Illinois 23, Florida Atlantic 17 Postgame

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#55      
Illini4Chief
This game kinda showed me who we really are......a play from behind team. It's gonna be a long, long Big 10 season with play like this. I'm sure Purdue is watching this game tape........not too excited about the future here.
 
#57      
aaeismacgychel
Well, I've gotta give @mhuml32 credit- he called it. I expected our O-Line to take great strides this week against a lesser opponent and our defense to feast on what has been quite frankly a pretty bad offense. Instead, our O-line was absolutely obliterated once again offering next to no protection and our defensive coverage was just nowhere near where it needs to be. While I still think how we play Purdue will make or break our season, I've gotta say, 33% of the way through the season, it's hard for me to see much optimism here other than we play in the absolutely putrid B10 West. And that optimism will sour pretty quickly if we start losing against them.

Hate to say it, but this season is looking way too much to my liking as pretty much every other season we've had after a rare successful one. Mediocrity and a missed opportunity. Just disappointing how we've played this season, and in aspects of the game that I'm just not sure are fixable at this point.
 
#60      
Ransom Stoddard
Navy_illini said:
So I heard people say 50k plus tickets were sold but it sure didn’t look like it on tv
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A lot of those were given away. Here's what the East side looked like at Kickoff.
20230923_144023.jpg


And at the start of the 2nd.
20230923_151717.jpg

I know people get real interested in the number of tickets sold/distributed, but if we can't get the actual butts in the actual seats, what does it matter? If it weren't Band Day, over a third of that East Balcony would have been empty. Yeah it's FAU, but if you're announcing attendance of over 50k, the attendance needs to look a LOT stronger.
 
#62      
Ransom Stoddard
DeonThomas said:
Let's now rest up and get healed ahead of next weekend's trip to West Lafayette.

Strength of Schedule still looking strong:
4-0 Kansas
3-1 Toledo
3-0 Penn State (favored at home tonight vs. Iowa in a white-out)

And FAU has losses to Clemson, Illinois and 4-1 Ohio.
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How does the bolded make them look any better? I get that they lost to 2 good teams and us, but they still lost.
 
#63      
BRucks
Ransom Stoddard said:
A lot of those were given away. Here's what the East side looked like at Kickoff.View attachment 28196

And at the start of the 2nd.
View attachment 28198
I know people get real interested in the number of tickets sold/distributed, but if we can't get the actual butts in the actual seats, what does it matter? If it weren't Band Day, over a third of that East Balcony would have been empty. Yeah it's FAU, but if you're announcing attendance of over 50k, the attendance needs to look a LOT stronger.
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Student section wasn't much better.
 
#64      
IlliniCub 16
I think Lunney called a decent game, especially in the second half outside of the swing pass to Beatty that led to the fumble. The offensive line was not holding up their end which limits both the running attack and the downfield passing game, which worked well when Luke either had time or bought himself some time.

A very weird vibe around that game, it felt like FAU was winning even when Illinois was essentially dominating the second and third quarters. The start was just so bad it felt like we couldn't shake it even up double digits.

I think there was some good potential shown by the young running backs and defensive backs, but if this o-line doesn't get figured out then it will be a struggle to get to six wins. Nice to see Altmyer bounce back and play well despite getting hit all game long.
 
#65      
DeonThomas
Ransom Stoddard said:
How does the bolded make them look any better? I get that they lost to 2 good teams and us, but they still lost.
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I believe FAU might still finish top 3 in their conference, even without their #1 QB. Just look at their losses to-date:

- Clemson @ Clemson is almost a guaranteed loss for any opponent except Florida St.
- We naturally wanted them to also lose to the Illini --- prospective Big 10 West Champs, and I want to consider this as a good loss for FAU
- Ohio is presumably pretty good at 4-1, too

It's a much better FAU schedule than had they played 3 FCS opponents and us.
 
#66      
blackdog
Run blocking was much better in the 2nd half but it was still pretty rough for much of the game. Give Altmeyer time and he can make some plays although he had a couple overthrown deep balls to Williams who was WIDE open both times.

Tobe got a lot of playing time on defense and I was pretty impressed by his play. FAU challenged him a couple times on deep balls and he was able to come through.

Also what happened on that Beatty fumble? Watching live it sure looked incomplete but they didn't even review it. Ended up being points for FAU as a result

Overall not a great game but take a FG instead of turnover on downs in the first and have Feagin walk in for a TD at the end and people might be talking about it very differently.
 
#67      
FloridaMan
IlliniCub 16 said:
I think Lunney called a decent game, especially in the second half outside of the swing pass to Beatty that led to the fumble. The offensive line was not holding up their end which limits both the running attack and the downfield passing game, which worked well when Luke either had time or bought himself some time.

A very weird vibe around that game, it felt like FAU was winning even when Illinois was essentially dominating the second and third quarters. The start was just so bad it felt like we couldn't shake it even up double digits.

I think there was some good potential shown by the young running backs and defensive backs, but if this o-line doesn't get figured out then it will be a struggle to get to six wins. Nice to see Altmyer bounce back and play well despite getting hit all game long.
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100%. The thing that's really disappointing is that we are starting 3 All-B10 Honorable mention linemen and have clearly developed some depth at the position the last two years. I know it takes linemen a couple of years of weight room work to be ready but do we not have some guys ready to play some more snaps for those who are clearly struggling? Do we have a problem developing the position? For a coach that clearly views it as a crucial ingredient for success, and has referenced our struggles at the position in the past, to be this bad right now is a mystery.
 
#73      
Navy_illini
Illiniguy74 said:
Somethings wrong with this team that goes beyond the skills of the players. There appears to be a lack of chemistry (leadership?) on this team. You'd think
returning players like Adam's, Newton, etc. would provide that leadership. Perhaps they are already thinking ahead and have one foot out the door. Perhaps there is a lack of player buy in with certain coaches or offensive or defensive philosophies. We should not be playing this poorly. Would like to see comments from Indy and 0440.
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I disagree. We are missing some talent. We don’t have a LB corps or another player maker on D. 2 DL makes an ok line but you can double team them and make them a non factor with blocking schemes

On offense we need a better line. The line is below average. We have an above average QB and WRs and we have ok RBs.

Last years team was good but a lot of our success was the defense forcing turnovers and Chase yards after contact. We aren’t getting that this year. The pieces are mostly there but the ball isn’t always bouncing our way
 
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