Pregame: Illinois vs Ohio State, Saturday, October 11th, 11:00am CT, FOX

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#476      
therealmiket86
FloridaMan said:
They likely get big plays anyway with how soft the middle of our zone is and the secondary's inability to get guys on the ground. Don't blitz every play but we need to force some pressure or Sayin picks our D apart and it gets out of hand early.
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Dline needs to get after it. Front 4 being able get pressure will be huge. When we blitz we have to get home and cause chaos.
 
#477      
skyIdub
Mr. Roberts said:
Interesting read.

clutchpoints.com

Ohio State football's fatal flaw Illinois must exploit to pull off shocking upset

Ohio State enters as heavy favorites, but its perfect season hides critical weaknesses. Illinois has the weapons to expose them Saturday.
clutchpoints.com clutchpoints.com
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"Nobody believes Illinois can win."

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#478      
RabidDawgClassic
It’s crazy how the attitude on this board seems to be…

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That Indiana game really created some heavy scars.
 
#479      
bluemountain
If we play our normal soft zone and give Sayin time to throw we have no chance. Our best opportunity is to force him to make plays - put pressure on him and mix up up our defensive schemes, with a heavy portion of man coverage. I don't think he has had to play under any sort of pressure - let's see what he is made of
 
#481      
STLini25
bluemountain said:
If we play our normal soft zone and give Sayin time to throw we have no chance. Our best opportunity is to force him to make plays - put pressure on him and mix up up our defensive schemes, with a heavy portion of man coverage. I don't think he has had to play under any sort of pressure - let's see what he is made of
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We haven’t been able to do this all year and no one has been able to do this against OSU all year.

I like the defensive strategy you are suggesting but you have to be able to execute it. I expect a “bend but don’t break” approach.
 
#482      
jjv0004
You can love your team and pick them to lose. They will be greatly overmatched. OSU has maybe the best offensive player in the country to go along with the best defensive player in college.

OSU 42 - Illini 14
 
#484      
bluemountain
STLini25 said:
We haven’t been able to do this all year and no one has been able to do this against OSU all year.

I like the defensive strategy you are suggesting but you have to be able to execute it. I expect a “bend but don’t break” approach.
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If that is the case I don't think we have a chance. Smith and Tate will absolutely destroy our soft zone. We couldn't do anything to stop Lemon, and Smith and Tate are both better
 
#486      
2X2L
And invoke the spirit of 1923-25. Illini beat Buckeyes three straight, twice in Columbus. Some guy by the name of Grange was involved. Want
Illibuck back.
 
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#487      
Second place is 1st loser
bluemountain said:
If we play our normal soft zone and give Sayin time to throw we have no chance. Our best opportunity is to force him to make plays - put pressure on him and mix up up our defensive schemes, with a heavy portion of man coverage. I don't think he has had to play under any sort of pressure - let's see what he is made of
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A heavy portion of man coverage? Did you watch us vs USC? Do you know that they probably have the best receiver in college football? Have you watched our corners play? Have you seen us get enough pressure from our front four that would make anyone believe that our corners need as much help as humanly possible much less putting them on an island for 5 to 7 second?

We'll let up 50 if we play man up and we'll let up even more if we play straight man, blitz and don't get home. Our ONLY hope is to play bend, but don't break defense and hope for some OSU mistakes. They're going to score. We need to keep them around 27-30 and the only way to do that is make them drive the field and eat clock.

Offensively, we need to keep the clock moving as well. This being the game where we can run the ball with moderate success would be ideal.
 
#488      
STLini25
bluemountain said:
If that is the case I don't think we have a chance. Smith and Tate will absolutely destroy our soft zone. We couldn't do anything to stop Lemon, and Smith and Tate are both better
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That’s definitely possible. But if we blitz (we aren’t good at it and OSU has an NFL offensive line) then they execute a short pass (and they are good at that) and Smith, Tate and several others go 80 yards for a TD because our secondary definitely can’t stop them when we don’t have numbers.

I’m fairly certain we will play soft until they get inside the 30 and then maybe we will try to put some pressure on them put again it’s not what we are good at.
 
#489      
altgeld88
I haven't seen anyone in the media point out that in 2018 Purdue (which finished 6-7 for the season) absolutely boat raced #2 OSU 49-20 in WL on a Saturday night in October. It was OSU's only loss that season; they finished 13-1 and won the Rose Bowl. Purdue destroyed them, though OSU had more yards (by a hair) and greater time of possession.

Blowouts like ours at IU happen. Against IU it was somewhat plausible. I still can't figure out that 2018 OSU faceplant at Purdue, particularly when you look at the game stats. I discount the IU game and focus instead on USC when assessing our ceiling.

Go Illini! I hope AH has Sayin guessing with our D packages. And that Luke has time to throw those gorgeous slants and the long ball. I haven't given up and no one else should, either.
 
#490      
STLini25
Soft defense, bend but don’t break, keep them in front of you, hope for OSU errors, hope for red zone stops, gang tackling, punch for the ball every opportunity, low possessions, short game, hope we can get Luke the ball on the last possession with a chance to win.
 
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#492      
thefalcon5
kmunt09 said:
David Olano could be a huge asset this game. More than likely, we'll have multiple drives killed in the area between midfield and the redzone. Would be HUGE to come out of those drives with 3 points, rather than coming up empty and turning the ball over on downs on Ohio State's own 35-40 yard line.
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Love Olano. Love his attitude.

We aren’t winning this game by kicking multiple red zone fgs.
 
#493      
the juiceman cometh
HensonHall71 said:
This is a good example of a misleading one-sided statistic. Yes, he completes 78% of passes against the blitz, but he completes 81% of his passes when he's not blitzed! He's completing 80% of his passes overall on the season, so technically blitzing him would suggest it lowers his completion rate a tick and why not go for broke in this type of game. We have to force a freshman QB into mistakes, that has to happen for us to have a chance, us sitting back in a zone is not this team's identity. We've played a lot more zone since the IU game, but we need at least to disguise our coverages more to confuse him.

Regardless nothing has worked so far for teams, so showing some new looks and confusing him is likely our best hope. stopping the run is also key to even get them into passing downs, so loading box and making Sayin beat you has to be the strategy and if he's hitting the deep ball against us, I think we'd rather live with that if we can get 1-2 turnovers in the process
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See, not really if you understand the whole point I was making.

Blitzes haven't worked against him. Not saying he does worse when not blitzed, just that blitzes haven't worked. Start with that fact.

Then factor in my earlier post where I pointed out that Minnesota was undone by big chunk plays and Washington kept OSUs score down by preventing those plays.

What blitzes do when they don't work (ie create enough pressure to force a bad result) is they take away defenders who can make a tackle after the catch. This increases the odds of a big play.

So even if blitzing and not blitzing are both unlikely to prevent a completion, if your goal is to not give up big plays, you'd rather not blitz. You really only want to blitz if it's going to tangibly affect the opposing QB's ability to complete passes. Which in OSU's case, it doesn't.
 
#494      
bluemountain
Second place is 1st loser said:
A heavy portion of man coverage? Did you watch us vs USC? Do you know that they probably have the best receiver in college football? Have you watched our corners play? Have you seen us get enough pressure from our front four that would make anyone believe that our corners need as much help as humanly possible much less putting them on an island for 5 to 7 second?

We'll let up 50 if we play man up and we'll let up even more if we play straight man, blitz and don't get home. Our ONLY hope is to play bend, but don't break defense and hope for some OSU mistakes. They're going to score. We need to keep them around 27-30 and the only way to do that is make them drive the field and eat clock.

Offensively, we need to keep the clock moving as well. This being the game where we can run the ball with moderate success would be ideal.
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This gets to how difficult the challenge is, but did you watch the Purdue game? They dropped a half dozen passes or more, committed 2 bad turnovers and still put up 27 on us and our soft zone. Both Smith and Tate will have 100+ YAC if we play the same style of D this week. I hate to say it, but our bend but don't break defense breaks more than it bends

Even if we play well, this style of D sets us up to lose something like 35-14. Unless he is pressured and is forced to throw into coverage, Sayin will not make the type of mistakes we are hoping for.
 
#495      
the juiceman cometh
bluemountain said:
If that is the case I don't think we have a chance. Smith and Tate will absolutely destroy our soft zone. We couldn't do anything to stop Lemon, and Smith and Tate are both better
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Washington kept them to 24 points by preventing big plays and making OSU grind out possessions. If Washington had been able to execute on their own drives that would have been a competitive game. Twice they got inside tbe OSU 10 and had to settle for a field goal.
 
#496      
Second place is 1st loser
bluemountain said:
This gets to how difficult the challenge is, but did you watch the Purdue game? They dropped a half dozen passes or more, committed 2 bad turnovers and still put up 27 on us and our soft zone. Both Smith and Tate will have 100+ YAC if we play the same style of D this week. I hate to say it, but our bend but don't break defense breaks more than it bends

Even if we play well, this style of D sets us up to lose something like 35-14. Unless he is pressured and is forced to throw into coverage, Sayin will not make the type of mistakes we are hoping for.
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To me, the biggest problem with your prediction is the 14 part. If we only score 14, what we do defensively is moot. 28 has to be the minimum. That's just who we are.
 
#497      
Second place is 1st loser
the juiceman cometh said:
Washington kept them to 24 points by preventing big plays and making OSU grind out possessions. If Washington had been able to execute on their own drives that would have been a competitive game. Twice they got inside tbe OSU 10 and had to settle for a field goal.
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This is exactly where I'm at with this. You outlined the best case scenario, with us converting obviously.
 
#499      
Birdus
GMAN55 said:
We need some kind of Laughry gadget play that is unexpected. We need to prioritise 5 to 10 yard plays we can execute really well. I really think they will key in on Valentine, which I hate.
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How bout that PHILLY SPECIAL?
 
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