Illinois 24, Maryland 6 Postgame

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#76      
Curbelo Fanboy
It is a mark of how much we’ve improved that we can win a league game with a very mid effort on offense and some odd replay calls.

An ugly win looks a heck of a lot better than a pretty loss. Today wasn’t necessarily ugly. Just kind of blah. But we used to lose these kind of games with regularity.
 
#77      
Second place is 1st loser
The loss to Washington wasn't bizarre. They beat the crap out of us from the jump. We were never competitive. Washington was the favorite going into the game and they cleaned our clock. Let's not try and pretty that up.

The game vs Minny was bizarre. We took a crazy L there, but we balanced that out by winning some games in miraculous fashion.

We're on solid footing right now, but let's not lose site of the fact that we got dog walked in three of the four games we played against ranked teams.

We're going to go to a nice bowl, back t back years. Keep stacking quality seasons and keep the recruiting headed in the right direction.
 
#79      
GrayGhost77
Dan said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1989871402069979523

https://twitter.com/x/status/1989871026860073228
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keanu reeves woah face GIF
 
#81      
Dkayak
GForce said:
It looks like he's added a spin move when he gets hit and is about to be tackled that allows him to get a few extra yards.
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He did that repeatedly, “drilling” and lunging further forward.
 
#83      
Todd99
Curbelo Fanboy said:
It is a mark of how much we’ve improved that we can win a league game with a very mid effort on offense and some odd replay calls.

An ugly win looks a heck of a lot better than a pretty loss. Today wasn’t necessarily ugly. Just kind of blah. But we used to lose these kind of games with regularity.
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Watching this game, even with the calls and (as you say blah) pace of it, I never once thought we would lose. That hasn’t been the case during games like this in previous years. I can remember games in the past where this one would have been a white knuckler for three quarters.
 
#84      
Oracle21
I think the key to Bielema’s success at Illinois is he almost always wins the games he should win. And that shouldn’t be taken for granted. Very rarely has Illinois ever not shown up vs an inferior opponent,

Schedule gets way harder in 2027 and next year will be a challenge with replacing most of the offense, but I think you have to give Bielema’s first 5 years as Illinois coach a solid B+ or A-.

Everyone said “if he can just make us Iowa we will be happy”. I think we’re at that water level
 
#85      
zentrails
FloridaMan said:
I get it. And like I have repeatedly said I'm extremely happy with any wins and where we are as a program. But, I also believe we are on the cusp of being consistently in the top 4/5 of the B10 in football for the first time in most of our lives.

It is extremely frustrating to watch us play 7 to 9 yards off of receivers and let teams easily get 7-10 yards a play an
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I agree completely, especially with the "get better players" part
We just don't have good enough players to compete with the big boys just yet, but I think we will, maybe starting next season
 
#86      
GrayGhost77
zentrails said:
I agree completely, especially with the "get better players" part
We just don't have good enough players to compete with the big boys just yet, but I think we will, maybe starting next season
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We've got a really great class for '26 coming in. Best class since the peak Zook recruiting years. Build on that for '27 and we'll have this thing really rolling and we could be competing for a Natty in a few years from now with a little luck.
 
#88      
zentrails
socalini said:
We were the bee’s knees back in the early aughts.

And why did they call them the aughts in the 20th century, but not the 21st? Or did I just miss that?
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In the olden days we defined eras by decade, 60's 70's 80's 90's then the 00's hit had people didn't know what to call that. Now we just gave up on calling the 2010+ decades anything
 
#89      
DeonThomas
AutoPoster 3000 said:
Rather than ponder how a group of supposedly professional sports officials can be so incomprehensibly bad at their jobs, instead I’m just going to enjoy the still pretty novel feeling of having seven wins twelve days before Thanksgiving.
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I watched FS1, but listened to Brian B. What happened with the refs? Game looked really clean to me --- and I heard no mention during the broadcast.
 
#93      
lstewart53x3
IlliniFaninHoosierLand said:
To be fair, MD's PPG are a bit skewed by their non-con games. They haven't scored more than 20 points in a game since the home loss to Nebraska last month.
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For sure, here’s their points in every game they’ve played this season:

39
20
44
27 (against Wisconsin, the 39th ranked defense)
20 (against Washington, the 25th ranked defense)
31 (against Nebraska, the 29th ranked defense)
17
10 (against Indiana, the 3rd ranked defense)
20
6 (against Illinois)

So like I said, Illinois held Maryland to their lowest point total of the year. We’re the only team this year to not give up a touchdown against Maryland. So to say that’s a bad defensive performance is odd.

Rankings courtesy of KFord.
 
#94      
mhuml32
Game Notes!


1. Illinois defense had 9 pass deflections! Pretty sure the team was dead last in B1G for in-conference pass deflections for a while. 9 in a single game is a big number.
2. A couple more stats to share from the defense: Last two opponents are a combined 9-for-28 on 3rd down (including some garbage time conversions from Rutgers). Last two opponents were held to under 60 rushing yards. The last time Illinois held back-to-back P4 opponents under 60 rushing yards was 2022 (Indiana and Virginia). I can't even find a time where Illinois held back-to-back B1G opponents to under 60 rushing yards in the modern era.
3. Last defensive stat! 46 passing attempts to accrue 238 passing yards for Maryland. That's a very inefficient performance.
4. How it felt from watching - might have been the best game of the season for pressure created. It was not perfect, but there were more moments of creating pressure on Washington, especially in the first half.
5. Was that the first time where it felt like Illinois was guaranteed to get 5+ yards per rushing attempt? The second half felt that way.
6. The passing offense was a struggle all day. Lunney schemed up calls for the Clement TDs but that was about it. Everyone besides Clement was average to disappointing. These are the games where it hurts the most to either have lesser talented TEs or a scheme that doesn't utilize them enough.
7. Combining a couple previous points: Maryland had 55 team rushing yards. Illinois has three separate players run for 60+.
8. I was so happy for Jordan Anderson to have that moment. He gets a handful of important 3rd and 4th and short runs and always seems to convert. Having a big run like that felt different. I'm sure it hasn't worked out like he imagined but kudos to him for sticking around and finding his role.
9. Haven't really had a moment to mention special teams much this year but (a) surprised we haven't had a special teams trick play yet and (b) Crimmins with 7 yards more NET on his punts compared to '24 Robertson has been noticeable.
 
#95      
Curbelo Fanboy
GrayGhost77 said:
We've got a really great class for '26 coming in. Best class since the peak Zook recruiting years. Build on that for '27 and we'll have this thing really rolling and we could be competing for a Natty in a few years from now with a little luck.
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People outside this state would laugh at the thought but if Bret can upgrade the talent some we can absolutely be a threat at the national level. We most likely won’t ever get OSU talent but if we can get a few high level types that gives u a chance to go toe to toe with those teams.
 
#96      
kmunt09
Nice to win a game when things weren’t clicking on all cylinders. Maryland being the opponent certainly helped! The timing of their dropped passes was significant for us.
 
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#97      
awkwardpenguin
Was anyone around section 207 and know why the police showed up? We saw a guy handcuffed but weren't close enough to see why.
 
#98      
HereSoIDontGetFined
Was at the game today. The Terps run game was stifled to the point where they just passed nearly every play. Felt like Maryland needed miracle catches to make most of the deep ball plays, while the short and middle throws were usually there. Would have been nice to see more pressure though.

Offensively, they had no answer for Luke running it. Was Laughery out today?
 
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