Gave up 57.3% conversion on 3rd down overall in passing situations and ranked 48th nationally in 3rd conversions against (47%) overall. Good teams are below 30%
Illinois Football Recruiting Thread
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Joel Goodson
- how was I to know, she was with the Russians too?
we might have lucked out. bitter loss (Taylor), but what a pivot! I think Lopati is better than Taylor and will stay better
just to be clear, a lot of hard work was put in on Lopati. not luck that we landed him. the luck was that we were still in the market
Is it me or has the recuiting thread become a "complaint factory" over tranfers out and missed recruits? We weren't very good on Defense last year. And if its one thing we learned from the Indiana experience, "If you don't want to be here, you shouldn't be here." Altmyer, Arkin, Z Franklin, Briggs Jr., Priestly, Hunt, Rusk, J.C. Davis, both Clements, both Knapiks, Lowrey and Thompson all came through the portal. Where is the faith?
Wow. Almost 60% of the time we allowed the opponent to convert on 3rd and long! Thats unacceptable.
Reflection of many/all things including coverage, pass rush and scheme too.
What was main culprit do we think? I’m not quite sure in my mind.
I have a question, what was the cause of the passing yards given up and number of 3rd down conversions? Is it the secondary players, the d-line not getting to the QB and giving the QB plenty of time to find an open receiver? The d-backs playing 10 yards off of the receivers, coaching, scheme?
Agree - have to match the scheme to the talent. One thing is for certain, we played too much zone on third down. 2 reasons that I could identify: (1) No Xavier Scott (2) Kaleb Patterson and the 2 departing LBs not MTM coverage players.
Doesn’t that kind of argue against scheme as the issue.
If you have 3 guys on the field who can’t play man, and then you have another guy not out there that can, seems like you have to play a lot of zone.
I’m leaning toward up front, no pressure as main problem.
You're missing the point. Those 3 players shouldn't be on the field on third down. It took awhile, but the coaches ultimately figured that out. To play effective zone coverage you have to be committed to it. The reads on the field and the film prep are keys to minimizing what they call today "windows" for the QB to see throwing lanes. Playing MTM and Zone in the scheme we used, wasn't at all successful. Almost impossible to get pressure on the QB when the backers and safeties need to "keep the play in front of them."
Candidly I don’t think I’m missing the point. Broadly, if you don’t have the guys to play man then you don’t. Thats not scheme. Thats personnel and I’d include Hechel in that. So that would be coverage personnel as primary issue.
Nonetheless, I wonder what our pass rush pressure ranking was for the season?
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Well, it kept the O fresh
Our lone other (playable) NT on the roster right now would be RS Frosh Isaiah White, so I’d imagine Prather is starting.
Denzel Daxon was a backup NT at Ohio and signed a UDFA deal. Jamison has earned the benefit of the doubt.
Daxon was a great success story but we can’t expect that to happen every year. I will say Jamo has done a great job with the NT
Obviously If he picked us and moved to Champaign we would like this. Regardless I think we dodged a bullet with the dad.
Again I don't think you are understanding this.
Down and distance determine the scheme and who is on the field. Just because Hayden, Hood and Patterson aren't effective MTM cover doesn't determine whether the entire defense plays MTM or Zone. BB spoke to this several times last year. You match the scheme to the talent, down and distance. We used 21 - 24 defensive players in every game over the past 3 years. You are not wedded to any one player, scheme or approach. It isn't one approach or the other. Its multiple approaches, schemes and personnel in different down and distance. This is done so the opponent has difficulty creating mis-matches with calls at the line of scrimmage. If you go back watch the South Carolina 2025 Bowl game and count the different fronts, personal and late substituions we used, that is the approach Illinois uses and why there are so few people on defensive side of the ball that play 40+ snaps in a game.
Pass rush is not function of who plays DL. Its a function how many people we use in the front 7, how easily we are blocked and how good our pass coverage is for the first 8 yards off the line of scrimmage. Go back to 2024 and see how often we blitzed. It wasn't often at all. But boy was it effective.
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i do think people are overstating how easy it is gonna be to replace 100+ starts on the offensive line. Our OL play has been hit or miss the last few seasons and we’re gonna be replacing everyone basically including the center and LT. New QB and scheme will take a bit to get on the same page. I do like the talent there, but there is gonna be growing pains there. Wouldn’t mind seeing a elite blocking TE to help out with that
True, but its not that our offensive line was outstanding last year. McMillan, Henderson, Knapick, Tuerk, Hanson and Stewart have all taken snaps. These are all players of what were considered to be better recruiting classes. So we will see. But I think you are right. The O-Line and Luke struggled in 2023.
Joel Goodson
- how was I to know, she was with the Russians too?
2027 | 4.818 GPA | Lake Nona High School (FL) District Champs | 6'2 290 | Pos; DT/NG | 4 star
Orlando, FL
Joel Goodson
- how was I to know, she was with the Russians too?
I'll tell you what...Brown's JUCO film was excellent. He has produced in his (limited) time here. He's another year healthy and can really make a big jump. There are many X factors here on this team that people are maybe underestimating.
I like the line addition and the newest guy Prater looks to be a solid at the least addition. As stated I like White a lot and Brooks as well, and both are probably physically ready now for (At the least rotational) snaps. Offense is set up to be pretty good. Secondary is set up to possibly be elite. LB has gotten bigger and more athletic. I like the team as is, and they'll add more.
I'm also interested to see who is out there HS wise that they could potentially sway with more success and a big bowl win.
I think (and hope) that Muragin sticking around is a good sign. The coaches seemed to love him pre-injury.
I think Abrams from Montini is better than Taylor.
10000000000% pass rush. Without that, nothing else works. You can try and get exotic every now and then, but if you get caught....it's generally 6.
At this point I don't see much to get excited about our defense next year other than our defensive backfield. We need a couple of stud d linemen or a couple of linebackers flying all over the field this coming year. Maybe their already here but we need at least 2 or 3 to of these type players to compete for the top of the big10.
For sure. You always want to continue adding talent but I'm not going off the edge like some due to the fact that there's talent that has been developing waiting in the wings. It's their time as well.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
I want a few proven guys added to the front 7. We all do.
But I also know this staff will absolutely maximize the talent that’s on the roster.
According to 247, our 4th and 5th year seniors on this year’s team were from the 82nd and 73rd ranked recruiting classes.
These programs had better classes over those 2 years:
- Appalachian State
- Fresno State
- Toledo
- Louisiana Tech
- Southern Miss
- FIU
- Along with all 17 B1G teams
Yet, we still won 9 games and beat an SEC team in a bowl game.
I realize we had some transfer help too, Luke especially, but so did every other team we were competing against.
Here’s the recruiting classes we have on next year’s roster:
- #46
- #38
- #49
- #46
- #23
So recruiting has definitely picked up and we’ve added a lot in the portal as well. We’re a few solid pieces on the defensive front away from another good year.
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