Illinois 42, UAB 23 Postgame

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#278      
OB positive
Nohops 73 said:
I expect that tackling fundamentals will get a lot of attention in practice this week, and would expect significant improvement in Duke game.
Many posters thought linebacker play was biggest hole in the defense. Longer term, getting Daniel Brown back and Grant Beerman having more practice time and improved conditioning could go a long way to fixing that problem.
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Its not just the tackling. I expected to see more speed and bodies flying around all over the place even if we weren't making the tackle. Once again when I was watching pretty much any other p4 football game everything on both sides of the ball seemed to be moving faster making us like we are a step slower. Our defense was very underwhelming. Like a 3 on a rating to 10. Hopefully it's just because we are still figuring things out because we need to be in the 6-8 range to be competitive with the better teams on our schedule.
 
#279      
number1IlliniFan
TheChief4Life said:
Okay, now it’s my time for thoughts.

1. Regarding the crowd. Heck yeah the student section was great! Full for SOOOOO much of the game. However, as for the rest of the fan base, I am so disappointed in how little football fandem knowledge our fanbase has. Was the stadium full-ish? Sure. They were not loud. They barely cheered. Barely stood. Where I was, they didn’t even celebrate when we scored TDs. I’m not sure why anyone paid tickets to go to the game and do the same thing they could’ve done at home. I remember when Mizzou put out a “how to be a fan” video 5 or 6 years ago and so many people on this forum (and elsewhere truthfully) criticized them. I thought then, and I still think it now: Illinois needs to do this.

2. The new audio/visuals are something to behold! Not a fan of the mic’d up band playing through the speakers. Sounded bad. But wow. Such a cool experience for the crowd to sit through and not get excited about.

3. Regarding the defense. I also agree with those that have said it appears as if this new scheme is understood by the guys and it does put them in position to make plays. They just didn’t. The tackling… ouch. The number of times we would get other RBs at the line and then he’d breakthrough for 5 or 6 yards was frustrating. Like others have said, hopefully there was a little “holding back” in some of the looks too. But we’ve said that every year for a decade. We’ll see what we have against duke.

4. Offense will be okay.

5. I get that the final score was 42-23, and some want to say it should be viewed more like 28-23 due to the pick six and Hail Mary. But that’s fair. The last TD UAB scored was against our backups, and it was obvious. Also, the D did their part on that pick six. Why would we not count that? The Hail Mary was some luck, but it just seems weird we start categorizing “points that really don’t count”.

6. Night games are fun. Thursday night games are probably my least favorite night game, but still, one of my favorite experiences at Memorial Stadium! And I’ve had season tickets for 22 years.
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Regarding point #1: Fans Cheering. I found it impossible to cheer over the stadium audio. I don't think there was a quiet moment for the crowd to make ourselves heard. I lost my voice just trying to talk about the game with the people I was sitting with. I'm not sure 35 thousand fans can be louder than the sound system that never gave us a break.
 
#280      
TheChief4Life
number1IlliniFan said:
Regarding point #1: Fans Cheering. I found it impossible to cheer over the stadium audio. I don't think there was a quiet moment for the crowd to make ourselves heard. I lost my voice just trying to talk about the game with the people I was sitting with. I'm not sure 35 thousand fans can be louder than the sound system that never gave us a break.
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Well.... the sound system is literally not allowed to play during plays, or even after the offense breaks the huddle, I believe. In fact, the crowd was so obnoxiously quiet, that combined with the blaring audio, it was so obvious the crowd was quiet when the audio stopped.
 
#282      
mhuml32
In case anyone was wondering: 99.9% post-game win expectancy (PGWE) for Illinois against UAB.
 
#288      
Kendall Gill’s Uncle
My 11 Notes:


- Expected a rough start to the defense: doing a new scheme, likely going to take a vanilla approach, UAB's RBs were considered their strength on the roster and the Illinois' defense is expecting to struggle to stop the run. It's not that it was not disappointing to watch but I think I had a very different expectation of game 1 than most of the folks on here.
- Houser is as good as advertised. The incompletions were throw-aways or drops. He was more mobile than expected.
- The biggest alarm for me is the running game. Valentine had that (excellent) long run and the rest was.....pretty pedestrian. I know, it's not fair to take away that long run and assess, but it's concerning against a team like UAB. Silver lining? Lunney seemed determined to run on every first down and it became predictable for UAB. I'm guessing that was done to avoid giving Duke any first-down tendencies.
- UAB had more rushing attempts than Illinois had offensive plays.
- Heard folks questioning the involvement of Feagin/Laughery/pick your favorite skill player but it's tough to complain about Feagin only getting 13 snaps when the offense only ran 43 total offensive plays.
- The complaints about the Anderson carry on 4th-and-1 is too much for me. He was perfect in a bunch of attempts last year. Where were the complaints last year then? I also get the idea of giving him the ball there because (a) you know it's a very successful approach based on history and (b) it avoids putting anything new on film.
- Biggest bummer was the flow of the game was dictated by UAB. Ultimately it cost Illinois a bunch of offensive snaps and giving reps to backups late in the second half.
- Collin Dixon took that step forward. Much needed difference maker at WR and buys some time for the WR room to get healthy. He has a chance to crack the top-6 in Illinois career receiving yards if he stays healthy.
- Weird outcome where I feel (a) great about the QB, (b) great about the top WR, and (c) very concerned about the rest of the pass catchers
- I was pleasantly surprised about the pass rush and pressures created after today. I see the vision of the 3-3-5. Rhea and (especially) Holmes are looking like valuable contributors
- Linebackers? Woof. Again, I'm hoping today was the learning curve.
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How did you land on 11?
 
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