Illinois 38, Rutgers 31 Postgame

Funny thing is the staff really wanted Kevin Levy last year. Not his fault he has to play meaningful snaps in his first year against a really good WR corps…..but thank you for the freshman mistake.

I'm expecting a starring Illini appearance in ESPN "Bad Beats" tonight.

B1G Football in 60 has Illinois vs Rutgers on now if you missed the game the first time around.

OskieWowWow said:

Right, that was a coverage bust by #24 the zone defender on the right, but not entirely sure it was a miscommunication. It could have been relevant if the playcall was to get through his progressions over to Dixon's side, but Luke never looked his way; I'm sure that when he saw that safety charge the line, he knew Pat would be 100% open (and a relatively easier throw)

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If my read of the play is correct, he's just the 3rd read of the progression, and Luke didn't need to look his way. The play is a dagger concept with Bryant on the cross and Capka-Jones on the fly. The two routes are designed so they intersect with both receivers and their coverage on top of each other which creates confusion and/or sets a pick essentially to get one of the routes open. How the field side DBs react to the dagger is the main read of the play. Dixon's post/slant (idk the specific term for that curving route) just adds to that by trying to pull away weak side defenders from Bryant, and it does exactly that by pulling Rutgers #6 away from Byrant enough to give space for the catch. Dixon then just beats #24 leaving him wide open if the dagger doesn't work. If the DBs on Bryant/Capka-Jones trade off coverage effectively rather than both of them going up-field with Capka, first off we lose because Luke just gets sacked, but if that wasn't the case, Dixon is the next read and it's a TD in the case of this play (and likely more often than not). Even if #24 doesn't get beat as badly as he did, Dixon is less open but still open just due to his speed (DB at a massive disadvantage having to turn and chase).

As for Gritty's comment about the defensive execution, looks like a cover 4 blitz with a spy (the spy is what confuses our pass protection as well freeing up one rusher for the hit on Altmeyer). Our play concept just worked perfectly on the Rutgers zone. Obviously, there's some poor execution involved on Rutgers' part for the play to work that perfectly, but some props have to go not only to the receivers for running it so well, but Lunney for the play itself. The play will probably never work again, at least not in a similar situation, but it won us a game. Daggers can mess up NFL DBs the way it messed up those 2 Rutgers DBs so it's not entirely a case of poor execution from them. #24 is really the only one I would say executed poorly enough to put genuine blame on him, and it was the difference between a first down and a TD. And with only 7 seconds left when he could have tackled Bryant, it could have also been the difference between winning and losing the game.

24 on Rutgers was supposed to contain the edge but for some reason went inside even though his teammates had the middle covered. Not only did that spring Bryant to go to the outside, it forced the other Rutgers players to take a different route in pursuit - straight into two waiting blockers.

Schiano put his team in a bad position and if Bryant gets tackled there, Illinois still likely wins. But that back on Rutgers is going to be haunted by that film for years.