Illinois at Maryland, Saturday, October 31st, 11:00am CT, FS1

Illini2010-11 said:

I sure hope not.

Maryland has lost by an average of 24 points in their 5 power conference games. The closest game was a 7 point loss at home vs a very bad Rutgers team. It is safe to say that this is the worst B1G team the Illini have seen so far.

I assume they may have a mini bounce from the coaching change and bye week, but that is a very bad football team.

I expect Coach B to have the squad ready to pounce on a wounded opponent. I will be disappointed if the Illini do not cover the spread.

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Yeah but we're still starting a true freshman and Lunney isn't going to put him in harms way.

I expect a lot of running, and it might mean we win soundly but not necessarily by a large margin.

This is a huge game. Win this game and you most likely make a bowl. The last 4 games should be a toss up. Just gotta hope we can get atleast 1 out of the 4.

People say bowl games are meaningless now but we have a young roster. Getting those guys the extra practices and game experience is huge.

Must win, this would fully get us on track this season. I think most people had us sweeping duke, msu, and purdue (or going 2 for 3 vs them) and losing to Oregon preseason.

therealmiket86 said:

This is a huge game. Win this game and you most likely make a bowl. The last 4 games should be a toss up. Just gotta hope we can get atleast 1 out of the 4.

People say bowl games are meaningless now but we have a young roster. Getting those guys the extra practices and game experience is huge.

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I am a certified NU hater, but with the way they've been playing, we should be a dog in that one.

Just saying:

Maryland - W 5-3
Nebraska - W under the lights 6-3
UCLA - L 6-4 …that offense is gonna be a hot knife through butter, sorry
Iowa - W 7-4. Houser returns, we have a big ol passing boost at home.
NW - W 8-4. Riding momentum, lots of orange new Ryan.

Let’s go eat some Poptarts!

therealmiket86 said:

This is a huge game. Win this game and you most likely make a bowl. The last 4 games should be a toss up. Just gotta hope we can get atleast 1 out of the 4.

People say bowl games are meaningless now but we have a young roster. Getting those guys the extra practices and game experience is huge.

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Those last 4 games get very interesting if we can win this one.

Nebraska - Primetime national TV game. They are hoping to be 8-2 setting up a pivotal home game against tOSU the second to last week of the season. If we can beat them it really messes up their goals for this season.

UCLA - Another national TV game. I'm hoping they stay undefeated. They play Nevada and @Minn before us. If they do stay undefeated and we go into that game at 6-3, there is a really good chance Gameday picks this game. That being said, I'm guessing Minnesota knocks them off. Regardless it's a great chance to knock off a top 15, maybe even top 5 team. I think most of us would agree they are good but beatable.

Iowa and Northwestern - Don't need to say much about either of these games. We all want to beat both these teams badly. This might sound crazy, but I would rather go 6-6 with a win over Iowa rather than 8-4 with the loss to Iowa.

But like I said, have to take care of Maryland first. Each game from here on out ups the ante for the next game, leads to more buy in from the fan base, and more national exposure.

IlliniKat91 said:

I am a certified NU hater, but with the way they've been playing, we should be a dog in that one.

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as of today if that game was Saturday , we would be 7-9 pt underdogs up there

I know Friday night games aren't super popular, but I like them as the underdog in Nebby and UCLA.

Yes, Maryland is bad bad bad, but this is a road game and those are never easy.

You just wonder if the defense turned a corner this past Saturday. I really think it'll come down to their play if we go bowling or not. Get this and hopefully we can steal one of Nebby or NW, and turn this into a decent season.

Dkayak said:

Did any of them actually watch yesterday’s game to see how the QB and entire team played, or were they just gazing at stats?

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the number seems reasonable. somebody is going to stop the run with
8 guys at the line of scrimmage and force our frosh QB to beat us.

MUST WIN.

IlliniKat91 said:

I am a certified NU hater, but with the way they've been playing, we should be a dog in that one.

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After this week I feel a little better about that game. But chip Kelly has been great this year

I'll grant the following: Maryland looks bad. Very bad. It's 17th in the BT (only because MSU has played one more game and has one more loss.) It lost to Rutgers at home. And it scored only a FG v. UCLA while giving up 54 points at home, 14 of those on two pick-sixes within three minutes of each other in the 3Q, one of which (IIRC) Malik Washington threw directly at two UCLA DBs.

However.

It has looked not bad at various points this season v. P5 competition, including an entire first half in Lincoln and an entire second half at home v. Virginia Tech. Full game v. such competition looking not bad? No. Got me there.

I watched them lose in person to VT in mid-Sept, 35-26 (it should have been 28 but for Locks' inexplicable, James Franklin-esque, decision to go for two when they narrowed the score to 35-20 at the beginning of the 4Q.) The material difference in that game was Washington's inability to hit his receivers long. He missed at least two wide open WRs in the end zone, on drives that subsequently stalled. Hit those two easy passes and MD wins that one, against a VT team that is decidedly on the high side of average (mid-50s in Sagarin until moving up to the 40s after beating Clemson on the road Saturday night.)

Washington absolutely gashed VT's porous D (sound familiar?) on short slants and outs, as well as a couple long ones he did hit, for 360 yards (would have been well over 400 had he hit those two TD passes), and MD mixed in a decent running game that at times made VT look like defenseless babies (Fletch, anyone?). They couldn't finish drives early, however (see missed TD passes). Chris Durr Jr. is an excellent receiver and the remainder of the WR corps, Kaleb Webb and Na'eem Gladding, are solid, too. Malik can run as well as pass. Their backs are OK.

The MD defense is, obviously, not good (I mean, it gave up 38 pts to Rutgers at home) and the team has not played two competent halves other than v. Hampton and UConn. I take nothing for granted in this one, however.

Add in the fact that Locks fired his DC after the Rutgers face-plant, and then he was fired within 48 hours. Then his co-DC (in waiting?) who wasn't fired moved up to HC. So MD has two brand new coaches, of the three main ones, this Saturday, though both have been on the sidelines all season. Will the Terps players display some sense of shame, or liberation, and man up in the wake of the implosion of their coaching staff? I won't bet against it. For four full quarters? I wince in indecision there; my gut tells me no.

TL; DR: This is a completely losable game for the Illini unless the Clayton/Boyd O move the ball competently and our D shows up for 4Q. Or maybe 3Q and change. So let's do both.

On the uniform front, I REALLY want to see our Arched ILLINI helmets from last week with our white uniforms for this one (and, it goes without saying, #BPOTR). Photo credit to Chat GPT, but I really think this would pop, as we have not seen the Arched ILLINI white font with a white jersey (only our home navy).



EDIT: I give you arguably our most epic uniform combo, once again courtesy of Chat ... #BPOTR with the white Arched ILLINI! This should be the look for the remaining road games.

Noah Reed (play-by-play) and Mark Helfrich (analyst) have the the national television broadcast on FS1.