I agree time to let Lunney go.
Purdue 44, Illinois 19 Postgame
Illini4Chief
- TENNESSEE
How many times are you gonna run up the middle for a measyly 1 or 2 yards , and come back with the same play over and over again.....STOP !!!
Here's my analogy; If you were the head cook at a New Jersey diner and the inventory they give you is ground chuck, bottom round and strip steak but they have Filet Mignon, Ribeye and Porter House steaks on the menu and complain when the orders are coming out wrong, firing the cook would not change the outcome. Lunney is doing what he can with the inventory he has. If the change wouldn't result in an immediate upgrade, then you've just created more instability and weakened you whole FamILLy mantra. I think Bret will steady the ship, trim back the play book, get the tight ends more involved in the blocking schemes and try to hold onto the ball longer so that we're not wearing out our defense.
If you let him go BB probably calls the plays.
I think quick release passes and a run game could work. Our RBs aren’t good pass blockers compared to Chase so I would run 3 Wrs with a TE in the backfield with a RB. Might as well go unconventional
I had season student tickets in 1966-1969. We got season ticket three years ago, and drive 800 miles one-way to go to games. It takes five days for four hours of football. Certified by the News-Gazette as crazy, attending nine Illini athletic events in 11 days. We expected more atmosphere coming back all these years later. But I don't see the enthusiam in the stands. I'm not sure what I should expect, but this would be nice.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
I'm going to focus on the positive:
Early autumn in the Midwest on a cloudless weekend like the one we just enjoyed was a balm for our weary souls. On the way out from DC on Friday @Retro62 and I visited the gym in Knightstown, Indiana that was home to the Hickory Huskers in the film Hoosiers. It's a sight to behold and if you're ever anywhere nearby Indy you must check it out.
We drove directly to The Beef House for a 7 p.m. Friday reservation and, really, nothing further needs to be said. Bacon-wrapped filet mignon and dinner rolls as big as your head enjoyed with an IPA: what a country we are blessed to call home. After dinner, the dying embers of a brilliant sunset at our backs, we drove back east across central Indiana on a two-lane highway directly into a rising harvest supermoon, slightly tinted Illni orange, in a crystalline clear dusk sky.
Met a good friend of mine from work long ago in DC, who retired early and farms outside Lafayette, for breakfast on Saturday. His cousin rode up on his motorcycle from Indy to join us. Their grandfather and great-grandfather built large portions of Lafayette, and were prominent citizens there. My buddy John has deep roots in town even though he was born and raised in Boston. Very cool to hear his tales of working the land, what's going on locally, and his involvement in the community. Excellent conversation and brotherhood in the early morning sunlight over hot coffee and breakfast outside.
Lafayette and West Lafayette are beautiful towns. It was homecoming weekend at Purdue. Everyone was friendly and welcoming to us, and having a good time. Ross-Ade was packed to capacity, and it was an excellent game day experience. The band was outstanding, our seats were ~ 25 rows up at the 40, and I got more sun during the first three quarters, before the sun dipped behind the press box, than I've probably accumulated during the past decade. I'll be looking into skin grafts for my face this coming week.
After the game we picked up John at the home of one of his other cousins a couple blocks from the stadium, enjoyed prime rib at Mountain Jack's, and drove back down toward Indy to our Air BnB rental. Today while driving home I don't believe we saw a single cloud the entire day.
It was a ridiculously gorgeous weekend in the lower Midwest. Our trip to Indiana and back covered 1440 miles and exactly 60 hours. I can say without reservation that 58:30 of those 60 hours were sheer bliss that I will cherish and remember for the rest of my life. We shall, however, never speak again of what transpired in the residual 90 minutes, as it was an utter abomination. I write this fully aware that it was only the dumb luck of the nearly uninterrupted beauty, tranquility, fellowship and gourmet comestibles that we enjoyed the entire weekend that kept us from seeking out a meth lab somewhere today (and, sadly, our route afforded much opportunity to uncover such facilities) to obliterate permanently the memory of what transpired from roughly the 12:00 mark of the third quarter until the final gun.
Accordingly, I shall:
(1) give thanks for the many blessings of the past three days;
(2) re-watch Hooisers at the earliest opportunity;
(3) hope fervently that the Boiler Up blaring synthetic train horn projected at ~120 dB from the Ross-Ade scoreboard on every Illini third down (and, oh, so many, many failed third downs there were) and Purdue score -- 20 times in all, my friends -- does not haunt my dreams during the coming months; and
(4) go to sleep in a few minutes wondering just how eye-gouging hapless Nebraska must be at this point to have opened 3.5 point underdogs to the Illini this coming Friday.
While (1) and (2) are easy, and I must leave (3) in the hands of my maker, I have no tools with which to comprehend (4). Life comprises mystery and all truth comprises paradox. That's all I got. Well, that, and this image of Corncob Man on the sidelines in Lincoln in the '50s, which is only slightly less disturbing than the waterboarding effect of that recurrent Boiler Up scoreboard horn:
Early autumn in the Midwest on a cloudless weekend like the one we just enjoyed was a balm for our weary souls. On the way out from DC on Friday @Retro62 and I visited the gym in Knightstown, Indiana that was home to the Hickory Huskers in the film Hoosiers. It's a sight to behold and if you're ever anywhere nearby Indy you must check it out.
We drove directly to The Beef House for a 7 p.m. Friday reservation and, really, nothing further needs to be said. Bacon-wrapped filet mignon and dinner rolls as big as your head enjoyed with an IPA: what a country we are blessed to call home. After dinner, the dying embers of a brilliant sunset at our backs, we drove back east across central Indiana on a two-lane highway directly into a rising harvest supermoon, slightly tinted Illni orange, in a crystalline clear dusk sky.
Met a good friend of mine from work long ago in DC, who retired early and farms outside Lafayette, for breakfast on Saturday. His cousin rode up on his motorcycle from Indy to join us. Their grandfather and great-grandfather built large portions of Lafayette, and were prominent citizens there. My buddy John has deep roots in town even though he was born and raised in Boston. Very cool to hear his tales of working the land, what's going on locally, and his involvement in the community. Excellent conversation and brotherhood in the early morning sunlight over hot coffee and breakfast outside.
Lafayette and West Lafayette are beautiful towns. It was homecoming weekend at Purdue. Everyone was friendly and welcoming to us, and having a good time. Ross-Ade was packed to capacity, and it was an excellent game day experience. The band was outstanding, our seats were ~ 25 rows up at the 40, and I got more sun during the first three quarters, before the sun dipped behind the press box, than I've probably accumulated during the past decade. I'll be looking into skin grafts for my face this coming week.
After the game we picked up John at the home of one of his other cousins a couple blocks from the stadium, enjoyed prime rib at Mountain Jack's, and drove back down toward Indy to our Air BnB rental. Today while driving home I don't believe we saw a single cloud the entire day.
It was a ridiculously gorgeous weekend in the lower Midwest. Our trip to Indiana and back covered 1440 miles and exactly 60 hours. I can say without reservation that 58:30 of those 60 hours were sheer bliss that I will cherish and remember for the rest of my life. We shall, however, never speak again of what transpired in the residual 90 minutes, as it was an utter abomination. I write this fully aware that it was only the dumb luck of the nearly uninterrupted beauty, tranquility, fellowship and gourmet comestibles that we enjoyed the entire weekend that kept us from seeking out a meth lab somewhere today (and, sadly, our route afforded much opportunity to uncover such facilities) to obliterate permanently the memory of what transpired from roughly the 12:00 mark of the third quarter until the final gun.
Accordingly, I shall:
(1) give thanks for the many blessings of the past three days;
(2) re-watch Hooisers at the earliest opportunity;
(3) hope fervently that the Boiler Up blaring synthetic train horn projected at ~120 dB from the Ross-Ade scoreboard on every Illini third down (and, oh, so many, many failed third downs there were) and Purdue score -- 20 times in all, my friends -- does not haunt my dreams during the coming months; and
(4) go to sleep in a few minutes wondering just how eye-gouging hapless Nebraska must be at this point to have opened 3.5 point underdogs to the Illini this coming Friday.
While (1) and (2) are easy, and I must leave (3) in the hands of my maker, I have no tools with which to comprehend (4). Life comprises mystery and all truth comprises paradox. That's all I got. Well, that, and this image of Corncob Man on the sidelines in Lincoln in the '50s, which is only slightly less disturbing than the waterboarding effect of that recurrent Boiler Up scoreboard horn:
GrayGhost77
- Centennial, CO
If you should ever write a book, please reserve a copy for me. I will for sure buy it and look forward to reading it.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
My brother altgeld , your stylish prose captivated me and I thank you for your entertaining escape from the abomination we all experienced Saturday afternoon that still lingers in my memory banks....I only listened on the radio , so all who attended the game or watched it on TV have my sincere praise.......
My relief has been a new script my doctor gave me about 10 days ago .
I only hope being at home Friday night will result in a vastly better result....
Later bro......peace out........solid.....right on......groovy....etc etc....
My relief has been a new script my doctor gave me about 10 days ago .
I only hope being at home Friday night will result in a vastly better result....
Later bro......peace out........solid.....right on......groovy....etc etc....
Stop with the bowl game talk. That’s ridiculous
For so long, our own academic administration and at least one professor worked against our athletic programs. That appears to be changing. Maybe, with time, we will slowly stopping digging our own hole.
Man, you had me at the Beef House. This rolls are legendary, and party responsible for the draconian diet I find myself on now trying to drop another 20# from my 6'3" frame . . . .
BZuppke
- Plainfield
Traditionally yes but Rick George at Colorado got a third try
Illini4Chief
- TENNESSEE
Illinois has given up almost as many points this season as they did all of last season.
We found one night game to be enough since we’re 100 miles away, so gave our Friday tickets to friends. We’ll instead watch from the comfort of home with a stockpile of this script handy.
It's made with Buffalo Trace bourbon so it must be good! But I will stay with my Blantons straight up to relieve whatever pain the illini decide to inflict on us this week.
We dont have anybody else to call plays that is ready. BB is a past d-coordinator, Leonhard is a past D coordinator as well.
our offensive staff is young. Thad Ward or Bart Miller? Discher?
im not sure play calling is our biggest problem. it seems our O-Line production is. Our "best" two just aren't.
our offensive staff is young. Thad Ward or Bart Miller? Discher?
im not sure play calling is our biggest problem. it seems our O-Line production is. Our "best" two just aren't.
So key. Hopefully it is not too late given the changing landscape. We are climbing out of a huge hole here.
Yeah, I get people being angry with Lunney as he really needs to move towards 1 step timing hot routes, screens, and runs, as there just isn't any time to develop anything longer. That said, this week made me fully understand the really awful hand Lunney is dealing with here. Even when we'd put out an 8 man line for short yardage, multiple Purdue players were running straight through it untouched. And that’s the problem- we won't be able to give bare minimum protection even if we took 2WR off the field and went max protect. There really isn't much of anything an OC can do when multiple linemen aren't even able to put a hand on the person they're assigned to block.
I know people want to blame the QB and OC when an offense looks this pitiful because that's what we're trained to do, but our linemen are getting consistently torched so badly, it's near impossible to properly evaluate our offense. If we were to compare this to basketball, it'd be like if every other play two of the players on the court would lie down on the court for several seconds while a 3rd goes to stand in line for a soda. And then we blame the coach for not calling good offensive sets.
While Lunney hasn't made things any easier with his playcalling, and he certainly needs to start catering his plays to try masking the flat out ineptitude of the O-line, he's not even close to the biggest problem right now and firing him won't do much to fix anything. It certainly won't make our linemen magically able to block. Plus, not to make excuses for him, but I'm guessing Lunney developed his offense this year under the presumption that his O-line could actually block people and not be 2yds in the backfield before the QB even gets possession of the ball off the snap. That really limits your possibilities.
It does, but you can stretch the field horizontally to slow down the rush up field. Outside zone runs, with the threat of Altmyer keeping it on the fake gets the defense moving side to side because they can't not honor either of those possibilities. McVey popularized it in the NFL and it's not that difficult to install I would think. It works even if your run game is not that strong.
While I think Lunney is trying to open the playbook for Luke(he's definitely more than capable) you still have to call plays that can protect your QB when you need to. We do that from time to time, but it always looks like the same handful of plays.
Agree
. And that begs the question who is the lead line recruiter and what were they doing last offseason to recruit the transfer portal? Why did we miss all opportunities to shore things up? Or did they completely miss on their evaluation of existing linemen in the program? Would be nice to get BBs take on this but do not expect to hear it before the official end of the season in November.To me one the big problems with Lunney is him taking too long, if at all, to adjust and adept when things aren't working. We can't keep doing the same things over and over with our personal and suddenly expect them to start working.
This I absolutely agree with. I can understand being caught off guard with what happened against Toledo as you expected somethingway different. I can even understand being shocked when it happened again against Kansas because you thought a Toledo was a one off. But if you didn't get the hint against PSU, and then you see FAU of all teams just obliterate your o-line, and you still don't change your offense, I don't know what you're thinking going into Purdue without significantly changing your approach.
I am in complete agreement that Lunney needs to get over himself and wake the hell up in understanding that 80% of his playbook unfortunately can't work with the players on the o-line he has. I also know that writing up all new plays is likely not feasible at this point. So he has to just bite the bullet, and greatly simplify his offense and playbook to try limiting the negative yardage plays and turnovers. If he doesn't, Luke's season will end on a hospital bed within the next few weeks.
Oh I agree with you, Lunney is doing Luke no favors and he pretty much needs to spread it out and call plays to get it out quickly and try taking advantages of mismatches. The one thing about this approach though is that generally you'd want a halfback who is adept at catching the ball out of the backfield and you'd also want above average blocking WRs (in addition to your speedster) and a really good blocking TE otherwise you really start limiting what you can do. And I think that might be the other part of the issue here is that I'm not sure how comfortable Love or Feagin is at catching out of the backfield, and our best TE in Reiman isn't as much a blocker as he is an offensive threat. The receivers though I think we have for it.