Puzzling as this seemed to be Houser's worst game of the season so far and it wasn't close.
Purdue 24, Illinois 17 Postgame
I feel like I need to go back and rewatch the game because this doesn’t match how I felt about Houser after the game. I just don’t have the stomach to actually rewatch it.
any chance on bb bringing ryan walters back?
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
With 'grey area' money, absolutely. As has been mentioned before (and this is not a knock on Josh), with Josh as head of the committee on proposed spending guidelines (I forget the exact title), we are likely to be the last school that stretches the rules.
We are outspent in total, to your point, and also outspent in questionable payment amounts / types. It's 1970 all over again.
I just hope that Brett includes himself in the "we're a group that has learn things the hard way" statement. All the happenings of the off-season are largely his responsibility in order to be set for "continued program success" this season (and every season). Clearly that is not currently being achieved.
Probably not given how things went down, but the way the Huskies have been playing he and Fisch may well be looking to update their resumes this offseason.
Like learning it’s important to practice tackling too?
I thought I read some place that Louisville is spending over 20 million on basketball alone.
You and a couple others stated it better than I did. We aren’t consciously deciding not to raise money, we just aren’t successful at getting the funds we need. And the grey area comment is exactly what I meant by “imaginary cap”.With 'grey area' money, absolutely. As has been mentioned before (and this is not a knock on Josh), with Josh as head of the committee on proposed spending guidelines (I forget the exact title), we are likely to be the last school that stretches the rules.
We are outspent in total, to your point, and also outspent in questionable payment amounts / types. It's 1970 all over again.
Just seems to me that we aren’t fund raising well enough and we also aren’t doing market evaluations well either. We heard multiple times last offseason that we let current guys go into the portal because we thought they were asking for too much. Their value is based on what the market will pay. And it’s going to keep growing every year.
To be honest, I hate what NIL has developed into. We went from college players seeking money from EA Sports for using their image and likeness, to a completely untethered free-for-all payout model. It doesn’t seem sustainable for most schools.
Well maybe we can at least count on the music getting good again…With 'grey area' money, absolutely. As has been mentioned before (and this is not a knock on Josh), with Josh as head of the committee on proposed spending guidelines (I forget the exact title), we are likely to be the last school that stretches the rules.
We are outspent in total, to your point, and also outspent in questionable payment amounts / types. It's 1970 all over again.
Serious Late
- Peoria via Denver via Ann Arbor via Albuquerque vi
It couldn't have been anyone else.Unfortunately it has been common for football and basketball for a few years. If you make any noise when the opponent is lining up for their 3rd down, much less stand, people turn and give you a dirty look. It's not a movie theater! If you were the guy in 123 yelling for most of the game, THANK YOU!! You were able to rally some of the people into making noise. That was the loudest I've heard the area all year. (And I hope your voice recovered.). Please come back for more games!!
And don't even get me started on the people cheering loud when we went for it on 4th down. That is the time you finally decide to make noise?
I had 3 kiddos with me, I wasn't going to teach them to be quiet at football games.
November 6th I will be back in Section 123 for Nebraska with the Family. Let's make that section hear us that night.
I love the view from that section, great seats.
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blackdog
- Champaign
Our team composite talent ranking has been bottom 3 in the league every year since 2020. Flawed metric, I think Indiana might have been dead last a year ago, but when you look at those rankings year after year, you see a pattern emerge with the programs that do vs don't do well overall, mostly do so because of the talent they have.
Bret has overperformed pretty much every single year, relative to the talent he has been given. It has happened because of both development and game planning.
This year, yeah no. We do not look nearly as talented as our opponents and we certainly aren't out game planning them. When the coaching is lacking, the talent gap becomes really glaring.
It sucks, and the Purdue lose sends everyone naturally scrambling to "is it over, are we right back to where we were now?" That can't be a feeling we live through for multiple seasons and expect Bret to stick. CONSISTENCY is key to this staff's legacy.
That said, our fans are as bad as our play on the field. Like, had we all given up on the season before this game started? I enjoyed Dan's pretty epic rant about our fans last week (I think) on twitter. The in-stadium crowd is BRUTAL. Its like we are flashing a giant "quiet, the opponent's offense is working" sign on 1st and 2nd down when we are on defense. If it werent for the student section, you would think we were on offense. 3rd down the video board reminds people they are supposed to get loud when we are on Defense and it reaches a feverish "lukewarm" decibel level. Then, awkwardly, about half the people in Section 123 would stand to cheer. Most of them looking around like "is it okay. Can we stand now? Should we make some noise?" YES. YOU SHOULD BE MAKING NOISE EVERY DOWN AND STANDING OFTEN.
This is the second game I have gone to and felt awkward for making noise in the last year. A few people were looking at me funny when I was making noise early in the game. Everyone seemed to accept it as the game went on, and I would say I got it up to about a dozen people in the vicinity of me making noise by the 4th quarter on 1st and 2nd down. It was the exact same at a February basketball game I was at last season. It is expected you stay in your seat and not disrupt others around you inside the State Farm Center these days. Like we are watching a movie.
Like, this is a real crusade that needs pushed. It is awful, our fanbase needs a complete culture overhaul at events. We had ZERO homefield advantage thanks to the crowd on Saturday. If you are a season ticket holder... what are you doing? Why aren't you a part of the solution? Why aren't more season ticket holders making noise about this, so they start working to FIX it.
I was just talking with some friends about this and it's like Illinois fans are so self conscious they are scared of making a "scene" and standing up to cheer. There's just something holding people back from getting excited about games and it's not the results on the field because it's like that at basketball games and when the football team has looked better too.
This is such a strange and annoying phenomenon. During every important 3rd down when Illini were on defense I was 1 of less than 10 people in my section who were standing/cheering loudly/clapping.
I just don't get it. It's not like this at any other football games I go to.
I wasn't standing, but I was certainly yelling, clapping, or cheering. Fans were fairly similar around me too. I had a drunkard next to me who was very loud the entire time especially towards the refs.
Serious Late
- Peoria via Denver via Ann Arbor via Albuquerque vi
Eastside or Westside?
Section 118, in horseshoe
I think there is a certain deep seated intellectual and social arrogance within the university that says "standing, making noise, etc. is beneath us". I'm a very vocal fan at all Illini sporting events I attend. That includes golf where I've received dismissive glances when I cheered a good shot. I consider myself an "SEC like" Illini fan. Passionate and vocal.
There are reasons my signature is what it is. It's quite a few Illinois graduates as well. Some aren't the best fit for unrefined football.
Interesting. Do you know what caused it? Bret obviously knows how to run a successful program.
Yes, I was at the game and there were plenty of opportunities to win. We were not outmatched.
We can win several games on this schedule. We can also lose all of them. But for me, no reason to stop watching.
Poor off-season:
Roster defections - both to NFL without adequate replacements (Jacas for example) & to other college programs
Sub-standard DC hire (plus the lower level assistants DC brought with him from D2)
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
Your last sentence is spot on IMO. I don't think it is sustainable & will swallow up schools from the bottom up. At some point as individuals are investing they will determine it's no longer worth the annual investment to keep buying new players every year. The failing programs will reach this conclusion faster but it will swallow up all but the tippy top programs over time IMO. If I am a booster at a top 25 school that goes say 9-3 every year, why should I keep forking over $2 mil for a new QB when we never progress beyond that 20 to 25 range. Eventually the juice isn't gonna be worth the squeeze.
I can honestly see some lower level D1's potentially dropping to FCS for football or potentially D2 for hoops just to try to escape the nonsense. Not power conference schools but some MAC bottom feeders potentially or some of the lower tier D1 hoops leagues. Trying to stay D1 will be the perpetual taking a butter knife to a gunfight for that level of program & will only get worse. Drop down a level & have a better chance to compete at a potentially much lower price point.
Understand the roster losses but why did it happen? Was it all due $$$