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

#26      
Ander1345
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.
 
#29      
IlliniKat91
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.
 
#30      
CaptainCrutch
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!
 
#31      
jrichisamazing
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.
 
#34      
OnlyOrange
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.
 
#35      
illiniwil
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.
 
#38      
altgeld88
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.
 
#39      
Fighter of the Nightman
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).

dd.png


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.
OWB.png
 
#42      
Illini2010-11
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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The Nebraska game is trending that way. @UCLA will likely be at least a td underdog (maybe +10.5). We will be at least a 3 point underdog against both Iowa and NW.

The best chance for 6 wins is to beat MD and NE. I simply do not see the last 3 games as tossups (we will be slight underdogs in all those games at best).
 
#44      
lstewart53x3
Illini2010-11 said:
The Nebraska game is trending that way. @UCLA will likely be at least a td underdog (maybe +10.5). We will be at least a 3 point underdog against both Iowa and NW.

The best chance for 6 wins is to beat MD and NE. I simply do not see the last 3 games as tossups (we will be slight underdogs in all those games at best).
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We’ll be dogs in all 4. Likely by a touchdown or more.
 
#45      
gary?
CaptainCrutch said:
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!
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love the optimism, but that 6th win will be very difficult if we win this saturday.
 
#46      
Illini2010-11
lstewart53x3 said:
We’ll be dogs in all 4. Likely by a touchdown or more.
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I agree with first sentence, though I do not think Nebraska will be a td favorite. As I said, the Nebraska game is the only game trending toward tossup status. The OP suggested the last 4 games as tossups, which is very, very optimistic.
 
#47      
lstewart53x3
Illini2010-11 said:
I agree with first sentence, though I do not think Nebraska will be a td favorite. As I said, the Nebraska game is the only game trending toward tossup status. The OP suggested the last 4 games as tossups, which is very, very optimistic.
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Not sure Nebraska is trending towards a toss up.

SP+ has Nebraska 8.6 points better on a neutral field.

UCLA 7.6 points better, Iowa 5.6, and Northwestern 6.9 points better on a neutral field. So Iowa at home is likely the closest to a toss up.
 
#48      
Fighter of the Nightman
lstewart53x3 said:
We’ll be dogs in all 4. Likely by a touchdown or more.
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I'm probably not qualified enough to say what the spreads will be, but yes, I do find it likely we will not be favored after this Saturday. However, I am much more confident about our remaining five games than I was a few weeks ago.

1) The road game at Maryland is a must-win, period. Not much analysis needed.

2) If we can get a win at Maryland and ride a 3-game winning streak into the Nebraska home game, I think that one gets a lot more interesting under the lights. The defense is still shaky, but it is making strides ... so I think it will come down to what our offense can do. I'd put our chance of winning maybe a tad below 50/50, which is way better than a few weeks ago when I thought they'd drop 50 on us.

3) The UCLA road game might get ugly. The only positives I can think of are the combined factors of UCLA never having that electric of an atmosphere and the likelihood that the California Illini show up in decent numbers? Anyway, very likely loss.

4) The Iowa home game has definitely become the most interesting lately. They are probably better than us, sure, but they simply do not have the stalwart defense they have had in recent years (or at least not quite as elite), and I think (hope) this one will not be a classic defensive slugfest. The thing that makes me the most nervous here is that with it being the Saturday before Thanksgiving, we might have a way worse home field advantage than we would otherwise expect.

5) The Northwestern road game is sort of difficult for me to gauge, honestly. On one hand, Northwestern just looks better than we are, and they could really be playing for something if they win out besides OSU. On the other hand, this is always as friendly of an "away" game as we will ever have with tons of Illini fans in the stands, and I bet we see an even bigger bump in orange there because of people wanting to see the new stadium. Also, while I definitely think NU is good, our only common opponent is a road game at MSU, and both of us got out of there by the skin of our teeth ... in fact, given we had our starting QB get taken out, you could argue we more thoroughly beat MSU throughout the game.

I know we always take a "1-0" mentality, but I think the tiers of success for the season look like this in "steps."

1) Bowl Edibility - This has to be the ultimate goal for this season ... just keep some semblance of momentum going, and do not allow this to be a 2023-esque setback year.

1A) Beat Maryland. This is the last game on the schedule vs. a team that could be objectively worse than us, and we simply HAVE to get ourselves in a position where we will have four chances at bowl eligibility as underdogs.

1B) Win at least one of Nebraska and Iowa. We have to protect our home field, and these teams are slumping compared to where they were a couple of weeks ago.

2) Winning Season - While making a bowl is great and the primary goal now, it would be a fantastic statement to have another winning regular season record, making it 3 in a row and 4 out of the last 5 years ... that's fantastic given the early setbacks and where we were before Brett got here.

2A) Nab the other home games vs. Iowa or Nebraska. That would give us a 5-2 record at home, at least somewhat continuing the trend of turning Memorial Stadium into an actual home field advantage. I think it would also be an invaluably powerful statement for this program to beat Oregon, Iowa and Nebraska all in one year. We've had our ups and downs, but Oregon was a perennial CFP contender before this year, and Iowa / Nebraska are both right in that tier of program where we want to stay.

2B) Beat Northwestern in Evanston. I think anything past 7 wins is just absolute gravy here, but beating the Kitties in Evanston to get to 8 wins?! Wow, talk about a miraculous turnaround of a season ... it would practically erase the super painful Duke and Purdue losses if we could replicate last year's record.

2C) This one is probably not even worth mentioning, as (1) I just don't have faith that this team can win SEVEN straight games given its inconsistency issues and (2) I really do think UCLA is quite good. However, needless to say, this would just be a remarkable turn of events.
 
#49      
DeonThomas
jrichisamazing said:
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.
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We'll be playing this one on Friday night.........so not a Game Day option.
 
#50      
Fighter of the Nightman
For whatever it's worth, here is how our remaining five opponents have performed vs. similar competition so far. The Illini result is in parentheses, and it is color coded based on if it was more favorable or less favorable in comparison. I used some subjective judgment here to include a yellow "about the same" category, haha.

Maryland
L 16-45 at Ohio State (L 19-42 at Ohio State)

Nebraska
W 31-13 at Michigan State (W 38-37 in OT at Michigan State)
L 14-17 at Oregon (W 21-10 vs. Oregon)

UCLA
W 52-38 vs. Purdue (L 17-24 vs. Purdue)
W 17-15 at Oregon (W 21-10 vs. Oregon)
W 28-10 vs. Michigan State (W 38-37 in OT at Michigan State)

Iowa
L 14-31 vs. Ohio State (L 19-42 at Ohio State)

Northwestern
W 24-21 at Michigan State (W 38-37 in OT at Michigan State)

And here are some upcoming games that feature these teams playing each other. I am excluding games that would happen after we'd play those teams (i.e., there would be nothing we could analyze about the result BEFORE we'd play one of the teams).

Oct. 31 - Northwestern at Oregon
---> Nov. 28 - at Northwestern

Nov. 7 - Iowa at Northwestern
---> Nov. 21 - vs. Iowa
---> Nov. 28 - at Northwestern

Nov. 14 - Purdue at Iowa
---> Nov. 21 - vs. Iowa

Nov. 14 - Northwestern at Ohio State
---> Nov. 28 - at Northwestern
 
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