Minnesota 25, Illinois 17 Postgame

[Illini in Italy]

I'm in the clear minority here but I don't place a lot of blame on play calling. In fact, play calling hasn't lost us a single game. Are we kind of predictable? Yeah, but that's more of a symptom than a root cause. IMO, it starts with the line. We're just so limited in what we can do. But we have to at least try to play complementary football.

I've seen some people suggest that we should pass to open up the run. Well what if I told you we already do that? Against Minnesota we ran 28 first down plays. Only 7 of them were hand offs.

Without a good line, we're going to continue to fall behind the sticks regardless of the plays called. That's just football.

Where is the 1,000,000 Likes button?

 

[Illini in Italy]

But also EVERY team runs plenty of straight handoffs every game. It's not like we are doing something old fashioned that nobody else does. Really a lot of the time the blocking isn't even that terrible but our RBs have not done a good job of finding holes. It's get the ball and just plow straight ahead into the back of the line. Think about how Chase Brown was effective, he always talked about being patient, waiting for blocks to develop, finding seams. Go watch the best RBs out there and they arent just blasting full speed ahead after the handoff. How often have you seen our RBs cut back, bounce a run outside, or really do anything other than go straight ahead. McCray is getting better YPC because he can actually read his blocks and find some of those seams, Laughery and at this point Valentine just don't have it.

I have to chuckle at this - when watching the games, my wife asks (every game, mind you) why the RB always runs into the back of the lineman. When I explain that the play is designed to have an open hole there for the RB to run through, she asks, "Well then, why doesn't he just run somewhere else?" . . .

 

[bleedorange and blue]

I don’t know. Anytime you pick someone up who is already going down and flip them onto their head/neck, you are intending to do something more than tackle them….

#5 for Minnesota was the guy,dirty intentional play, was a few other legal but cheap shots from him. Remember he fell intentionally onto Bryan's lower legs,knees down on an incomplete pass. If you can, re-watch paying attention to #5

 

[LFOD]

I have to chuckle at this - when watching the games, my wife asks (every game, mind you) why the RB always runs into the back of the lineman. When I explain that the play is designed to have an open hole there for the RB to run through, she asks, "Well then, why doesn't he just run somewhere else?" . . .

I'm online purchasing a plane ticket from Italy to Champaign, for your wife (and her only, sorry). We need her on the sideline.

 

[Old.Edgy]

I have to chuckle at this - when watching the games, my wife asks (every game, mind you) why the RB always runs into the back of the lineman. When I explain that the play is designed to have an open hole there for the RB to run through, she asks, "Well then, why doesn't he just run somewhere else?" . . .

LOL... I have often asked this SAME question over the years since 1959... Why can't the RB see that there is NO hole, and run somewhere else ? ? ? I've never understood this...

 

[Illini in Italy]

I'm online purchasing a plane ticket from Italy to Champaign, for your wife (and her only, sorry). We need her on the sideline.

Thank you my brother, but we live in Florida now. Saving you thousands!

 

[Battle89]

Thank you my brother, but we live in Florida now. Saving you thousands!

Too easy?