To win this game we need to sustain long drives, play bend don’t break defense and play a clean game without penalties. As bad as the defense was our offense didn’t help them out at all. The defense was on the field the whole first half
Illini Football 2024
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To win this game we need to sustain long drives, play bend don’t break defense and play a clean game without penalties. As bad as the defense was our offense didn’t help them out at all. The defense was on the field the whole first half
For reference, Bielema's Wisconsin teams scored 34 or more points 45 times in seven seasons. I don't think he has an aversion to points.
Look at how they were doing it. Also look at who they were playing against
Don't Worry. Bielema Knows How To Use 3 RBs.
Bret Bielema finds himself in a somewhat familiar position heading into next season with his group of runnings backs.
www.arkansasfight.com
I don’t think he wants to run as much as he did as Wisconsin but we are never going to be a pass heavy team. After the Penn state game he said we needed to run the ball more
Yeah, fair point - few of the 34+ point games were against ranked opponents.
But, the point is, he doesn't prefer to be a low scoring team. You can be a ball control offense and put up points. FWIW, I don't put it on Lunney as much as personnel. We just have to keep upgrading the roster. I thought it was a pretty good insight by the OP.
Brett is a conservative coach and his style has kept us in many games that we didn't necessarily have the talent or ability to been in. This time the speed (I'm not going to say talent, Oregon was just faster than us) gap was too big. This is the type of game where us not having a back like Chase Brown who can turn nothing into something hurt us. For the current Illinois team to hold with this Oregon team we needed to have long bruising drives on offense to give our defense rest. We were already tired by the end of the 1st quarter and never caught our breath on the defensive side of the ball.
I will say I don't hate deferring. We knew Oregon was going to score, but if we come out and get a stop before they are full speed and know what we are doing. That build of momentum and a nice power running drive that gets us a TD or FG puts us ahead of the chains so to speak and gives us another chance to keep it close or go ahead after half.
None of it materialized and we got outclassed. It used to happen regularly. The fact that we have to play AT #1 or #3 for it to happen now is a true testament to how far we have come under Brett's tenure. Give it another 3 years of 7-10 win seasons and we start winning these games.
Talent definitely needs to be upgraded. I’m not saying he wants low scoring games but I would imagine he wants a power running game where we wear down opponents. Look at what we did to nebraska and Michigan.
Not having Faegin hurt yesterday. Tackling a 250lb rb 10-15 times wears down a defense
We need to get Luke going in the run game. He has speed and it opens things up for the passing game. The problem is with his build I’m not sure how many hits he can take
But do we currently have the roster and skills to make it work against a team like Oregon? Maybe that’s why Bret said he accepts responsibility for the loss?
It would have to be perfect storm for us to win that game. My biggest issue is how bad we have recruited prep linemen on both sides of the ball
While I do agree that we needed to be more aggressive early, especially defensively in my opinion, I also think that our coaches did put our players in position to make plays early and they just didn't execute. The deferred kickoff is one example of that. We played great 1st and 2nd down defense, we had them dead to rights on that 3rd and 7 screen and Bailey whiffed the tackle. Would've been a quick 3 and out but instead turned into a touchdown drive. We had another chance that drive to stop them on 3rd down but decided to only rush 3. That's where you point to Henry and ask why was that the game plan considering coming into the game that Gabriel had mediocre stats at best when blitzed (not even pressured, just blitzed) while he was the #3 college QB in the country when given a clean pocket. And that one more goes to your point of coaches putting players in non-advantageous positions.
Overall though, how we played yesterday wasn't going to beat a whole lot of teams. Whiffed tackles, missed tackles, bad reads, completely whiffed blocks. Just a ton of poor execution on display. Had we executed the way we had been most of this season, it's entirely possible we 3 and our them on their first drive, go down the field on an extended scoring drive and maybe you get a different game. It's still unlikely you win, but it was just a bad game all around. The most important thing about a game like this is you come out of it angry with your own play, and prove to yourself you're better than that next week
This is absolute truth and also surely in 50 states there are some really good MLBs we could get
BB is gonna need to get JW to open the wallet & get two LB’s & get two OL . also an edge & DL . our underclassmen aren’t deep enough at those positions
don’t want to think ahead too far, but our defensive line for next year terrifies me from a competitive standpoint for this reason.
I honestly like Bray, Farrell, Warren and McCollum as players. The problem is they were rushed onto the field out of necessity. Unless you are a blue chip recruit it’s hard to make an impact on the line as an underclassmen. Farrell was only 225lbs when he signed with us and now he’s in the DT rotation as a redshirt freshman.
Curious who we think Indiana is going to lose to. I see them beating Ohio st.
Could be an awesome title game between Oregon and Indiana
Nike vs. Eli Lilly
Does anyone know when theyre are going to release the 2025 Big Ten Schedule?
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
The B1G teams we will play and where have been decided through 2028. Not sure exactly when the actual schedule will be released for 2025, my guess is sometime in the spring.
Probably in November. Bret was actually annoyed by this during his radio show. He pointed out they are competing with weddings and events that schedule a year out and they are stuck with far away hotels sometimes with how long it takes them to release the schedule.
Perhaps the Big 10 should secure a block of rooms for the visiting team at every conference football weekend at every school? If there is no home game then they could release them when the schedule is released. A bidding process might result in favorable deals.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
2 games vs. Iowa from November 2023 to 2028. LAME.The B1G teams we will play and where have been decided through 2028. Not sure exactly when the actual schedule will be released for 2025, my guess is sometime in the spring.
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