Illini Football 2026

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#101      
Mr. Tibbs
PNWIllini said:
Shouldn’t Hauck have taught some of them the basics of wrapping up and driving through tackles by now?

I’m perplexed how we’re so bad at defensive basics.
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those types of basics are taught all during one’s football experience from age 12-17. one would not think that it’s a function of not knowing how to do it .

but yeah , practicing it needs to be done periodically. I see pros still forgetting to wrap up & trying to rely on arm tackles .

a “ back to basics “ oklahoma type drill might be in order . I will say that poor tackling is as bad as it’s looked in Bret’s time here .
 
#102      
Sonbog
Those of you blasting the defense need to wake up. The Illinois defense stopped Duke three times in the fourth quarter, giving the offense three chances to win the game. The Illinois offense only scored three points in the second half. Don't just blame the defense. This was a classic "team effort."

Be positive. We saw what North Texas and UAB did this week. Those two teams gave IU and ILL fits, but they are good teams. When It is all said and done, Duke might be a top five team. We don't know.

Too bad about your lineman's broken foot and our running back's broken arm. May both get well soon.
 
#104      
Battle89
therealmiket86 said:
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
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Check This Out GIF
 
#108      
bluemountain
One thing i haven't seen mentioned....we always seem to unnecessarily burn a lot of timeouts in the second half, and Saturday was no exception. It may not have mattered the way the offense was playing, but it certainly didn't help our chances
 
#109      
Dkayak
Mr. Tibbs said:
those types of basics are taught all during one’s football experience from age 12-17. one would not think that it’s a function of not knowing how to do it .

but yeah , practicing it needs to be done periodically. I see pros still forgetting to wrap up & trying to rely on arm tackles .

a “ back to basics “ oklahoma type drill might be in order . I will say that poor tackling is as bad as it’s looked in Bret’s time here .
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Many sports involve perishable skills requiring practice to maintain full proficiency.
 
#110      
aaeismacgychel
Fly Illini Fly! said:
1.2 is insane.

He hasn't recorded a single stat according to Sports Reference.
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$1.2M is certainly high for an unproven DT, however DT in general is a very expensive position group. It’s why in the offseason I was concerned when our DTs were leaving, not because they were so amazing here, but the idea that you can easily upgrade that position without paying a premium for it is a pipe dream. McCollum did show promise which is why it hurt that we weren’t able to retain him, but reading between the lines even then, if we weren’t able to afford retaining him, outbidding everyone on the open market for a proven DT seemed likely impossible. And unfortunately that was the case.

It’s also why I don’t have much of a bone to pick with the state of our DL. We were raided like a Group of 5 team at that position and would rather pay for offensive skill positions and bulking up the OL which they did a good job on.

Where we did make a major misstep though in my opinion was our LB group. That is not all that expensive relative to other position groups and it seems like we were just not aggressive enough to significantly upgrade there, which my gut feel is we could have done within budget. Having a large talent disparity at both the DL and LB groups is really not where one should end up. And the CSU signings look to be the gigantic miss the metrics hinted at.
 
#112      
therealmiket86
aaeismacgychel said:
$1.2M is certainly high for an unproven DT, however DT in general is a very expensive position group. It’s why in the offseason I was concerned when our DTs were leaving, not because they were so amazing here, but the idea that you can easily upgrade that position without paying a premium for it is a pipe dream. McCollum did show promise which is why it hurt that we weren’t able to retain him, but reading between the lines even then, if we weren’t able to afford retaining him, outbidding everyone on the open market for a proven DT seemed likely impossible. And unfortunately that was the case.

It’s also why I don’t have much of a bone to pick with the state of our DL. We were raided like a Group of 5 team at that position and would rather pay for offensive skill positions and bulking up the OL which they did a good job on.

Where we did make a major misstep though in my opinion was our LB group. That is not all that expensive relative to other position groups and it seems like we were just not aggressive enough to significantly upgrade there, which my gut feel is we could have done within budget. Having a large talent disparity at both the DL and LB groups is really not where one should end up. And the CSU signings look to be the gigantic miss the metrics hinted at.
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Coenen got 800k and he was also unproven. If that’s what the going rate is you have to pay it. We thought we had all these guys coming back and were caught off guard when they came back with huge offers. If the staff was aware what the dline market was going to be I think things would’ve played out differently. At the very least you would’ve retained Hayden, Hood, Warren and Neal. All guys that wouldn’t of cost much and would be playing a lot this year. Darrell Prater only started 3 games for Jacksonville state last year and he’s starting for us now.
 
#114      
Illini2010-11
bluemountain said:
One thing i haven't seen mentioned....we always seem to unnecessarily burn a lot of timeouts in the second half, and Saturday was no exception. It may not have mattered the way the offense was playing, but it certainly didn't help our chances
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The players need to understand the rules better for sure. Two of the timeouts were because of injury occurring after the ball was spotted, thereby causing us to use a forced timeout. If hurt, go down immediately!
 
#115      
aaeismacgychel
therealmiket86 said:
Coenen got 800k and he was also unproven. If that’s what the going rate is you have to pay it. We thought we had all these guys coming back and were caught off guard when they came back with huge offers. If the staff was aware what the dline market was going to be I think things would’ve played out differently. At the very least you would’ve retained Hayden, Hood, Warren and Neal. All guys that wouldn’t have cost much and would be playing a lot this year. Darrell Prater only started 3 games for Jacksonville state last year and he’s starting for us now.
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Yeah, and that’s what confuses me about this whole thing is that I’m not sure why the staff was caught off-guard as the DT position being an expensive one was a well known quantity. I mean they had to know going in their offers were well under market value. I can maybe possibly understand being surprised there was significant interest in our players in offering them market value, but it almost seems like it had to have been a calculated risk to try and spend less than competitive on the DL to spend more at other skill positions that unfortunately did not go as hoped. It also doesn’t help how much the market in general went up from last year to this one regarding NIL, but that’s something you have to deal with. The jump between this year and next will be a doozy as well.
 
#116      
therealmiket86
aaeismacgychel said:
Yeah, and that’s what confuses me about this whole thing is that I’m not sure why the staff was caught off-guard as the DT position being an expensive one was a well known quantity. I mean they had to know going in their offers were well under market value. I can maybe possibly understand being surprised there was significant interest in our players in offering them market value, but it almost seems like it had to have been a calculated risk to try and spend less than competitive on the DL to spend more at other skill positions that unfortunately did not go as hoped. It also doesn’t help how much the market in general went up from last year to this one regarding NIL, but that’s something you have to deal with. The jump between this year and next will be a doozy as well.
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Yeah I’m not sure how they were so far off. they thought they had Tomiwa,McCollum and Coenen coming back. But this a failure of the GM. Obviously having more money would help but this past offseason money wasn’t spent well. We literally spent little to no money on dl and lb. That’s not good roster management. I think the biggest issue with the defense is the linebacker room and coaching staff
 
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#119      
lstewart53x3
aaeismacgychel said:
Yeah, and that’s what confuses me about this whole thing is that I’m not sure why the staff was caught off-guard as the DT position being an expensive one was a well known quantity. I mean they had to know going in their offers were well under market value. I can maybe possibly understand being surprised there was significant interest in our players in offering them market value, but it almost seems like it had to have been a calculated risk to try and spend less than competitive on the DL to spend more at other skill positions that unfortunately did not go as hoped. It also doesn’t help how much the market in general went up from last year to this one regarding NIL, but that’s something you have to deal with. The jump between this year and next will be a doozy as well.
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From what I understand, it’s not that they were caught off guard by DL market, but more so, our current D-Lineman had agreed to come back. Them deciding to transfer is what caught them off guard.
 
#120      
Hingle McCringleberry
lstewart53x3 said:
From what I understand, it’s not that they were caught off guard by DL market, but more so, our current D-Lineman had agreed to come back. Them deciding to transfer is what caught them off guard.
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It sounds this past offseason was Brett being caught off guard a lot by both players and coaches that had seemingly committed to coming (back) here and then abruptly (and late in the cycle) decided not to.

Brett has historically been very good at having contingency plans. But because we were willfully waiting to make moves late in the cycle, there were no contingency options worth anything. So we took what we could and now we are paying the price on Defense (or lack thereof).
 
#122      
lstewart53x3
Fly Illini Fly! said:
"Staff thought they'd be back" is different from "they agreed to come back."

Agreed to come back would mean they signed a contract, but still bolted.
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True, when I said agreed, I meant they had lead the staff to believe they would return through their words, not that they broke a contract. I don’t believe I saw any reports of broken NIL agreements.
 
#123      
Birdus
lstewart53x3 said:
True, when I said agreed, I meant they had lead the staff to believe they would return through their words, not that they broke a contract. I don’t believe I saw any reports of broken NIL agreements.
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These days, words mean very little don't they. I think the LESSON WAS LEARNED. Hopefully we can somehow get to 6 wins this year and keep some form of momentum going. Anything better than that would be a major achievement. Frankly I don't see 7. We have a lot of toss up games and with our defense the way it is, Purdue is going to be tough. Those of you that don't believe that need only go back two years ago. What was it? 49-48?
 
#124      
BryceHopkins
Birdus said:
These days, words mean very little don't they. I think the LESSON WAS LEARNED. Hopefully we can somehow get to 6 wins this year and keep some form of momentum going. Anything better than that would be a major achievement. Frankly I don't see 7. We have a lot of toss up games and with our defense the way it is, Purdue is going to be tough. Those of you that don't believe that need only go back two years ago. What was it? 49-48?
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We are not losing to Purdue at home. That just can't happen. I won't allow it.
 
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