Pregame: Illinois at Maryland, Saturday, October 14th, 2:30pm CT, NBC

Pre-season goals are pretty much out the window. I'd just like to see a glimmer of hope at some point to give me some optimism for next season

I haven’t seen anything that makes me think we can be competitive in this one. Hello darkness my old friend

Terps 48 - 17 Illini

BZuppke said:

We have to show them real Big Ten toughness. Bring out the barge.

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unfortunately this is what this year's version of the barge would look like.

Maryland has scored 38 or more points in each home game so far. Moral victory and we give up 37

I'm cheering for Illinois. If you're near College Park, please go to the game, and wear your orange and blue.

BZuppke said:

We have to show them real Big Ten toughness. Bring out the barge.

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We've tried it several times this year- opponents have just run through it pretty much untouched at multiple positions hitting our RB or QB in the backfield almost every time we've done it. It's also the reason I'm so unoptimistic for improvement of our O-Line. If you can't even put a body on multiple defenders when in max protect or barge, you're not going to be able to block with your standard 5 man front. As weird as it sounds, almost the only thing you can do with an o-line this poor is to spread them out as much as possible and call plays that take under 2 seconds at absolute longest to fully develop .

If I'm an opposing defensive coordinator, I'm jamming our receivers at the line of scrimmage and sending at least one if not two linebackers ever play.