FT35
- Naperville
I interpreted it as a mixture of fear of Brown and a lack of respect for this offense. Brown got us in great field position twice and we did nothing with it.
Northwestern 42, Illinois 7 POSTGAME
I interpreted it as a mixture of fear of Brown and a lack of respect for this offense. Brown got us in great field position twice and we did nothing with it.
I don't really get all the doom and gloom from the "You Break it, You Buy It" article. I understand Illinois Football was really bad this year but we had an insane amount of true freshman starting or getting significant minutes in the Big 10. Our offensive line was mostly true freshman. What outcome would anyone reasonably expect when you line up18 year olds against 21-22 year olds (some of who will be playing in the NFL next year). Imaging the mauling you would have received if your freshman high-school team lined up against the varsity team or even the junior varsity team. To put things into perspective, we had Isaiah Gay, a true freshman play significant minutes at DE and is listed as 215 lbs! I use him as an example because I think if he puts on 25-35 lbs. of muscle, he could be a very special player at Illinois but he is going to need time to develop.
Also, there are only 10 Seniors on the team and as it stands there are only 17 Juniors...we should probably expect similar results next year, maybe 1 or 2 extra wins if QB play is better and if we are not hit with the injury bug like this year. And the fact that we played so many underclassmen against experienced players probably had a lot to do with all the injuries. Compare this to tOSU, they have 17 Seniors and 21 Juniors not including all the RS Fr. and RS So. on their roster. That is a big experience gap. Illinois needs to get players in the system and keep them in the system to develop as upperclassmen.
I am not saying we are going to compete for national championships in 2019 but I think if we can keep players in the system, a 6-6 or 7-5 record in 2019 is not that out of reach.
Also, there are only 10 Seniors on the team and as it stands there are only 17 Juniors...we should probably expect similar results next year, maybe 1 or 2 extra wins if QB play is better and if we are not hit with the injury bug like this year. And the fact that we played so many underclassmen against experienced players probably had a lot to do with all the injuries. Compare this to tOSU, they have 17 Seniors and 21 Juniors not including all the RS Fr. and RS So. on their roster. That is a big experience gap. Illinois needs to get players in the system and keep them in the system to develop as upperclassmen.
I am not saying we are going to compete for national championships in 2019 but I think if we can keep players in the system, a 6-6 or 7-5 record in 2019 is not that out of reach.
So you'd be happy with a 6-6 record in year 4 of Lovie (year 3 of Lovie recruits)? That seems crazy to me. I have no idea how you felt about Beckman but with those expectations I assume you really wanted to keep him if the player abuse issue never came up. Beckman built to 6-6 in his 3rd season and most people wanted him run out of town. But since it's Lovie, it's ok for him to build to 6-6 in his 4th season?
It's been said 1000% times, but two huge differences between Beckman and Lovie are:
1. Zook had at least some quality players he left. I think you could count the number of big ten players Beckman left behind with JPP's hand
2. Beckman built the program on juco's and transfers. He never thought past getting a first contract extension.
Bonus 3. Lovie is a real HC, even if he fails miserably here.
I would hope for a better year 4 than 6-6 under Lovie, but dumping HC's every 3 years is a recipe to be awful forever.
SampsonRelpenk
- Edwardsville, IL
Also, not all 6-6 seasons are created equal. 2010, 2011, and 2014 were all 6-6 years. One was pretty good, the other two fairly bleak.
Understood, but I'm talking more about building toward year 3/4, not what was left for the first couple years. By year 3, a coach has at least 2 full recruiting classes in and 3 years of installing his systems/styles/etc...
I agree that Lovie is a real HC and absolutely loved the hire at the time, but he needs to start showing some improvement. If you're gonna be terrible on the field, you better be tearing it up in recruiting and player development (Zook's first couple years). I'm definitely on board with giving Lovie 2 more full seasons before even considering a change, but if next year looks like this year, his seat will be on fire.
Considering the talent on the roster at the time Lovie was hired and his first recruiting class was a year after he his arrival...I think 6-6 at year 4 would be a reasonably good improvement from where we are today. Besides, there are tenured coaches that occasionally have 6-6 or worse seasons.
I don't understand what you are getting at? Are you suggesting we fire every head coach after 3 seasons if they are not better than 6-6? After Beckman was fired, nobody wanted the Illinois job and when Zook was fired nobody wanted it either. If we fire Lovie after next year (because optimistically we are maybe a 4 win team) we will need to interview high school coaches. Its going to take time to dig ourselves out of this hole. If you think we are going to compete for a BIG 10 West title with a bunch of sophomores on the O and D Lines...you are crazy.
The Illinois high school state football playoffs just finished. Eight state champions were crowned.
Now imagine taking the 1A, 2A and 3A ( my alma mater btw :clappy
champions and putting them in class 7A or even 8A playoffs. Chances are they would not even win a game, at most one., let alone a championship.
While not the best comparison, that is what we are looking at, huge size disadvantage, speed, athleticism etc. some players on these lower class teams might play on an 8A team, most would simply provide depth.
Similarly, some of our players might play on OSU, um, UW etc, at best, not until two, three years down the road. Yet, we are asking them to compete NOW, against these same guys they might be third string for if they were on the same team.
We are that inexperienced. We are playing three star true freshmen. The osu's, Alabama's of the world if they play freshmen, they are likely five star or high four star. Such a huge difference.
Patience. Not open ended, but patience. We need to be realistic. Expect improved play next year. Hopefully two three more victories.
IF we are this bad in three years, then we can seriously question the coaching. Until then, we are playing boys against men.
Now imagine taking the 1A, 2A and 3A ( my alma mater btw :clappy
champions and putting them in class 7A or even 8A playoffs. Chances are they would not even win a game, at most one., let alone a championship. While not the best comparison, that is what we are looking at, huge size disadvantage, speed, athleticism etc. some players on these lower class teams might play on an 8A team, most would simply provide depth.
Similarly, some of our players might play on OSU, um, UW etc, at best, not until two, three years down the road. Yet, we are asking them to compete NOW, against these same guys they might be third string for if they were on the same team.
We are that inexperienced. We are playing three star true freshmen. The osu's, Alabama's of the world if they play freshmen, they are likely five star or high four star. Such a huge difference.
Patience. Not open ended, but patience. We need to be realistic. Expect improved play next year. Hopefully two three more victories.
IF we are this bad in three years, then we can seriously question the coaching. Until then, we are playing boys against men.
BananaShampoo
Captain 'Paign
- Phoenix, AZ
The Illinois high school state football playoffs just finished. Eight state champions were crowned.
Now imagine taking the 1A, 2A and 3A ( my alma mater btw :clappy
While not the best comparison, that is what we are looking at, huge size disadvantage, speed, athleticism etc. some players on these lower class teams might play on an 8A team, most would simply provide depth.
Similarly, some of our players might play on OSU, um, UW etc, at best, not until two, three years down the road. Yet, we are asking them to compete NOW, against these same guys they might be third string for if they were on the same team.
We are that inexperienced. We are playing three star true freshmen. The osu's, Alabama's of the world if they play freshmen, they are likely five star or high four star. Such a huge difference.
Patience. Not open ended, but patience. We need to be realistic. Expect improved play next year. Hopefully two three more victories.
IF we are this bad in three years, then we can seriously question the coaching. Until then, we are playing boys against men.
Yes! And it's been said 50 different ways on this board already, but some people still don't get it. Next year we should be markedly better in a lot of ways, even if it doesn't show up too much in the W/L record. At least we will be more competitive. By Year 3 we'll be playing mostly upperclassmen with a LOT of playing experience and that will make a world of difference. We won't be boys against men any longer and assuming we can recruit at least as well as Lovie did this past class (which, by the way, even though our class wasn't ranked that highly they clearly know how to identify real talent and found some true diamonds in the rough), then we should be at least in the upper half of the B1G West. Then we have a team of mostly Seniors the year after and I suspect we just may shock the world.
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
Do you think there's a coach out there with a magic wand and fairy dust that can reverse around 20 years of program inertia? A "just add water Nick Saban" that can bring in one of the 35 or so 5 star players to a club that only appeared in 3 major bowl games since the Reagan administration?
It isn't excuse making, it's reality. Improvement is incremental, but to have long term success it's necessary to rebuild from the ground up.
They really aren't excuses. They are reasons why our team looked so bad this year. We all knew we were going to struggle like this, and that was before all the injuries. Excuses would be for a team that was supposed to be 8-4 that ended up 4-8. If our team still looks like this in 3 years, then yes, they would be excuses and Lovie's seat will be hot.
I agree, I don't think the 8-4 solid season needs to be 5 or 6 years away. That should be 3 or 4 years if things are going well. The way things played out for Lovie, this was really like year one. We should (hopefully) be an 8-4 level or close to it in 2019. I think it's hard to evaluate coaches when the are playing so many freshman that aren't truly physically or mentally ready for B1G play. I'm more worried at this 2018 recruiting class. They are going to need much more talent than they are getting if they want to turn this around.
Prediction from homers. Anyone that was objective didn't predict that many wins and most I saw said zero to four.
Illiini
- In the land of the Nittany Lion
A couple of sorta random statements:
We're sending half of our our JV team against formidable apponents. Yeah, that's a surefire ticket for wins.
BTN's All Freshman Team was almost a quarter Illinois freshmen (and no one had more honorable mentions than we did).
We're sending half of our our JV team against formidable apponents. Yeah, that's a surefire ticket for wins.
BTN's All Freshman Team was almost a quarter Illinois freshmen (and no one had more honorable mentions than we did).
The only people predicting 6 or 7 wins were a bunch of self proclaimed insiders who drink Orange and Blue Kool Aid on the Illini Football message board. You need to take what you read here with a grain of salt. Besides Lovie's growth plates are closed and he doesn't fit in Underwood's system...what sport are we talking about again?
JDHalfrack
- Springfield, IL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr3FWNEkbUI
Who in their right mind predicted 6 or 7 wins this year?! no one with any knowledge of football. That's for sure.
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I'll admit to hoping to avoid the injury bug, having Dudek back, and having Crouch as an average QB might just get us five wins going into the Northwestern game.
After 4 games I was just hoping for one more win.
I do think some of you may be overstating how many predicted 6 or 7 wins. Also, some of those predictions seemed to me (at the time) to be attempts at humor.
After 4 games I was just hoping for one more win.
I do think some of you may be overstating how many predicted 6 or 7 wins. Also, some of those predictions seemed to me (at the time) to be attempts at humor.
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
From this thread, if I did my calculations correctly we have
Wins picks
0 0
1 0
2 7
3 5
4 9
5 7
6 7
7 2
8 0
9 0
10 0
11 1
Only one of those 38 predictions had me convinced of trying to be funny (the 11 win one)
Evaluate the data as you will, what it tells me is that a pretty large concentration of people thought 4 wins was the absolute ceiling, but a fair share thought we'd be much closer to .500
BananaShampoo
Captain 'Paign
- Phoenix, AZ
Good call. I and many others thought 4 wins but so many injuries to key players killed any hope of that.
sbillini
- st petersburg, fl
Thanks for putting that together Ransom. I thought about doing so based on a similar conversation going on the JW talks illini football thread, but just didn't have the time.
NERD ALERT!
So taking those results (excl 11 win prediction), you have a weighted average prediction of ~4.2 wins. With the two our result was about ~.61 standard deviation below that. I'd argue that's fairly material. Granted fairly small sample size and injuries play a role. But I'd argue there's at least some revisionism of expectations going on. Not egregious (and I'd say not unnatural), but I'd say there is some.
Ultimately, to me, things are behind track, but not off the rails. I was thinking ~4 wins myself, but the fact that Purdue, Indiana, Rutgers made the strides they did relative to us is what surprised me.
NERD ALERT!
So taking those results (excl 11 win prediction), you have a weighted average prediction of ~4.2 wins. With the two our result was about ~.61 standard deviation below that. I'd argue that's fairly material. Granted fairly small sample size and injuries play a role. But I'd argue there's at least some revisionism of expectations going on. Not egregious (and I'd say not unnatural), but I'd say there is some.
Ultimately, to me, things are behind track, but not off the rails. I was thinking ~4 wins myself, but the fact that Purdue, Indiana, Rutgers made the strides they did relative to us is what surprised me.