Joel Goodson
- 9th man conundrum
not bad:
Pregame: Illinois vs Duke, Saturday, September 12th, 2:30pm CT, FS1
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Anyone know why Valentine is returning kickoffs? Such an unnecessary risk
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
It's impossible to know one way or the other after week 1, but that looked like a pretty bad UAB team to me. They made a bunch of critical mistakes.
1) We barely ever return kicks.
2) He's very good for the 1 time per game that we might.
Because he's really good at it
Their QB Burton doesn't have a lot of experience, but they are talented up front. They'll be physical against a lot of their conference foes.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
ptgrd23
- orange county CA
Great bets. I think the Houser bet has better chance.
Why we will beat Duke
1. Home game
2. Good 2025 Duke team lost its QB Mensa to Miami for $6.5M
3. 3-3-5 does not stop us from going 1 high and keeping the safety in the box or run blitzing.
4. Houser is going to be let loose vs Duke. Play action send Brandon Trimble 4.4 speed deep and see Houser's cannon hit him in stride 50 yards downfield.
Why we will beat Duke
1. Home game
2. Good 2025 Duke team lost its QB Mensa to Miami for $6.5M
3. 3-3-5 does not stop us from going 1 high and keeping the safety in the box or run blitzing.
4. Houser is going to be let loose vs Duke. Play action send Brandon Trimble 4.4 speed deep and see Houser's cannon hit him in stride 50 yards downfield.
Chuckled audibly but I would rather the conference do right by whoever wins.
I’m with you . no need to risk our best RB returning 1-2 kickoffs every week. we have Kasper & 3 frosh-soph rbs to do it if needed .
How does our D-Line stack up vs the Duke O-Line? That's the question. The initial audition, while it was only week 1, does leave some question marks.
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Being honest.....were you? We won, but did you leave that game having a really solid feeling about what you witnessed, most notably on defense?
I would like the Illini to unleash the Feagin in his new role at TE, get him some short passes in space, and watch his yards after catch while much smaller DBs try to stop that steamroller in the open field. That would be fun to watch, and add a dangerous new dimension to our offensive arsenal. Hopefully we had that in mind when he switched positions, and we may have kept that fact under wraps by not using it against UAB.
They also turned the ball over 5 times vs our 0. Some of them were when they were on their way to scoring and a couple set us up.
Duke actually out gained us in that game. It was a 14-13 game at half, but the TOs created a major time of possession gap and their D collapsed. We got them 17-0 in the 4th.
If they're going to hand the ball to us 5 times, Ill feel pretty good about things.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
We have college football’s biggest scoreboard… there shouldn’t be any grainy Bigfoot videos of our stadium clock.
Exactly. How many other big time programs have RB1 returning kickoffs, especially when we only 2 guys getting most of the carries?
DeonThomas
- South Carolina
We wear the wrong jersey for that
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Week 1 is a pathological liar and all that, but you just kind of inherently have to feel good about a football game in which it seems like your team has the better quarterback.
The single most positive thing for me about the UAB game was the way Houser and Lunney already seemed to be so in sync and operating the offense in an advanced way together.
That was a process of growth over Altmyer's three years here, and I was concerned about losing that. If we're starting from a higher floor this time around that's awesome news.
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