Duke 31, Illinois 27 Postgame
Nick Saban: “We’ve (SEC) already got nine teams in the top-25. It’s not like the Big Ten, where there’s three good teams at the top and then nothing.”
That’s the rep that the Big Ten generally has these days. And it’s not inaccurate until and unless another Big Ten steps up its game and raises its profile. And that includes the team in Orange and Blue.
I'm sure there's a special teams asst coach or GA who has the responsibility to watch for that kind of stuff. No excuse.
Michigan, USC, Penn State are the teams that have the resources to “step up its game.”
We don’t.
Joel Goodson
- it's all ball bearings, nowadays
I don't believe a lot of stuff I read on the internet. that said, I wholeheartedly believe this:
Also: Nothing unranked Big Ten team beats #11 SEC as he’s saying this
Completely agree - it wasn't really the play selection - it was "What can we run without 2 O - lineman" Duke recognized it right away and that is why they went cover 3. They knew if they could apply enough pressure in the A and B gaps, Katin couldn't look downfield. And in a cover 3 if the quarterback can't look downfield - all of the 15 yard and and shorter routes - they were able to jump. Good coaching from Duke. What Dr. Lunney will figure out is "what CAN we run, when we don't have our top 6 O - linemen." Will he figure it out? Oh yes, he will.
It goes back to what a number of us are saying. Why don't we have strong depth in the O - line? A: $$$
Boricua Illini
- Puerto Rico
Good !!! Nowhere to go but up.
To expand on this we spent a lot of money on a tackle that was very bad at Colorado state. He’s graded out bad in the first 2 games. We spent a ton of money training our secondary and those guys have struggled. The top Juco OT wasn’t cheap and he’s 3rd string for us. Just like Morris cost a lot and he has been beat out by Tywan Cox who’s also struggled a lot this year. It’s a small sample size but I don’t think we will get a good ROI on the money we spent.
Surprised we're not 139th
I do not believe the poor tackling is a function of the 3-3-5. Or am I missing something?
And if I rfemember correctly Illinois has defeated two SEC teams in the last two bowl games.
It is not. But no one says it is.
We have two major problems on defense, and they are mutually exclusive:
1. We can't tackle
2. the 3-3-5 defense is a terrible defensive scheme
(Just kidding Johnny Law…please don’t send the heavily-armed, drones to my window.)
Per espn...3.5 per rush attempt and 7.5 per pass attempt. What that doesn't say is we got to second and 4 or less by passing on first down when they expected the run. What do you think we would've been capable of on 2nd and 4 or less when they certainly expected the rin even more and we did exactly what they didn't expect by passing again! God i wish someone that thinks more Mike White was calling yesterday's game given our skill set. Play to your strengths and so what they dont expect!
In all seriousness…
If Iowa truly is in our (do more-with-less, tax bracket)…I wish we could figure out how to reverse engineer their approach.
A system is only as effective as the personnel in the system …..we probably just didn’t have the right personnel.
The 3-3-5 is meant to have the MLB cover a lot of ground in the middle of the field and put the OLBs in good position to see the play on the flanks and have good lines to the ballcarrier. Generally the OLBs will be getting tons of tackles and will likely lead the team in them. Where the 3-3-5 excels is when you have a nose tackle who can make an interior push despite being double teamed and quick athletic DEs and LBs with exotic blitz packages that disguise where the pressure is coming from, who’s rushing and who’s dropping confusing the opposing OL and QB.
I don’t have an issue with the 3-3-5. It has had success. But our weakness is at the LB and DT group, which should in theory need to be our strength. We’re getting no push from the DL, our LBs are just don’t have the speed and athleticism to cover the ground they need, and our blitzes for the most part just aren’t getting there. The good news is that I have seen our LBs in the proper position to make the 1 on 1 play that just needs to be made. The bad news is it seems our LBs just have no idea how to tackle, sooooo… I’m not sure what Hauck can really do here.
How I see it the team we have on the field doesn’t have the talent to successfully run Hauck’s defense, but they also don’t have the execution in tackling to make the necessary plays that any type of defense needs. Good news is that our run blitzes didn’t look horrific.
Joel Goodson
- it's all ball bearings, nowadays
not great, Bob:
JJE
- North Port, Florida
If I’m Brett I make these into shirts and make everyone on defense wear it until we are a least sub 100 on this list.
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
Lots of people don’t get this. All this talk about scheme is kinda missing the bigger point. We don’t have the personnel to really run any scheme. A 3 man front can and does work in places. It relies on high end linebackers and safeties. We don’t have that. Last year was a more conventional d and we couldn’t get off the field on 3rd down with that either. The program has to invest on that side of the ball to fix it. Bret is good but he is fighting uphill on the nil front. I just hope we didn’t build a nice big shiny scoreboard that will play to a half full house if the program falls off