DaChief4ever
- Urbana
SO Epstein is THE man now.....is Lovie going with the hot hand now..kinda miss Foster.
Illinois 20, Western Kentucky 7 POSTGAME
Deleted member 29907
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Check the tape - both Dudek and Malik dropped passes right in their gut. Hardly 'doing their best and getting a hand on the ball'
JDHalfrack
- Springfield, IL
I may be in the minority here, but I hardly think Crouch is the detriment some of you are acting like he is. After week one, it was pretty obvious that we could have had Peyton Manning as our QB, and he wasn't going to get anything done with the penetration that our OL gave up. Last night, though, the OL played their minds out, and Crouch looked 1000x better. Is he going to be a Heisman candidate? No. But, to read some of you say things like "he's not a D1 caliber QB" is just wrong.
It can't be stated enough what VAIllini35 just posted: "Check the tape - both Dudek and Malik dropped passes right in their gut." Not only did they drop those passes, they were both dropped in absolutely critical situations.
Crouch also made two very bad plays that were pretty much 100% on him. There was the one play where I'm pretty sure he threw into 11 on 1 coverage... and the interception (though I'm willing to split the pick about 80-20 with whoever called a pass play there...)
Even with those two huge drops and Crouch's misplays, Illinois had two great 7+ minute offensive drives that were crucial to the win last night. Crouch was a major part of that. His passing is subpar, I'm not naive enough to think anything other than that, but he does service as an adequate QB for our team right now.
This is Lovie Smith football.
If he can win with Jay Cutler at the NFL level, he can win with Crouch at this level.
It can't be stated enough what VAIllini35 just posted: "Check the tape - both Dudek and Malik dropped passes right in their gut." Not only did they drop those passes, they were both dropped in absolutely critical situations.
Crouch also made two very bad plays that were pretty much 100% on him. There was the one play where I'm pretty sure he threw into 11 on 1 coverage... and the interception (though I'm willing to split the pick about 80-20 with whoever called a pass play there...)
Even with those two huge drops and Crouch's misplays, Illinois had two great 7+ minute offensive drives that were crucial to the win last night. Crouch was a major part of that. His passing is subpar, I'm not naive enough to think anything other than that, but he does service as an adequate QB for our team right now.
This is Lovie Smith football.
If he can win with Jay Cutler at the NFL level, he can win with Crouch at this level.
As inadequate as Crouch might be, if he was just a bit better, he could play for the Bears.
Illiini
- In the land of the Nittany Lion
He did see the open field and ran--or more accurately dove--it into the endzone. Although, c'mon Chase, let's make sure you save up that body to start at least a half dozen more starts. Actually, ten.
They want 3 or more turnovers every time they step on the field
Deleted member 29907
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He's not the detriment some are making - it puzzles me what people are expecting. He's playing above average and better than I expected. He did score one of our TDs and had several nice runs when we were running the clock.
Wait. What? Two days ago WKU was a 7.5 point favorite and high scoring team and we had a young defensive line that couldn't be expected to shoot straight and and and.
Here's a little look back:
It's going to be a disappointing game for Lovie.
Hilltoppers take a heartbreaker in Champaign
Western Kentucky to end it's 0-6 winless streak against the Big Ten.
WKU wins 31-24.
WKU win probability 67 percent
Illini will have to be better than they were
WKU wins
More choose WKU
Hilltoppers have more firepower
I could go on, and yes, there were some picks for Illinois, but even those who did choose the Illini said it would be close and a lot of scoring by WKU. No one saw WKU getting shut down on offense like they were. So a message for all those Doubting Dougs our there, your crow is waiting...and it's served cold.
Disclaimer: I didn't make prediction...but I don't call myself an expert, or particularly knowledgeable for that matter. Just a note, though, to those who said Illinois will go 2-10 for 2017...they have to lose every game for the rest of the season to do so. Yeah, it could happen.
I do believe I predicted a 31-17 victory for the Illini [emoji41] ...not too far off...
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EfremWinters84
- S. Carolina
And I accurately predicted that we'd score 20 points........
(in a loss).
I still expect a long season, but came away very impressed with last night's performance, especially all the young freshmen and the overall game plan and playcallingn by the coaching staff.
Roundtree and Gay are both really athletic ends and with added muscle, should form the basis of a formidable defense over the next few years. Thought the freshman corners played really well as well, and it will be interesting to see how the defense evolves as they face more balanced attacks moving forward.
The young offensive linemen also impressed, and enough has already been said about Epstein. I can't remember so many young players gelling and performing at this level at Illinois since I've followed Illinois sports (31 years old). I was really disillusioned with Crouch's first half play, but he really carried the team in the 2nd half and managed the game well despite the interception. I think McGee called a nice second half and should look to capitalize on his running abilities more in upcoming games as he made good reads with the read option. This gives defenses more to plan for which I hope will open up the passing game a bit more.
Roundtree and Gay are both really athletic ends and with added muscle, should form the basis of a formidable defense over the next few years. Thought the freshman corners played really well as well, and it will be interesting to see how the defense evolves as they face more balanced attacks moving forward.
The young offensive linemen also impressed, and enough has already been said about Epstein. I can't remember so many young players gelling and performing at this level at Illinois since I've followed Illinois sports (31 years old). I was really disillusioned with Crouch's first half play, but he really carried the team in the 2nd half and managed the game well despite the interception. I think McGee called a nice second half and should look to capitalize on his running abilities more in upcoming games as he made good reads with the read option. This gives defenses more to plan for which I hope will open up the passing game a bit more.
BZuppke
- Plainfield
I'm also wondering if the decision to punt without draining the clock had to do more with not wanting to put too much on our very experienced punter. We had no timeouts and he was punting from the goaline. Maybe asking him to run down the clock was considered distracting to just getting the punt off.
And with those catches, crouch's completion percentage goes from 56%-64%. That said, his yards probably are still under 150.
I believe this is the first year this crew has been together but it appears they are a MAC crew. Tim O'Dey was the referee and he was on the CMU-Oklahoma St game last year where they erroneously gave CMU an extra play which they scored on to win. That crew received a two-game suspension because of the mistake.
Some of the other guys have also worked primarily in the MAC the last few years. I believe they will be working in a MAC stadium on this coming Saturday.
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Game lasted 3:26, which is pretty much right at D1 average. Wouldn't mind if they could speed it up by 20-30 minutes.
mhuml32
- Cincinnati, OH
Makes sense. The second quarter was incredibly long, but the second half went rather quickly (assuming because Illinois kept the ball on the ground).
I agree that some are overstating Crouch's weaknesses.
The biggest issue is that he goes stretches where he simply doesn't give his receiver a chance to make a play on the ball. I think 6 of his first 7 throws last game were like that, with the exception a screen pass that was blown up by the USF d-line from the get go.
To his credit, he improved as the game went on.
The secondary issue is that he doesn't have much arm strength. The interception was a perfect example of that. He just can't get the ball to the receiver on a medium out with any zip. This however is an issue that can be gameplanned around. Certainly plenty of successful college QBs with noodle arms.
Illwinsagain
- Cary, IL
Honestly, I think that is the best defense I have seen from the Illini in years! I think the number of missed tackles might have been about 2. And many very good plays made.
BZuppke
- Plainfield
I also agree the criticism of Crouch is off base. He played well for what he can do. He made some great throws and made some not so good ones, and one bad interception.
He showed toughness and leadership. He's not the next Tom Brady, but he can get us to a decent record this year. The idea that "he's not a division I QB" is absurd. He will do better for us than Lunt ever could.
He showed toughness and leadership. He's not the next Tom Brady, but he can get us to a decent record this year. The idea that "he's not a division I QB" is absurd. He will do better for us than Lunt ever could.
EfremWinters84
- S. Carolina
Thinking we collectively need to raise the bar relative to our QB expectations.
Even though we have generally sucked in football since Butkus left school, we ARE accustomed to seeing some pretty decent quarterback play over the last 35 years (Dave Wilson, Tony Eason, Jack Trudeau, Jason Verduzco, Jeff George, Kurt Kittner, Juice Williams, Nathan Scheelhaase). And all of them could accurately complete a 20 yard post pattern against really good Big Ten competition. I don't think we're going to see much of that this year.
Still, hopefully we can eek out 4 more victories with Crouch under center. Go ILLINI!!
I'm with Efrem