Why a new system? Has Charlie Strong left?
Looking ahead to 2018
- Status
Why a new system? Has Charlie Strong left?
I agree. I think 2018 is more difficult to predict than 2017. I think we'll win somewhere between three and five depending on how many injuries we have. Four or five wins would make me pretty happy next year.
Rather than focusing on wins, how many freshmen do you guys think we'll start next year?
Hope we start a good bunch. It would mean they are competing with returning players who’ve gotten better, which means the base talent level of the freshman class will have risen. If we’re still starting a bunch of freshman in 2019, then I’ll be concerned.
I'm also wondering how the experience of being ripped apart by USF this past year is sitting in the minds of our freshman. I'm hoping they carry a chip on their shoulder in Solder Field and tell themselves not again, not this year. We'll see. Let's hope we have freshman with long memories.
It wasn’t just one game. There’s gonna be a lot of chips to carry.
This is exactly the scenario I had hoped for as well. 5-7 would be a GOOD season. If we go 2-10 again or even 3-9, Lovie's seat is going to be VERY warm.....
Can someone explain the bolded, please? I must have missed this info...what's going on now???
This is exactly the scenario I had hoped for as well. 5-7 would be a GOOD season. If we go 2-10 again or even 3-9, Lovie's seat is going to be VERY warm.....
Lovie's seat will be very warm with our more emotionally driven fans, not our highly intelligent AD. Even if we don't play mostly Freshmen next year, we are still going to be starting numerous 19 year old kids and asking them to compete with 22/23 year old opponents. Whitman understands that and agrees with the vision. If you cut off the vision before it can be realized, you are just setting yourself up for more years of the same. He has to be "all in".
I'm bullish on Cam Thomas. He looked really poised and fluid out there as a true freshman, and his quickness made up for our lack of effective pass blocking. Now he needs to spend the offseason memorizing the offense and improving his downfield passing... I'm really glad he got some live game experience this year.
FT35
- Naperville
Maybe it's because my expectations were very low but I was pleasantly surprised after watching Cam in person a few times.
He's the fastest Illinois QB I've ever seen. More importantly, however, he can make B1G throws. He's got a nice throwing motion and has good arm strength. He has issues with accuracy and running a college offense but this is where coaching comes into play. I wouldn't mind seeing the 10th assistant being a dedicated QB coach (Nathan Scheelhaase) who can work with Cam along with Rivers/Taylor.
After watching Crouch for the first four games, it was apparent that his skill set is VERY limited. I know we labeled him as a dual threat QB but I was shocked at how slow he was. He also did not appear to have any kind of arm strength or accuracy.
Thomas is someone you can work with, although we saw how much of a project he is. He should get 1st string reps this Spring and come into fall training camp as the #1 QB. Hopefully he can take a giant leap forward next year.
FT35
- Naperville
You can see a large chunk of the fan base has already given up so I'm not sure how much worse things can get. I can see people getting louder and angrier on social media as well as various internet forums.
More importantly, the fan base is not showing up at Memorial Stadium. The announced crowd against Rutgers was around 35,000 and the number of ACTUAL fans at Memorial Stadium for the remaining home conference games was abysmal. The announced crowd for the Northwestern game was around 30,000 but there couldn't have been more than 15,000 Illinois fans there. I will say the people around me were really into the game until the things started to fall apart in the 2nd half, but I can't imagine how the players feel looking into the stands and seeing hardly anyone there.
Next year is not going to be much better I'm afraid and the critics are just going to get louder. Few of them care about the roster situation and Smith's three year record will be awful. I'm confident that Whitman will stay the course and give Smith at least through the end of 2019. Worst case scenario, he leaves us with a better roster than the one he inherited, which would make the transition to a new staff much easier.
What really concerns me is this offense. The OL play as well as the QB play is still a massive work in progress and both will continue to struggle as long as we're relying heavily on underclassmen. Just look at how many points teams like Ball State and Nebraska gave up this year and look at what we did against them. This offense will improve but by how much? They really can't get much worse. I would hope a healthy Epstein and Dudek, better QB play, and not relying on so many Freshmen on the OL will mean a better offense. The question is how much better can they get next year?
This team just isn't fun to watch when the offense is constantly going 3 and out and putting our defense on the field for 40+ minutes a game. I am actually seeing some good things happening on that side of the ball. They are at least forcing turnovers and giving the offense scoring opportunities.
If the offense doesn't improve then maybe look at a new offensive coordinator on that side of the ball. I hate saying this because Garrick seems like a great guy who took a pay cut to come here, but what we saw on the offensive side of the ball this year can not carry over to the future because it will mean 9+ losses.
I agree with all of this. Unfortunately, all the anger, anxiety and apathy is related to the last 20-30 years, not the last 2 years under Lovie. Whether you like him or not, agree with his approach or not; you simply can't move on unless you want to guarantee more of the same. It doesn't help when schools like Purdue and Minnesota win a few games while we continue to struggle. People don't want to be patient but if you look at the most consistently successful programs that were previously terrible (Wisconsin/Nortwhestern for example), that is exactly what happened and maybe they had gotten to the point of compete Apathy... we are close to that, if not there as well. Once we do get to that point where we are winning games, people will come back. Unfortunately, my bigger concern right now is that it has been like this for so long that we are losing a generation of fans. My kids have almost no interest in Illinois football and that is sad to me. Even so, I'm willing to wait because the other approaches have certainly not worked.
I know this thread is about looking ahead to 2018, but here are some things I found interesting about 2017 that we can hopefully build upon in 2018 and beyond. There's a lot of detail, but I'll keep it high level. I'll try to provide additional information if anyone is interested.
1. The Illini lose big overall, but that doesn't tell the whole story...
The Illini were outscored by an average of 16 points this year. They managed to keep thing close at home, losing by an average of 11 points. Away games were a different story, with the Illini losing by an average of 23 points. Home B1G games were lost by an average of 18 points and away B1G games were lost by an average of 23 points.
Now here's where things get interesting. The Illini aren't getting blown out every quarter. When looking at all games played, the Illini are only outscored by an average of 4 points per quarter
I'm likely preaching to the choir here, but the Illini aren't playing horribly at home. Here's a breakdown for this past year's performance at home:
Q1: Outscored by 1
Q2: Outscored by 5
Q3: Outscored by 3
Q4: Outscored by 2
Things aren't as rosy for away games:
Q1: Outscored by 8
Q2: Outscored by 4
Q3: Outscored by 5
Q4: Outscored by 7
Slightly better showing for home B1G games:
Q1: Outscored by 2
Q2: Outscored by 11
Q3: Outscored by 3
Q4: Outscored by 3
Some work to be done regarding away B1G games:
Q1: Outscored by 8
Q2: Outscored by 3
Q3: Outscored by 3
Q4: Outscored by 10
Something that immediately jumped out to me was the pattern our opponents displayed. It seems the Illini come out hot at home, lose some traction in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, and finish respectably, albeit leaving the match up with a loss.
The opposite is true on the road. The Illini come out sloppy, get it together in the 2nd and 3rd, and close poorly. This gives me hope! It tells me that our guys have the talent to hang with the B1G, we just have no depth. Obviously our lack of a true P5 offense really screwed us this year.
2. Our offense is particularly bad, but our defense needs work too...
As you'd know if you watched any of the games this year, our offense is particularly bad. Our lack of talent and depth at QB has allowed our opponents to out-gain us by over 25 passing yards for all games. Our opponents have thrown for 20 TDs across all games whereas the Illini have thrown for 8. We've also thrown nearly twice as many interceptions as our opponents across all games (19 for the Illini, 9 for opponents).
Our receivers are better than our QB. They're averaging 12.5 yards per reception where as our opponents have averaged 11.9 yards for all games. I cannot state this enough: We really need a real QB.
Our run game is just as lackluster as our passing one. We're getting beat on the ground by an average of 114 yards per game. Across all games, the Illini have ran the ball for 11 TDs whereas our opponents have ran for 27. It's not all bad news though! Our opponents run the ball for an average of 5.0 yards while the Illini run for an average of 3.4. If we can improve to average 4+ yards per run, that should give us enough wiggle room to run the ball for a first down against most defensive lines.
Again, our offense needs quite a bit of work, but I think the dysfunction on the offensive side of the ball masked a lot of issues on the defensive side. The Illini made 18 sacks across all games compared to 41 for our opponents. Our defense managed 9 interceptions whereas our opponents made 19. Our offense can't move the ball and our defense isn't great at stopping our opponents from doing so, either.
3. The Fighting Illini "energy" is all but gone...
This is something that's a bit more challenging to address. Admittedly, I was not an Illini fan prior to enrolling. I'd been to maybe two or three football games as a kid in the 90s and early 00s and watched the '05 basketball team. Maybe it's just me romanticizing the past, but I vividly recall the fans being significantly more engaged back then. During my time in school, we had mostly awful football seasons, including the 2011 6-0 start, 0-6 finish. Even then, the fans were still mostly engaged. Games were fun, fans were loud, and people seemed to care. We weren't selling out all or even most of our games, but the stadium was still full enough that the cameramen could take sweeping shots of the stadium.
I've only made it down to Champaign for a football game a handful of times since graduating, but outside of the North Carolina game in 2016, the stadium has been mostly empty each time. The student section has looked depressing. The energy I witnessed 5 to 6 years ago is gone. The band doesn't seem to have the same effect on the crowd it did. The product on the field certainly doesn't help. There aren't swarms of orange-clad individuals outside the stadium. Most of the students on Green aren't even wearing orange as they barhop between Kam's and Joe's. They just don't seem to care at all. I understand that retiring the Chief and War Chant have really stripped the identity that had been built around the program, but no one seems interested in creating new traditions. I get these are things that take time, but I feel like things are already so different from when I was there, and I've only been out for 5 years. It just seems like there's a cultural divide between current Illinois students and alumni who were students as few as 4 years ago.
I think if we're truly interested in rehabilitating our football program, we need to begin the healing process and have an honest discussion about the identity of our athletic department. The athletic department talks a big game about tradition, but the Illini don't really have any tradition at this point. It just feels like we're in an awkward in between in all aspects of our revenue sports and identity. I don't know how we can fix one without addressing the other. The Chief is gone and I can live with that. I do think we should keep the 3-in-1 and I actually really enjoyed the War Chant, but I think it's time to stop harping on these issues and just move on. I'd be okay with rebranding Fighting Illini around US army vets and using Abe Lincoln in some fashion. Would also allow for the continued CHIEEEEF chants during the 3-in-1 as Abraham Lincoln was Commander in CHIEEEEF.
I've also thought about using the Illuminati in some fashion since our administration is so "woke" and enlightened. I haven't ironed out the details, but Illuminati isn't a stretch from Illini. I think we should remain the Fighting Illini, but incorporating some aspects of the Illuminati could get interesting. It seems a lot of younger adults are into wild conspiracy theories such as this. If we can get the students engaged and interested in attending games, it will delver a much needed booster shot to this program. Illinois is not sexy ATM. We need a passionate fan base if we ever want that to change.
1. The Illini lose big overall, but that doesn't tell the whole story...
The Illini were outscored by an average of 16 points this year. They managed to keep thing close at home, losing by an average of 11 points. Away games were a different story, with the Illini losing by an average of 23 points. Home B1G games were lost by an average of 18 points and away B1G games were lost by an average of 23 points.
Now here's where things get interesting. The Illini aren't getting blown out every quarter. When looking at all games played, the Illini are only outscored by an average of 4 points per quarter
I'm likely preaching to the choir here, but the Illini aren't playing horribly at home. Here's a breakdown for this past year's performance at home:
Q1: Outscored by 1
Q2: Outscored by 5
Q3: Outscored by 3
Q4: Outscored by 2
Things aren't as rosy for away games:
Q1: Outscored by 8
Q2: Outscored by 4
Q3: Outscored by 5
Q4: Outscored by 7
Slightly better showing for home B1G games:
Q1: Outscored by 2
Q2: Outscored by 11
Q3: Outscored by 3
Q4: Outscored by 3
Some work to be done regarding away B1G games:
Q1: Outscored by 8
Q2: Outscored by 3
Q3: Outscored by 3
Q4: Outscored by 10
Something that immediately jumped out to me was the pattern our opponents displayed. It seems the Illini come out hot at home, lose some traction in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, and finish respectably, albeit leaving the match up with a loss.
The opposite is true on the road. The Illini come out sloppy, get it together in the 2nd and 3rd, and close poorly. This gives me hope! It tells me that our guys have the talent to hang with the B1G, we just have no depth. Obviously our lack of a true P5 offense really screwed us this year.
2. Our offense is particularly bad, but our defense needs work too...
As you'd know if you watched any of the games this year, our offense is particularly bad. Our lack of talent and depth at QB has allowed our opponents to out-gain us by over 25 passing yards for all games. Our opponents have thrown for 20 TDs across all games whereas the Illini have thrown for 8. We've also thrown nearly twice as many interceptions as our opponents across all games (19 for the Illini, 9 for opponents).
Our receivers are better than our QB. They're averaging 12.5 yards per reception where as our opponents have averaged 11.9 yards for all games. I cannot state this enough: We really need a real QB.
Our run game is just as lackluster as our passing one. We're getting beat on the ground by an average of 114 yards per game. Across all games, the Illini have ran the ball for 11 TDs whereas our opponents have ran for 27. It's not all bad news though! Our opponents run the ball for an average of 5.0 yards while the Illini run for an average of 3.4. If we can improve to average 4+ yards per run, that should give us enough wiggle room to run the ball for a first down against most defensive lines.
Again, our offense needs quite a bit of work, but I think the dysfunction on the offensive side of the ball masked a lot of issues on the defensive side. The Illini made 18 sacks across all games compared to 41 for our opponents
. Our defense managed 9 interceptions whereas our opponents made 19. Our offense can't move the ball and our defense isn't great at stopping our opponents from doing so, either. 3. The Fighting Illini "energy" is all but gone...
This is something that's a bit more challenging to address. Admittedly, I was not an Illini fan prior to enrolling. I'd been to maybe two or three football games as a kid in the 90s and early 00s and watched the '05 basketball team. Maybe it's just me romanticizing the past, but I vividly recall the fans being significantly more engaged back then. During my time in school, we had mostly awful football seasons, including the 2011 6-0 start, 0-6 finish. Even then, the fans were still mostly engaged. Games were fun, fans were loud, and people seemed to care. We weren't selling out all or even most of our games, but the stadium was still full enough that the cameramen could take sweeping shots of the stadium.
I've only made it down to Champaign for a football game a handful of times since graduating, but outside of the North Carolina game in 2016, the stadium has been mostly empty each time. The student section has looked depressing. The energy I witnessed 5 to 6 years ago is gone. The band doesn't seem to have the same effect on the crowd it did. The product on the field certainly doesn't help. There aren't swarms of orange-clad individuals outside the stadium. Most of the students on Green aren't even wearing orange as they barhop between Kam's and Joe's. They just don't seem to care at all. I understand that retiring the Chief and War Chant have really stripped the identity that had been built around the program, but no one seems interested in creating new traditions. I get these are things that take time, but I feel like things are already so different from when I was there, and I've only been out for 5 years. It just seems like there's a cultural divide between current Illinois students and alumni who were students as few as 4 years ago.
I think if we're truly interested in rehabilitating our football program, we need to begin the healing process and have an honest discussion about the identity of our athletic department. The athletic department talks a big game about tradition, but the Illini don't really have any tradition at this point. It just feels like we're in an awkward in between in all aspects of our revenue sports and identity. I don't know how we can fix one without addressing the other. The Chief is gone and I can live with that. I do think we should keep the 3-in-1 and I actually really enjoyed the War Chant, but I think it's time to stop harping on these issues and just move on. I'd be okay with rebranding Fighting Illini around US army vets and using Abe Lincoln in some fashion. Would also allow for the continued CHIEEEEF chants during the 3-in-1 as Abraham Lincoln was Commander in CHIEEEEF
.I've also thought about using the Illuminati in some fashion since our administration is so "woke" and enlightened
. I haven't ironed out the details, but Illuminati isn't a stretch from Illini. I think we should remain the Fighting Illini, but incorporating some aspects of the Illuminati could get interesting. It seems a lot of younger adults are into wild conspiracy theories such as this. If we can get the students engaged and interested in attending games, it will delver a much needed booster shot to this program. Illinois is not sexy ATM. We need a passionate fan base if we ever want that to change.
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The average current freshman was 8 years old when we went to the Rose Bowl, and since then we have been the single worst sports school among the Power Five. The Chief is a red herring, especially for the students.
All but the most success-rich, culturally dominant programs are struggling for attendance and attention all over the country. No school has done more to accelerate that process than Illinois.
The fact that no one cares anymore is THE story about Illini sports right now. We have excellent people on the case in Lovie, Underwood and Whitman. But excellent people sometimes fail. Failure is a very scary option from where we're standing. The connection to an Illini athletics worth even bothering to know about grows ever more tenuous.
It's hard to say how much worse things can get. I think Illini basketball is on the rebound. Even if we don't make the dance this year, I'm confident we're going to better moving forward. Football is an entirely different story, but even then it's not like we can get much worse. Since I started following the Illini more seriously, I've seen mostly 0-12, 1-11, 2-10, and 3-9 seasons
I agree that retiring the Chief isn't the reason the Illini are what they are today, but it certainly didn't help to improve the competitiveness or perception of our athletic programs. The "controversy" surrounding the Chief was slow to play out and it'll like take just as long to resolve, but the longer we hangout in purgatory, the less hope I have for any sort of change.
All in all I think Whitman has some work cut out for him in 2018. I seriously don't understand why we're not giving away the student football tickets at this point. I'd be interested to know if anyone has ran the numbers. If the University let the students in for free, would they spend enough on concessions to make more than the athletic department does from current sales? Even if they don't, a full NEZ is better than one that is 2/3rd empty in the 3rd quarter of our homecoming game...
Illiini
- In the land of the Nittany Lion
Not to debate the Chief again, but true, we'll not see Chief Illiniwek again as we have known him. HOWEVER, Native American imagery is not done at Illinois. Most people missed it at this year's homecoming--the university moved it to a parking lot--but the seed was planted with a small powwow with attendance by a group from North Dakota who are intent on keeping Native American heritage alive in collegiate and professional sports. The motto of the Native American Guardian Association (look them up on Facebook) is "Educate, don't eradicate." They brought a bus down from North Dakota to support the Fighting Illini. See the video below for a part of what went on. And there's more going on behind the scenes than you're likely to know about for a while. But one of the things that will happen is a larger powwow next year with a more prominent location. We're not done yet.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4F3ItYQNWpFRExIZ1BtRnV4U1E/view
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4F3ItYQNWpFRExIZ1BtRnV4U1E/view
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
Not to pick nits, but we have never had an 0-12 season. We've been
0-11 (1997)
0-10 (1969)
0-9 (1961)
I'm assuming the 0-12 you reference was the 97 season, and you're right, since then the distribution is
0-11 1
1-11 1
2-10 2
2-9 1
3-8 2
3-9 2
4-8 1
5-6 1
5-7 3
6-7 1
7-6 2
8-4 1
9-4 1
10-2 1
It's discouraging, and your point is valid, but we sucked long before Chief was retired. If Ron Guenther had been retired before 97, that W/L distribution might look much different.
The parties that oppose the Chief REALLY opposed that gathering. The incident at the HC parade should tell you all you need to know about the administration, or student government, for that matter, welcoming these pow-wows on University property.
On top of that, while I found that pow-wow to be informative and show that there is at least some element of support from native groups, they've got no relationship to the Peoria tribe, and it was quite easy for anti-Chief groups to dismiss.
I miss Chief, but he's gone and the odds are very long on him coming back.
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BZuppke
- Plainfield
We are in bad shape as far as fan interest and support, but it can change quickly if we start winning. There needs to be improvement next year and a bowl game by 2019 if we are going to rebuild support for the program. There is no doubt in my mind that we have the right people running things from JW to Lovie and staff. We need some things to go our way.
Illiini
- In the land of the Nittany Lion
I don't want to stray off topic, but this is relative to 2018 and the overall atmosphere at football games. As an old fart, I can't imaging a football game without the Chief at halftime...and obviously I haven't been back for, oh, a great while. And yes, traditions do matter. Can you imagine Florida State without Chief Osceola?
But the administration--in the person of Chancellor Smith--isn't like the previous administration, in the person of Janet Wise. In Smith's "state of the university" address, he said the following:
Yes, I know the SG didn't like the powwow...but the it would be rather awkward protesting that, so of course they went and had their hissyfit at the homecoming parade. Jones is not, however, going to allow the SG to pull a Mizzou, not on his watch. Jones is not going to let a bunch of teenagers ruin his career or the university.
But take it from a quasi-insider, good things are going to happen in re Native American imagery at the University of Illinois. I'm not sure how much can be said at the moment, and I'm not privy to all the details anyway, but yeah, good things are going to happen.
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mhuml32
- Cincinnati, OH
I'm not convinced USF will be better, especially based on winning culture. Strong is going to have his first recruiting class on campus, plus he's known for taking the long road and playing his own guys, and they had a lot of senior starters. I'm considering it more of a toss-up game, Illinois needs to win that game to show some progress.
The definitions of "quickly" and "winning" in that sentence are not set in stone.
The 7-5 season that would have solved everything in 2003 or 2009 wouldn't move the needle much now.
mhuml32
- Cincinnati, OH
They may not be ready, but Illinois really needs to make hay with this schedule. Avoided any guarantee losses in the non-conference and avoided Ohio State, Michigan, and Michigan State in the conference schedule. Start the B1G schedule with Penn State (home), Rutgers (road), and Purdue (home), plus the bye, is about the best you can expect.
They really need to find a way to win comfortably against Kent State and Western Illinois, then win (at least) three games against the group of USF, Rutgers, Purdue, Minnesota, and/or Nebraska. 5 wins would provide some much needed confidence in the rebuild, both for fans and recruits.
A-freakin-men. The AD is all in and won't evaluate until end of 2019. 2018 is the year we develop a starting QB (I hope). :thumb:
SampsonRelpenk
- Edwardsville, IL
A 7-5 season would mean at least as many conference wins as we've had in seven years. Even to the extent that casual fan interest is cumulative, I think that would grab a lot of people's attention.
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