I'm a fan of this transfer's name. Started 9 games for Auburn last year. Only a couple sacks, but good size and a fantastic name. I like the pickup a lot!
Illini Football 2016
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
Yeah, is this guy going to be the best player on the D?
Quite honestly, our defensive line should still be pretty good this year. LBs will be interesting, maybe not very good but hopefully faster. Secondary is a question too. Basically the only thing I'm comfortable with is the DLine.
Not to be a d-bag, but please explain the logic behind, "Minnesota (a team we should have handled last year)"
We should have handled Minnesota at Minnesota?! What?! Any road game in the BIG is a tough game. And we weren't much better (or worse) than Minnesota last season. Just like we weren't much better or worse than the following teams: Iowa, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Nebraska and Purdue (okay, we were probably better than Purdue by a bit)
All of our games vs. the BIG West save for the Purdue game came down to the 4th quarter.. That's an improvement over years past when the Wisconsin and Nebraska games have been over by halftime.
I won't argue with Cubit's play-calling which was frustrating at times last season, but with all of the drops and injuries it had to affect his game planning and play calling.which makes defending us much easier for the opposing DC's.
Yeah, ok. And I did like what I saw out of Clements for the most part.
Was that because of Cubit or in spite of Cubit?
Illinifan533
- Normal, Illinois
The T.J. Neal trade to Auburn is complete. We get DL Gimel President (awesome name), who will be immediately eligible as a graduate transfer.
http://www.thechampaignroom.com/201...imel-president-commander-in-chief-sir-yes-sir
http://www.thechampaignroom.com/201...imel-president-commander-in-chief-sir-yes-sir
Originally Posted by oldbutinterested
"paddle the canoe"
This is fantastic! Way to bring it back old school to the 1840 election.
"paddle the canoe"
This is fantastic! Way to bring it back old school to the 1840 election.
By handle I don't mean "handle easily" I mean, we should have been able to beat them. I'm guessing you thought I meant we should dominate them. I just meant we should be able to beat them.
The play calling is exactly what I'm talking about. We had a good balanced drive in the Minny game near the end that led us to a FG and brought us within 1 with 7 minutes left in the game.
We got the ball back with 4:46 left. Plenty of time to run a nice balanced offense where we could gash them with our runs (about 5 yards per carry throughout the game) but instead we run a pass, run for 12 yards (woot!) then 6 more passes netting us 15 yards total and an 11 yard sack.
The announcers kept talking about how gassed the interior lineman for Minny were because they had no depth and it was showing. Cubit made the wrong decision to abandon the run when he had plenty of time to get into field goal range and win it.
He could only put 7 points on NW and we needed a defensive TD to keep it close. He threw a good idea grenade out on the field when he did the end around for Geronimo Allison against Iowa that ended up in a pick. He tried the same thing with Cain against Minny that luckily ended in an incompletion and not a pick.
We hung with NW and Minny because they aren't good, not because we were improving. We hung with Wisky and Nebraska because they too are down amidst the first year of their coaching change. The only game I thought was really good was Iowa. Other than the Allison end around of doom, I thought that was a pretty well coached game.
Cubit's offenses have been getting worse each year since he got here and the times they showed real signs of life were in his first year with a dual threat QB in Nate, and when Riley O'toole (another dual threat QB) put the team on his shoulders and helped will us to a bowl.
Yet Cubit sticks with Lunt who refuses to run and falls down easily at the thought of incoming contact.
Sorry for the long post but I just don't have faith in Cubit which is why I think we will see "more of the same". Honestly, this offense might be good with a different OC at the helm but I just don't see it with BC. Getting good players back or losing good players to graduation/the draft doesn't matter if the OC can't get the play calling right.
I can agree with that. He has the arm for it. Although he stays in the pocket a lot which means there may not be time to throw it or you have to worry about grounding.
Nate tended to have issues with getting rid of the ball as well. He would try to run out of trouble when it was going to be a sack and would heave it out of bounds when there was still room to run.
In his defense, he finally started to get it his senior year. Though, it still showed up here and there.
And more than 50 dropped passes
ding ding ding!!!
BZuppke
- Plainfield
So many things about the play calling that have nothing to do with injuries or dropped passes. Running the same play over and over until the defense stuffs it, unheard of number of sideline passes that were overthrown or if caught resulted in a 3 yard gain and on and on. Missed FGs? Inept with or without injuries.
Since when is that a bad thing?
And what do missed fg's have to do with play calling?
Im not saying the play calling was perfect by any means, but all of things that have been discussed made it look a lot worse than it was.
If anyone doesn't mind sitting in the endzone balcony sections, that I-Fund 4-pack is a pretty ridiculous deal. 4 season tickets + parking pass for $249.
Not to mention, given some of the expected attendance, I'm guessing you can move closer to midfield in the East Balcony pretty easily. Not that I'd ever recommend that of course...
Not to mention, given some of the expected attendance, I'm guessing you can move closer to midfield in the East Balcony pretty easily. Not that I'd ever recommend that of course...
I am happy Golesh is gone. He was a terrible special teams coordinator and there were rumors floating around that Golesh wasn't trying to get commits but was actually using the Illinois recruiting budget to make contacts with recruits for his next job. It likely was the truth.
The boys enjoy/respect Hecklinski as TE coach which is important. Hopefully the kickers and punters get off to a good start and gain confidence.
BZuppke
- Plainfield
Re-watch the Nebraska game. We should have beat them handily. We'd run Vaughn for a nice gain. Then we'd run the same play 4 more times in a row because it worked once, but the next four times we got stuffed and had to punt. Or at the end of the game we threw 374 passes to the corner of the end zone all of which failed but one for the winning TD. We only got that many chances because of two pass interference calls. Or we threw 3 sideline passes in a row, one of which was caught and two of which were overthrown - net result another punt. Did Cubit ever hear of mixing it up? Also, when we were backed up to our endzone in the 3rd Qtr, Cubit ran Vaughn 3 straight times for virtually no gain, then punted setting up a Nebraska FG. When you have Wes Lunt, don't you try to pass once in there to get out of the hole? Not Cubit. Let's just give them 3. Or how about when we were in the redzone and he lines up Crouch in the wildcat to run the ball (same play we would run for Aaron Bailey), and of course everyone in the stadium including the Nebraska D knew what was coming and sure enough he's stuffed so we settle for a missed FG. Wisconsin game when it was still close we had a crucial 3rd and 1, in our own territory. The Wisky D has 9 guys in the box, I say out loud, please don't run Vaughn up the middle here. Guess what Cubit did and yes we had to punt. None of this has to do with injuries or dropped passes. He is just about as bad a play caller we've had since the OC Tepper had at the end (Tom Beck?).
Did you ever watch Mackovic call plays? The great Dick Vermeil once said of Mackovic (and Vermeil was a pretty smart coach) - "he runs when you think he'll pass and pass when you think he should run". That was play calling.
As for FGs, we missed at least 2 in that game. May not have anything to do with play calling but how can we be that bad at FGs? Cost us a few games.
