Pregame: Illinois vs Ohio State, Saturday, October 11th, 11:00am CT, FOX
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BZuppke
- Plainfield
In those wonderful Mike White years competing with tOSU and beating them was common. I remember in 1983 when the boys’ backs were against the wall, it took two graduate assistants to carry in the enormous ‘big play book’. As they struggled to turn the pages, coach White found the play he was looking for on page 32 - a handoff to Thomas Rooks for a TD. They may need to use the ‘big play book’ this Saturday to secure a victory.
DeonThomas
- South Carolina
Exceptional point here!!
Hard to add anything to this glorious post! My son-n-law is a huge Bucks fan. He is from Cleveland and never misses a game. He asked me what I thought and I told him that we would cover. A majority of people are giving us little or no chance to cover let alone win and I love it. Huge disrespect for Altmyer. All the press does is ask what is wrong with Manning and Allar. We virtually have nothing to lose.
chiefini
- Rockford, Illinois
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
If we could just find the Citrus Bowl gameplan again. Gave up yards but it was mostly between the 20's. We made the key stops when needed. The key that day is we got a little more out of our front 4. I'd like to see Jacas deployed as a wildcard in terms of where he lines up & just try to turn him loose. Put him left side, right side, middle & let him attack from different angles. I'm sure we've done some of that kind of stuff. Either that or some stunts or delay blitzes to change up the look & give the front four a chance to get more pressure.
If the front four can get heat on the QB it looks like an entirely different defense. One of the universal truths of football. Every good defense has a strong front four.
I feel like we are rushing 3 a lot more this year. You don’t want to give up the big play but you also don’t want to make it to easy for Jeremiah smith and Tate. I’m sure we will have a few new wrinkles for this week. Having Juice back should allow us to play some man coverage. This is where it really hurts to have X out
The biggest thing is making tackles in space. I don’t want us giving a 15 yard cushion but if we are giving them the pass underneath we need to swarm to the ball and tackle. I’m hoping our safeties have a better game this week.
Time of possession will be huge this game. We can’t get in a shoot out.
Time of possession will be huge this game. We can’t get in a shoot out.
Illini in Italy
- Illini HQ, Florida Panhandle
Lock the f**k in!!!! CRACK'EM ILL
INI!!!Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Let's GOOOOOOO!
Why don't we just do both?!
Very good analysis from Clutch Points, picked up by Yahoo Sports, on how Illinois can pull the upset.
Interesting read.
Ohio State football's fatal flaw Illinois must exploit to pull off shocking upset
Ohio State enters as heavy favorites, but its perfect season hides critical weaknesses. Illinois has the weapons to expose them Saturday.
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
Seems a circular argument to me, since the original poster was trying to do exactly that, calculate our percentage chances of winning based on the odds that either team would do significantly better or worse than expectations. What you are describing here is simply the basis for a bell curve, and I do not think that is an accurate representation of the odds of this game.
It's why I said depends on how you define 'stumbling'. Lots of room to stumble and still win if Vegas has you as a two-TD favorite.
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
Yes - I was rewatching the Citrus Bowl & the Michigan games from last year earlier this week. Front four was getting more consistent pressure & the tackling was top notch in both of those games. Gave up yards to both but when the tackle was there, the tackle was made every time.
Agreed on time of possession. Hopefully we can get that consistent 4 yards a carry & mix that with some controlled passing game. A couple 8 minute long td drives would be super nice. I suspect we will be snapping with less than 5 on the play clock a whole lot tomorrow. At least I hope we are cause that will mean we are getting yards & first downs. Even need those drives that don't produce points to eat clock. Get 3 first downs, burn 6 minutes of clock time & then punt.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Someone mentioned last year's Purdue game, which was the first sign (at least to me) that our secondary might have serious issues, lol. And I don't think it's a coincidence that there's NO way we win that game without bringing pressure on the QB and getting a sack to end the game ... I had zero confidence our secondary would stop the 2-point conversion!
To me, as a decided NON-expert, not bringing pressure is playing for a respectable loss. Sure, we won't get burnt by huge plays and we simply cannot bring pressure too often with the personnel we have ... but we HAVE to try to surprise them in key moments to set up some 3rd and long plays for OSU.
To me, as a decided NON-expert, not bringing pressure is playing for a respectable loss. Sure, we won't get burnt by huge plays and we simply cannot bring pressure too often with the personnel we have ... but we HAVE to try to surprise them in key moments to set up some 3rd and long plays for OSU.
I absolutely think the strategy is “keep them in front of you” given OSU’s strengths and our weaknesses. No big plays and hope for an error on their part or a red zone stop.
Ryan Walter’s also knew our defense and was calling their offense that game. We can’t give up explosive plays and easy touch tds this weekend.
Look how Iowa plays their defense. They have their scheme mastered and make the offense make mistakes. We are having blown coverage and missed tackles.
Each team had nine possessions in the Citrus Bowl, four in the first half, five in the second. That's where we want to be tomorrow (or possibly even eight!)
This is a good example of a misleading one-sided statistic. Yes, he completes 78% of passes against the blitz, but he completes 81% of his passes when he's not blitzed! He's completing 80% of his passes overall on the season, so technically blitzing him would suggest it lowers his completion rate a tick and why not go for broke in this type of game. We have to force a freshman QB into mistakes, that has to happen for us to have a chance, us sitting back in a zone is not this team's identity. We've played a lot more zone since the IU game, but we need at least to disguise our coverages more to confuse him.No.
Sayin has a 78% completion % against the blitz. Against Minn he went 7/8, 124 yds, 2TD against their blitz.
Breaking Down Julian Sayin’s Splendid Performance Against Minnesota
After not throwing a single deep ball a week earlier, Julian Sayin completed three of four throws in that area of the field for 121 yards and a touchdown against Minnesota.www.elevenwarriors.com
Sending extra defenders at him is just going to open up the field more for him and allow him to pick us apart. We need to be able to pressure him without relying on blitzes.
Regardless nothing has worked so far for teams, so showing some new looks and confusing him is likely our best hope. stopping the run is also key to even get them into passing downs, so loading box and making Sayin beat you has to be the strategy and if he's hitting the deep ball against us, I think we'd rather live with that if we can get 1-2 turnovers in the process
David Olano could be a huge asset this game. More than likely, we'll have multiple drives killed in the area between midfield and the redzone. Would be HUGE to come out of those drives with 3 points, rather than coming up empty and turning the ball over on downs on Ohio State's own 35-40 yard line.
They likely get big plays anyway with how soft the middle of our zone is and the secondary's inability to get guys on the ground. Don't blitz every play but we need to force some pressure or Sayin picks our D apart and it gets out of hand early.
I would rather disguise coverages and hope he makes a mistakes. Points will be hard to come by so we can’t give up any easy scores. At the same time I don’t want to give them a 15 yard cushion and give them easy plays
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