We did need to fire him but it sure hasn't worked out so far. Most of our defense moves around like they have concrete buckets on their feet. Our DBs are pretty good at tackling but are terrible at pass coverage so far. Seems like on every pass play against us someone is wide open and its just a matter of if their qb makes a decent throw.
Illini Football 2026
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Joel Goodson
- 9th man conundrum
We lost 3 nfl players and gained guys that are fcs players. We would’ve been better off retaining several guys than bringing in these guys.
Last years defense had 10xs more talent. Add Jacas, James Thompson, Scott, Rosiek, McCollum, Coenen, Tomiwa to this years team and it’s a much different result. We lost our top 3 dline to the portal and a lot of good players to graduation. We also added 0 impact players on defense. Last year a guy like jojo Hayden couldn’t get on the field. This year he would be our best linebacker
Very true....the bulk of what should be our front 6 are in College Station, Columbia, East Lansing, Morgantown and West Lafayette. It's too soon to tell on Hauck as a DC - in both games we performed better in the second half, which indicates we are making some positive adjustments. Tackling has been poor, which is not good obviously. Biggest issue is roster management. Until this year I'd say we did reasonably well - we brought in a bunch of guys last year who made solid contributions on defense. Between graduation and the portal we suffered a big net loss in talent this year - I'd go so far as to say our front 6 is mid-level MAC or Sun Belt quality. I know we don't have Ohio State money, but this is unacceptable and needs to be addressed for next year.
Jeremiah Warren was a rotational dt last year and he would probably start for us this year. I’m sure if they were aware what prices were going to be we would’ve brought back several players that transferred out. Hood isn’t starting for West Virginia but he would definitely be on the field for us. McCollum is getting paid 1.2 million to sit on the bench
In the NFL, the F stands for forever money.
In NIL, the I stands for immediate money.
Think that's the situation we saw here.
how can a program , even Texas A&M, afford to do that ?
would he be starting for us ?
another question I have never been able to get answered - what is the source for NIL data ?
Yes, almost certainly.
You could make the argument every one of the DL / LB that transfered -- including the backups -- would be starting on this team.
Tomiwa, Angelo, Neal, Coenen, Warren, Hood, Hayden, etc.
We're just really undermanned at those two positions. It's the only two position groups holding this team back, from being in the Top 25.
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ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Angelo is a young kid I’m pretty sure he just turned 19 and secured a huge bag. He was offered 3xs more than what we did. You can’t blame the kid for taking it. He still has 2 more years to become a nfl player
I think he played like 4 snaps in the first game. Hes a good player but he’s probably closer to 6’. You also don’t know how motivated a player is after they got a big pay day
That's unfortunate.
He would've been the best player on our current D-Line; it's not even close. Same goes for Tomiwa.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Welp, I am trying to find a little positivity out of this weekend, so ... referencing an earlier post I made in the previous thread, our average attendance through two home games is 56,672. If the season ended today, that would be our second highest of the Bielema Era behind last season (58,350). However, we have only had one "realistic" chance at a sellout (which we achieved vs. Duke), and we still have home games vs. Purdue (Homecoming), Oregon and Nebraska that could at least have a shot ... I doubt SIU sells out, and the Iowa game (November 21) might have trouble, too, as it will have possibly started to get cold and this is the Saturday before Thanksgiving Break ... historically, this game has not drawn well.
With that said, I am somewhat pessimistic we will continue the trend of raising our average attendance, unless there are several games already sold out of which I am not aware. Our home opener actually did NOT draw as well as last year (52,673 vs. 56,040), and I would consider us super lucky to match last year's four sellouts given the home schedule and tempered fan expectations after the Duke loss. Again regarding the latter, I'm worried our "floor" attendance for games like SIU could drop back down (as a reminder, our fewest tickets sold for ALL of last season was 53,317, and we already dropped below that for the home opener).
I'll end on one positive note. We have now drawn over 50k for 13 home games in a row, including selling out 7 of the last 14. To put that in perspective, we did failed to reach 50k tickets sold for 35 straight home games from 2016 to 2022, and we had Z-E-R-O sold out games from September 10, 2016 to September 7, 2024 (in other words, zero sellouts were announced at Memorial Stadium for 2,919 days). So the change in fan culture is still astounding.
With that said, I am somewhat pessimistic we will continue the trend of raising our average attendance, unless there are several games already sold out of which I am not aware. Our home opener actually did NOT draw as well as last year (52,673 vs. 56,040), and I would consider us super lucky to match last year's four sellouts given the home schedule and tempered fan expectations after the Duke loss. Again regarding the latter, I'm worried our "floor" attendance for games like SIU could drop back down (as a reminder, our fewest tickets sold for ALL of last season was 53,317, and we already dropped below that for the home opener).
I'll end on one positive note. We have now drawn over 50k for 13 home games in a row, including selling out 7 of the last 14. To put that in perspective, we did failed to reach 50k tickets sold for 35 straight home games from 2016 to 2022, and we had Z-E-R-O sold out games from September 10, 2016 to September 7, 2024 (in other words, zero sellouts were announced at Memorial Stadium for 2,919 days). So the change in fan culture is still astounding.
Being the best player on this dline isn’t saying much. You can’t fault the kid for taking the money.
One loss shouldn't cause too much worry, unless there are similar losses coming, then the end of the season will have many no shows...
Huge loss. Odds are renfro will get hurt at some point.
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