Pregame: Illinois at Rutgers, Saturday, October 15th, 11:00am CT, ESPNews
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Watching the PC, it sees to be a perfect storm of Lovie being in a crappy mood, and the reporters asking judgmental questions.
Dan
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It isn't "prevalent with fans". Clementz didn't get a roughing penalty this week. Why would he be benched? Whatever was said to him worked.
Respectfully disagree... The situation with excessive penalties and celebrations was covered in Lovie's opening statement. Perhaps with not enough fervor for many, but 'low-key' Lovie did point out that this was unacceptable, and that those things had to be fixed....
My take after viewing the entire presser, was that the 'nerve' it hit had more to do with a challenge to Lovie's personal character, or at least a challenge to his ability and professionalism as a head coach....
Perhaps if the question had not contained the word 'lax'.... it might have been answered differently. That word implies 'You're not doing your job' or 'You don't know what you're doing'... IMHO
DaChief4ever
- Urbana
I had the same impression.....IMHO.. the question implied that ..Lovie was not in control, so the question ( as you state)....went directly to the idea of...." Gee...do you have any idea how sloppy and out of control YOUR football team is?". Nice to see some fire from the coach....Respectfully disagree... The situation with excessive penalties and celebrations was covered in Lovie's opening statement. Perhaps with not enough fervor for many, but 'low-key' Lovie did point out that this was unacceptable, and that those things had to be fixed....
My take after viewing the entire presser, was that the 'nerve' it hit had more to do with a challenge to Lovie's personal character, or at least a challenge to his ability and professionalism as a head coach....
Perhaps if the question had not contained the word 'lax'.... it might have been answered differently. That word implies 'You're not doing your job' or 'You don't know what you're doing'... IMHO
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Excessive celebrations have nothing to do with a new system, but the other penalties could IMO. Players have to think more and their minds are racing a million miles a minute trying to process what they need to do each play. Sometimes that leads to simple things being messed up. Because when you are thinking too much instead of reacting then the game feels really fast.
But it's only been 5 games. Comments like "The players don't respect Lovie" are way, way too premature. Now the coaches and players know it's a problem that needs to be fixed. That's what we should be grading the coaching staff on. How well can they fix a fixable problem. We'll see how many penalties we have moving forward.
icengineer
- Southern Illinois
There is a stupid way to ask the question though, and that was it.
I think it's a little silly to interpret the question that way.
College football is crazy. All teams have ups and downs unless you are Bama or Ohio St. Heck, Tennessee looks like 2 different teams from half to half.
I personally think we were the better team last Saturday and would beat Purdue 7 or 8 times out of 10. We were playing with our backup QB, our perfect kicker clanged a FG off the post to win it, Crouch fumbles in OT, and of course we had the dumb penalties. IMO, we got upset...plain and simple.
I think we beat Rutgers by 11.
Have we had an update on Lunt?
You and I were not watching the same defensive performance.
DaChief4ever
- Urbana
Who was the reporter who asked thee "lax" question
Here's an update: he's struggled in every game that hasn't featured Mike Dudek.
Again... I respectfully disagree...
I listened to the presser again, and the question clearly was, 'given the penalties, do you think YOU'VE been too relaxed, or YOU'VE taken it too easy . . . '....
Now, I admit that I'm older (near 80), and perhaps a little thin skinned when frustrated... However, after listening again, and again, I don't think it's silly to interpret the question that way at all.... I think it's perfectly normal...
And yet he is by far the best option at QB.
I think a better way to ask it would have been something like, "Is the atmosphere too relaxed?" etc. When you start asking a coach if they're lax, you're basically asking them if they're being lazy. Every coach in the world is jumping on that question like a starving lion.
I think that was the actual question and Lovie misheard "relaxed" as "lax".
I don't have the problem with the question being asked. Given how much Lovie is being paid (highest for any public employee in state of IL)... I don't think he should feel above answering any question.
Lovie has more or less gotten a free pass up until Western Michigan and even then it wasn't too bad.
I am not jumping off the Lovie bandwagon, but some discouraging play last week and I get the lack of talent, but the undisciplined play and inability to adjust in-game to stop the run was highly alarming along with some of the head scratching coaching decisions (not using one of two TO left with 9 seconds left to get more yards and center ball), 4th and G you kick a FG?, 4th and 1 mid-field and you punt?
If this was any other coach or say Beckman - he would be getting killed in the media by now
Lovie has more or less gotten a free pass up until Western Michigan and even then it wasn't too bad.
I am not jumping off the Lovie bandwagon, but some discouraging play last week and I get the lack of talent, but the undisciplined play and inability to adjust in-game to stop the run was highly alarming along with some of the head scratching coaching decisions (not using one of two TO left with 9 seconds left to get more yards and center ball), 4th and G you kick a FG?, 4th and 1 mid-field and you punt?
If this was any other coach or say Beckman - he would be getting killed in the media by now
Which is why he's so valuable.
Our coaching on defense and special teams is poor right now. It's not just the horses he's been given, the transformation you would have hoped for and expected for those units is not happening and in fact appears to be going in the wrong direction.
Lovie has the credibility to address the situation and have people be patient with him.
We could go 1-11 and dump our entire defensive staff plus Ligashesky and go into the assistant market with confidence and assertiveness that this is a stable situation with solid leadership and long-term commitments in place. The financial commitment doesn't hurt either, obviously. We could probably even do that again at certain positions if there are coaching issues next year (let's hope we don't have to test that theory).
When the initial Beckman staff broke down in 2012, the Beckman administration was dead before the changes were even made. He was a fired man from about 5 games into his tenure, which weren't so much worse than what we've seen so far this year.
That's the Lovie credibility factor, and it's HUGE.
(And, as a sidebar, the fact that this staff was hastily assembled in March should mean some offseason changes get understood even without needing to lean on the Lovie factor. If a move gets made on Nickerson that would raise a few eyebrows, but shuffling some of the position coaches ought to have been the anticipation all along. It was for me.)
+1 Lovie has been blessed with 2 chances to hire the right staff without killing credibility. Had he found the EXACT right staff last offseason (from the slim Pickens that were out there) he would be 1 year ahead of the curve. He is lucky that he can be first into the coaching carousel with a large pocketbook this year.
Plus, the rebuild really begins next year when he can actually play some of HIS players and start to actually "rebuild". We are not rebuilding this year. We are simply putting up scaffolding and accumulating tools to start a massive project next year. From the coaches to the players, the real show starts this offseason.
Try to think of it as Lovie being the very very first coach on the 2017 carousel instead of last on the 2016 one.
icengineer
- Southern Illinois
I like this, that's the way we should be looking at this situation. :thumb:
I guarantee you we will be.
That's a very good way of putting it I think. Well said. And we have a lot of positives to look at although not enuf to translate into wins (sadly). Malik and the RB's have really done the very best they could with what they've been given. I look forward to seeing our youngsters mature over the next three years.
The smell of burnt dumpster gets old fast, but I think cooler heads prevail and we'll be happy with where we're at in four years. Gonna be a LONG two years tho.
BZuppke
- Plainfield
I'm not trying to give anyone a pass, but we have to consider that Cubit was an interim last year and Beckman was on the hot seat in 2014 as well. How well did recruiting go the last two years? There is an overall talent gap that will take a lot of effort and some time to overcome. That we played Nebraska as well as we did I think is a testament to the coaches and the players 'playing over their heads'. That we didn't beat Purdue is a let down to a team with about equal talent. This will be a bumpy ride. We need to win some games. Beat Rutgers and see what we can do the rest of the way sans Michigan game.
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