Illini Football 2022
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DeonThomas
- South Carolina
Wow. So that's more severe than I had suspected........
DeonThomas
- South Carolina
I had totally removed DB from my memory banks, but you are 100% correct!!!!
Someone a few weeks ago talked about 3 and outs and how few we had. I'm not sure what the numbers are, but it sure seems like our offense generally gives the D a bit of a breather. Even one extra set of downs can have a big impact.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Feels like TDV has a 100% completion percentage on that first third down of a drive.
The day will come where a couple of those start falling incomplete. As good as we've been the two weeks sandwiching the Art Incident, it's still a little bit of an offense that needs 12 things to go right to score.
You know Lunney is itching to get Isaiah loose over the top against Nebraska. They're vulnerable to it.
And Donny Navarro transferring to Northwestern.
Illinivek23
- Gurnee
If he is taking classes at Kellogg, Donny will be just fine
As opposed to being great with us.
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
I'm not looking to start an argument, but when I look at scUM's team stats and then look at ours....I'll just say that I wish I had your confidence. They have an overpowering offense, a more-than-solid defense, and are much better on ST than we are. Corum leads the country in rushing touchdowns, yet Edwards out-rushed Corum last week and had as many touchdowns in that game. They've been better than us on 3rd down, better on 4th down (although BB goes for it a lot more), and they just plain put the ball in the EZ a lot more.
I'm not saying we can't beat them, but it's going to take a combination of shutting down their run game, being far more productively offensively than we've been so far, avoiding penalties, and winning the kick-return battle on both sides of the ball. Not just 2 perfect halves for us, but also 2 bad halves from them. I hate to give Meatchicken any props, but they're on fire this year.
Don’t forget how much we still miss Duece Spann!
They let Iowa score 14 points. They scored 27 on a D that is not as good as ours. Michigan, on paper, is a better team, but we will be playing with nothing to lose. Michigan has more to lose than we do. We will have McCray back which will help on third down plays. We can beat them. Will we, only time will tell. We stay healthy and we keep our composure in the Big House, anything can happen.
This whole season is wild. Listening to the Yahoo podcast and they are just going through CFP hypotheticals where in the end the CFP is 3 SEC teams and Illinois (which would be…just…absurd.)
DeonThomas
- South Carolina
There's so much "darned good stuff" going on with the football program right now. My head is just spinning. It's everywhere you turn.
It's like being in the 1980's again! But I'm hoping it's more sustainable this time around, perhaps lasting throughout Bielema's 22-year run at the helm.
DeonThomas
- South Carolina
Are they ever!!
Up to this point, IW has really been used as a short route (possession) receiver.
Mr. Tibbs
- southeast DuPage
yea
not sure if its his lack of height, or whatever, but they dont really ever have him do long sideline corner or long post routes
its almost always 5 -15 yard passes
skyIdub
Winged Warrior
No worries! I'm not really over confident. It's just not crazy talk to think we can upset them.
One thing I left out.....we are the game before scUM plays at Ohio St. They'd better not be looking ahead.
This team is too well coached for scUM to assume a W.
Random question, but did Daniel Barker transfer to MSU because he thought the pastures would be greener on the other side or for some other reason?
This^^ He has to be miserable. He has like 11 catches.
Not like Illini have used its TEs all that much in passing. Marchese had those 2 nice TD plays, but Illinois TEs have only 18 receptions to MSU’s 30 receptions. Of course, he’d be on a winning team if he stayed.
I get that we have left luke ford...but if we had barker would we target tight ends more?
We would probably have Barker in passing packages but honestly I don't really think so. I think Lunney is more than willing to use TE's in the passing game but they have to be good blockers first.
And we'd probably throw more to the TE position if it was a reliable weapon.
More than a few passes have been straight drops off of their hands
not throwing our TE group, just don't have a consistent pass catching threat like DB could have been
Depends if team learns how to score in the red zone these next few weeks. We’re ranked 11th in red zone scoring opportunities per game, but 97th in red zone scoring %.
I absolutely love this team, but they need to figure that out.
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