Just watched a lot of the replay on FS1 (yes, i'm an idiot). Our players lack discipline. There were unnecessary shoves (one that cost us 15 yards down the stretch), some called, some not called, and there was plenty of unnecessary chattering. The thing I loved about the old school coaches is when they grabbed a kid by the shirt, got in his face as soon as he came off the field, and said don't ever do that again or your a$$ will be benched. The basis of any good team is discipline, and we lack that at this point.
I jumped on the Barry Lunney bandwagon a bit too soon, but I think he has serious potential. There were play calls where I absolutely cringed, but the 2 that stood out, which broke our backs last night, was the lateral pass, and the 4th and 1 at the goal line. Hindsight is 20/20 but these exact play calls should never have been made, and had either been different, may have changed the outcome.
Dropped passes....this speaks for itself. How may were our players going to miss?
Officiating. The Big 10 (I have zero faith in Kevin Warren and think he's awful for the Big 10...just my opinion) needs to review this and see that there were at least 10-12 blatant officiating errors on both sides, sadly mostly our side.
So there is a ton of criticism to go around. I have faith that Bret Bielema will turn this thing around. I love that we went for it on 4th and 1, but hated the play call. You have to tell other teams that you are going for the jugular sometimes. Back in the day, Tom Osbourne, Lou Holtz, Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno would all go for the jugular, and they would all go for it instead of taking ties (when ties were a thing).
This team will be ok, and needs to take this loss as a hard lesson, and learn from the mistakes.
Go Illini!!