
illini0440
ptgrd23 said:
Our best chance to beat Michigan since the Zook days.
Strong team 5-1. At home vs weakest Michigan team in 5 years with no passing offense.
Need the Illini defense from first 3 quarters of Purdue game that held them to 3 points.
While this team may be on par with our Rose Bowl teams it is the best start we have had since Juice Williams 2006 team.
I am so excited. Great job by Bret to get us here!
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Our best chance since 2 years ago
 
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