DrewD007
- Woodridge, IL
Thank you, I needed this.
Rutgers 35, Illinois 24 POSTGAME
Thank you, I needed this.
I think Lovie realized before the season that this was going to be a total rebuilding year. The Illini are playing 3 star Frosh that most D-1 teams would be red shirting.
I agree that Lovie knew we were going to be bad thats why he is playing everyone, next year these guys will all have a year ofplaying, add in a good class and fill a few more holes and we still will struggle, BUT then in 19 we will have some JR who have played alot as well as Soph and hopfully a good FR class. If things arent going better by then, then I will jump on the panic wagon with some of you. but I am willing to give lovie and staff till 2020 before I decide on how good or bad they are doing
FT35
- Naperville
There are only 22 on the roster and most of them were not highly rated anyway. Instead of building a program, TB sought out players that could help right away in order to get 4-6 wins. Unless you continue doing that every year then you're going to end up with rosters like the one we have now.
yep they werent going after FR talent, and building a team, they were just trying to fix holes with JC leaving more and more of a hole in the team, now Lovie is trying to fix what he was left with and it is just going to take some time
Spot-on, lex.
People were warned many, many times in the 2017 Season thread and they still talked about going to a bowl game because they're "optimists." Now they're so disappointed they want to jump out a window.
This season is going about as expected.
The most important thing this year is signing day. If Lovie can keep the verbals he has and add a few more quality players then the future looks brighter. If the class falls apart due to the product on the field then I think we're looking at another failed staff.
I am officially refusing to watch this team play another game with George at QB. I’m done. I will always be a fan, but this turnover machine at QB is just sucking the life out of this team.
Time to move on to Cam Thomas. *Correction: it’s been time for Cam Thomas 3games ago.
Time to move on to Cam Thomas. *Correction: it’s been time for Cam Thomas 3games ago.
his first he ws getting hit so couldnt follow through, still his fault but also the ols, the 2nd wasnt just his fault eitehr, you want to blame JGJ for us loseing the last 2 games go right ahead. but without him in there we had NO offence what so ever. and if you want to waste a year for Cam just to come in and lose games that we wont win any how then ok
And what will you do when Cam Thomas makes typical freshman mistakes, turnovers, and boneheaded plays? Refuse to watch until this, then refuse to watch until that?
:hand:
If Thomas does the same thing then fine. He’s a freshman. All other freshman are getting free passes for all their mistakes so he will as well.
I want to see Thomas sooner rather then later.....get a gauge where he is game level wise and pray to god our OC can show dramatic proof of development when he’s the starter next year game 1
It won’t be a waste.
If Thomas Redshirts and is a freshman next year. We have Rivers and Taylor both coming in. We will then have 3 freshman QBs. You always try to space out talented QBs in years.
But then again......we are ILL.... we don’t have that option normally.
Ideally we would like to have next year:
Thomas- Soph
Taylor- Freshman
Rivers- Freshman
The least ready out of Taylor and Rivers...you redshirt. So you spread out the eligibility of years.
After next year then it would look like
Ideally)Thomas- Junior
Taylor- Soph
Rivers- RS FR
Ideal following year:
Thomas- Senior
Taylor- Junior
Rivers- Soph
Hope that makes sense.
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
It won’t be a waste.
If Thomas Redshirts and is a freshman next year. We have Rivers and Taylor both coming in. We will then have 3 freshman QBs. You always try to space out talented QBs in years.
But then again......we are ILL.... we don’t have that option normally.
Ideally we would like to have next year:
Thomas- Soph
Taylor- Freshman
Rivers- Freshman
The least ready out of Taylor and Rivers...you redshirt. So you spread out the eligibility of years.
After next year then it would look like
Thomas- Junior
Taylor- Soph
Rivers- RS FR
Ideal following year:
Thomas- Senior
Taylor- Junior
Rivers- Soph
Hope that makes sense.
The bolded is exactly what's happening this year with Taylor. He's the least ready.
That’s not saying much when we had Crouch who couldn’t pass at all really. George who just loves to throw to the other team.
(Would love to see the career TD:INT George has)
By how the upperclassmen QBs have played I think Thomas could be our only able bodied QB.
Stan, we tried to warn you this summer. When confronted with reports that the QBs couldn't throw accurate passes and the OL line couldn't protect them, you chose to believe it was fake news.
Nice try bud. But I never said it was “fake news” I only said take what these reports say with a grain of salt. I was just being cautious. And when you see the team with your own eyes you make your own opinions of the team.
No, you dismissed the media reports and now you are over-reacting.
However you want to cut it to feel “right” go ahead. I’m fine with it. Everyone has an opinion. All good.
My main point is that everybody loves to bend over backwards to make excuses for this staff when not everything has been out of their hands. The staff has been pretty miserable at everything they can control, and it's concerning. Where's the improvement? Are we better right now than we were 6 weeks ago?
This season was always a "pre-season" for 2018. I just wish there was something you could point to over the past 2 years where you could be confident that this was actually headed somewhere instead of just blind faith.
Our line is better with 4 freshman despite Lowe’s constant growing pains. Mike Epstein has proven to be a back capable of explosive plays with a less than stellar line. Bonner has proven to be a good change of pace from Mike. Smalling has done nothing but make plays. Gay has had huge plays/games for someone who weighs 30+ lbs less than he should. Roundtree solid. Our secondary is significantly better with Bennett Williams. Hobbs has been as good as you can hope for a freshman who missed camp with Mano. He’s also showing some stuff on returns. But you’re right, nobody is good or getting better.
lol people complaining here think that our 17 and 18 year old freshman who comprise basically all of our starting line up should be beating 22 year old men who have had 3-4 year college experience under their belts. It's a miracle some of these games have not been blow outs. How soon we forget that our head coach went to a super bowl
EfremWinters84
- S. Carolina
Some really good, detailed observations, FT.....and in particular, Lovie's "doghouse" phenomenon stands out to me. It's very puzzling how he makes some of his rotation decisions.So this is what the bottom feels like :tsk:
What in the world was Carmoni Green doing on that "punt return"? Did he think it was a kick off? After the game Lovie said Green is 4th on the depth chart at punt returner but does he not even understand the basics of returning punts? That's pretty much Football 101 on what NOT to do on a punt return.
Why did Marchese start and play so much? I get playing the younger guys but why is a walk-on Sophomore getting a start nearly half way through the season? Are we trying to show Aaron Antoniou that he can be a PWO here and play? I'm not trying to be rude but there's a reason why he's a walk-on and it showed today.
Jones, Phillips, Harding and Watson all had tackles according to the box score so I'm guessing they weren't all injured? Ayo Shogbonyo also played quite a bit for some reason.
Also, apparently if you are an upper classman on this team it takes almost nothing to end up in the dog house. Kendrick Foster has been out of the rotation since the first game and he was named the MVP of the offense by this staff last December!
I have no problem with losing and I expected the offense to struggle but Rutgers just continued to punch us in the face all day and we had no response. They had their third string QB out there and hung 35 points on us. It's starting to feel like it's 2005 where we don't even have a chance at being competitive against conference opponents.
I like the young talent on the defensive side of the ball but I'm starting to wonder if a cover 2 defense works against read options, which almost every college team runs now. I know it works well in the NFL but I question how effective it can be at this level of football?
If you're also going to sit upperclassmen in favor of playing for the future, why is Crawford getting snaps over guys like Gay and Carney? Crawford played well today but it totally goes against what we saw with the LBs today
I really liked what Smalling did today. He's the real deal and his athleticism is off the charts. Hobbs is electric on KRs and almost broke one for a TD. The OL also looked okay and gave George time to throw the ball for the most part. Bonner did okay but I'm puzzled as to why Corbin didn't play more? It was also nice to see Brown get some carries after all he has been through. Dorsey continues to impress but obviously needs to add some weight and improve on his blocking, but it's going to take an offseason or two for it to all come together for him. The defense also forced a number of fumbles which is obviously great to see but we had 0 points as a result of TOs!
George did fine but the secondary for Rutgers is very weak as they have two converted WRs back there due to injuries. Jawaun Harris is one of them, and I really only think of him as a baseball player who also graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas. Cam Thomas must be nowhere near ready if we're not playing him after this game since this was the last game that we really had any chance of winning.
It's too bad we had such a bad day when we had so many quality recruits on campus. The Trinity Catholic kids, Perkins as well as Ayodele Adeoye (who has been on campus at least 4 times now by my count!).
This staff is far from perfect but I'd like to see some continuity for at least a few years. If we're still seeing games like this in 2019 then I don't think they'll be anyone arguing that changes shouldn't be made with this staff. Whitman can just look at the stands today to see where our fan base is right now and it's certainly not interested in watching this team play at Memorial Stadium.
One thing that does irk me are the penalties and the staff needs to fix this ASAP. That is a clear sign of an undisciplined team and they need to cut down on them as the season goes on.
Over the course of the season, the hope is to see improvement. We have seen steps forward, followed by steps backward. It's virtually impossible to know or even guess what trajectory we are on. Several freshmen are gaining valuable experience. Of course, that could be said about any freshman that plays. Experience is not enough. There has to be talent and we've seen that in several players. But we have a bad team, an error-prone QB, and no depth. About all that can be said after the loss to Rutgers is that the rest of the season is more about getting better than winning. Signs of improvement may not even be possible to discern in the remaining games. Will we better next year? Yes. How much better is anybody's guess, but it's not going to be easy to sell tickets. The expectations have bottomed out. I'd like to believe we can win one more game, but at the moment, it's hard to see how that will happen. Considering how bad Rutgers is, the performance on Saturday was one of the worst I have seen from an Illinois team. People can criticize the fan base all they like, but for better or worse, teams create their fan base--not the other way around.
blackdog
- Champaign
The problem is that the players might be improving but theres a huge step up in competition level from the early games to the B1G games. So even if they are getting better every day the increased difficulty makes it harder to see.