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

#51      
Illini2010-11
lstewart53x3 said:
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.
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I am viewing it from a trend perspective (three weeks ago I would have anticipated the game being at least 2-3 td Nebraska favorite...especially after the Purdue game). Nebraska is reeling a bit with two late game losses and you can see their confidence shaken in Eugene. If they come out flat against Washington out of their bye and lose three and a row, and Illini handle business @MD, then I expect the line to be very much closer to a tossup. That is what I meant by trending toward that direction (I suspect we will be about 3.5 point underdogs when all is said and done).

I believe we will be underdogs in all of the last 4 games, regardless of outcomes this week.
 
#53      
Illiniaaron
lstewart53x3 said:
I don’t know man I think I’d swap UCLA and Iowa even with UCLA’s back up QB. UCLA is currently #17 in SP+ and Iowa is #23 + UCLA is on the road and Iowa is at home + the back up QB has played pretty decent (beat Wisconsin and Michigan St with 462 yards passing, 1 TD / 1 INT).
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Winning on the road at UCLA will be a herculean task. It would dwarf the win over Oregon.
 
#54      
Battle89
Fighter of the Nightman said:
1) Bowl Edibility - This has to be the ultimate goal for this season ...
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TL ; DR...Fighter is hungry. :ROFLMAO:

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#57      
AutoPoster 3000
The only constant this season has been inconsistency. If you watched the last four games out of context — Ohio State, Purdue, Michigan State, Oregon — you’d think you just watched four different teams. At least that’s better than being consistently bad, and the last two, a clear upward trajectory. But I’m anticipating a frustrating struggle as I think most of us are.
 
#59      
Mr. Tibbs
AutoPoster 3000 said:
The only constant this season has been inconsistency. If you watched the last four games out of context — Ohio State, Purdue, Michigan State, Oregon — you’d think you just watched four different teams. At least that’s better than being consistently bad, and the last two, a clear upward trajectory. But I’m anticipating a frustrating struggle as I think most of us are.
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at least 6-6 is not a crazy goal anymore .
it’s difficult , but realistic
 
#61      
altgeld88
I made a comment above about Maryland's poor D. They're better than us in total D (77 v. 98) but worse than MSU (64). Passing D they're 83 v. our 113. Rushing D, we're 61 and they're 80.

I find it interesting that Northwestern is 74th in total D. Virginia Tech's D, which I noted looked porous v. Maryland (and also intermittently when I saw them play Pitt on Oct. 2) is actually 26th. Never would have guessed that.

www.ncaa.com

NCAA College Football FBS current team Stats | NCAA.com

Discover the current NCAA FBS Football leaders in every stats category, as well as historic leaders.
www.ncaa.com www.ncaa.com
 
#63      
Illini2010-11
altgeld88 said:
I made a comment above about Maryland's poor D. They're better than us in total D (77 v. 98) but worse than MSU (64). Passing D they're 83 v. our 113. Rushing D, we're 61 and they're 80.

I find it interesting that Northwestern is 74th in total D. Virginia Tech's D, which I noted looked porous v. Maryland (and also intermittently when I saw them play Pitt on Oct. 2) is actually 26th. Never would have guessed that.

www.ncaa.com

NCAA College Football FBS current team Stats | NCAA.com

Discover the current NCAA FBS Football leaders in every stats category, as well as historic leaders.
www.ncaa.com www.ncaa.com
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When it comes to defense, I tend to care less about those total numbers and focus on some other defensive statistics like redzone defense statistics and turnovers forced.

Maryland is absolutely terrible in redzone defense. They allow a TD at an 82% clip. This explains why they have a scoring defense of 127/136.

Illinois is tied with UAB as the only teams to allow 100% scoring in redzone defense, which is worrisome, but I was surprised to find that the Illini force a fg 35% of the time. As bad as the Illini defense has been, they do a reasonable job at tightening up in the redzone. This also explains why the Illini are middle of the pack in scoring defense (80/136).
 
#64      
Oracle21
Even if Illinois had lost to Oregon, I’d still be picking them to win this game.

IMO Maryland is the worst team by far in the Big 10. Not only have they lost 5 in a row, but the’ve looked awful doing it.

Vs UCLA they lost 54-3 on their home field. Maryland was 1-16 that game on 3rd down.

Next game at Nebraska they lose 48-23. They were 1-14 on 3rd down

This team simply looks inept on both sides of the ball.
 
#65      
altgeld88
Dan said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2114792308411416960

https://twitter.com/x/status/2114800009543594455
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FWIW this is what Maryland's stadium looked like in the 1Q v. Virginia Tech when MD trailed 7-0. The student section is in the horseshoe end. It was absolutely packed and rocking. Fantastic atmosphere.

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In the middle of the 3Q VT went up 35-14 and the horseshoe end emptied like the bottom fell out of a keg. By the 4Q even as MD mounted a comeback a large part of the main stands across the way (MD side of the field) had emptied. too. It's a sad place, generally.
 
#66      
Chase321
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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Rally around the new coach energy. And we shouldn’t kid ourselves about our QB situation. Inexperienced freshmen make big mistakes eventually.
 
#67      
DeonThomas
Another really tough game to predict.

I'm banking on Coach Bielema to have his guys ready and overcome MD's two week's of preparation. Appears to me that the Terps are averaging about 20 pts/game over their past five Power 4 games. So I'm hopeful we can get somewhere close to 30 points with our Freshman QB.

27 ILLINI
20 MD

We cover.

(7-0 vs the spread; 4-3 predicting the winner.) Thinking I'll probably lose my suite at Caesar's if I get to 8-0.
 
#68      
blackdog
Maryland could rally around the new coach but how about our guys getting fired up to get a win for coach B after losing his dad?
 
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