Wisconsin 24, Illinois 0 Postgame

#78      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
So again, my question is - what have you seen from Bielema that would lead you to believe he'll go from "gigantic mistake, obvious from the very moment it happened" to a great choice that will turn things around?

If I believed that his choice OC was "laughably unqualified and overmatched" I wouldn't want him making a meaningful decision about the program ever again.

I will never understand this mentality.
Bielema's hit rate in hiring assistants in his career is pretty high. The staff as a whole is high quality and well constructed. And again, you don't fire a head coach after one year.

He blew a big hire. It happens. Fix it.
 
#79      

illini80

Forgottonia
Rod Smith had MUCH more success with this group.

Peters isn't this bad.
For whatever reason, the O-line play was much better the last 2 years than this year. And the last 2 years had Josh Imatorbhebhe. I don’t think his importance in any success Peters has had can be overstated. My point being, this isn’t the same group.
 
#80      

blackdog

Champaign
Did you watch the Wisconsin (or really any) game last year? Peters is terrible and has a horrible on-field demeanor. Get a transfer QB and allow Leary to develop a little more for next year.

I honestly was wondering if Peters was actually hurt or if he just saw how the game was going and decided he wanted no part of it.
 
#82      
The play action out patterns had zero chance. The bubble screen to IW, same. OTOH, IW in jet sweep action, Brown off tackle, and bombs to Spann would have put more pressure on them IMO.
 
#84      
Illinois has the right staff. The players have bought in. Unfortunately, they ran into a hungry Badger ball club desperate for a win, who simply beat up Illinois at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.

Illinois couldn't stop the run on D, and couldn't run the ball on O. . . . Illinois needs a QB that can deliver the ball accurately. Both QBs consistently threw the ball high and off the mark. In fact, that has been a hallmark of both of them all season long.
I still would like to see us give Spann an opportunity at qb. The little bit that we got to see of him in the spring showed a lot of accuracy. They may not want him there because he takes chances but, we need someone there that will take chances.
 
#85      
That’s been the single most disappointing thing and I don’t understand it. Martin kept saying they weren’t communicating. That shouldn’t be a big issue for guys that have played this much football and much of it with each other.
OL coaching. They just want to knock guys off the line. They don't show any technique. D linemen have been slipping their blocks since the very 1st game.
 
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#86      
After watching a replay I've determined that I don't give our WRs enough credit. We may not have a deep ball threat but it seemed like we had a receiver open at some point nearly every play.

Like usual Peter's continued to be a second too slow or make poor reads. Sitkowski seemed to make solid reads but reminds me of Charlie sheens character in major league, no accuracy. He kept throwing it to relatively open receivers but consistently throws uncatchable balls. No wonder the guy never gets picked.

People complain about the play calling but the yards were there if we had an average P5 QB. I think we would still lose this game but it would've been mostly competitive.
 
#87      
Did you watch the Wisconsin (or really any) game last year? Peters is terrible and has a horrible on-field demeanor. Get a transfer QB and allow Leary to develop a little more for next year.
The QB room, their skill sets and their development is a direct reflection of the Smith boys (Rod and the sainted Lovie) inability to attract B1G QB talent. At this point, I blame them for the state we're in, not Tony Petersen and Bret Bielema.
 
#88      
The QB room, their skill sets and their development is a direct reflection of the Smith boys (Rod and the sainted Lovie) inability to attract B1G QB talent. At this point, I blame them for the state we're in, not Tony Petersen and Bret Bielema.
To a certain extent I agree, but they did bring in the guys who are currently #2 and #3 on the depth chart, neither of which are apparently Big Ten, or maybe even FBS, level talent.
 
#89      

Illinivek23

Gurnee
Just amazed at how tight the rotation is at WR now. Seems to be all slot type guys - IW, Navarro and Casey - asked to play the outside, too. None seem best suited to be downfield threats. Is it based on catching? Route running? Blocking?
 
#90      
Illinois has the right staff. The players have bought in. Unfortunately, they ran into a hungry Badger ball club desperate for a win, who simply beat up Illinois at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.

Illinois couldn't stop the run on D, and couldn't run the ball on O. . . . Illinois needs a QB that can deliver the ball accurately. Both QBs consistently threw the ball high and off the mark. In fact, that has been a hallmark of both of them all season long.
Well Brandon Peters holds on to the ball and takes sacks so much while still playing horrible... at least with Artur Sitkowski, he gets the ball out of his hands while playing horrible... gives our guys at least a chance of making a play... no matter how miraculous they'd have to be with the atrocious passing. In all fairness, when Artur came in the team was obviously out of sync from preparing all week with Brandon as the starter. Similar to Fields with the Bears when Dalton went down. I'm looking for improvement next week. The offense did move way more than with Peters in. We had literally 6 total yards in the second quarter with Peters at the helm. And it's not the first game that's been the case! Not saying Artur is the answer by any means but it's better than Peters at this point in my opinion. I-L-L
 
#94      

pruman91

Paducah, Ky

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Illinois had three yards of total offense at the end of the first quarter Saturday against Wisconsin.
It hardly got any better.

Illinois totaled six rushes for 21 yards in the first half, and the team was even more bleak through the air. Starting quarterback Brandon Peters was 3-of-7 passing for 12 yards before leaving the game in the second quarter with an injury. He was ruled out for the rest of the contest by the team’s medical staff, according to Bielema

Backup quarterback Art Sitkowski, who started twice this season due to another Peters injury, struggled as well. The Rutgers transfer was 0-of-12 passing before his first completion. He finished the game 8-of-27 passing for 55 yards.

Wisconsin racked up 491 yards of total offense compared to 93 for the Illini.

Illinois’ longest play of the day was a 23-yard run by Brown in the second quarter, which was nearly all of the team’s season-low 26 rushing yards.

Despite Joseph’s big plays, the Badgers still imposed their will at the line of scrimmage and rushed for a season-high 391 yards on 61 carries.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I felt pretty good waking up this morning after finally a good night's sleep after my dentists appt Tuesday , but reading this article has me feeling queasy and downtrodden.....

There is some fluff in the article about BB and his past relationship with wisky , but the real tidbits that I highlighted above shows that we are in peril of continuing the decades long slide into the bottom level of P5 college programs...

I mean , you can't make up some of the statistics from yesterday's game....I asked this board last night if I should watch the replay and was advised not to as it would be detrimental to my health and sanity....After reading this article I am glad I took my bro's advice and deleted the game......

I love all things Illini , but this is and has been old and tired for too long being unable to field a relatively competitive team week in and week out.....

Looks like 2-10 to me with little hope for the upcoming seasons until we can find a QB who has the ability to LEAD this team back from the ashes that currently describe the status of this program....

Not fun being an Illini FB fan now , but I will continue to hope.....Seems like that's the only thing us fans have right now .............

HOPE...............................................................................................................................................................................................

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#95      

illini80

Forgottonia
Listened to the game yesterday and watched it this morning. It was worse than I thought and I thought it was really bad.

We looked like boys playing men in every facet of the game. Illinois with 9 first downs and I’m pretty sure 6 were due to PI and roughing the passer penalties. 2 of the actual 1st downs came late when the game was already long over. The other was a nice Chase Brown run that was our total rushing output for the entire game.

Our defense missed tackles and got pushed around even by the second string. Our offensive line barely laid a hand on guys as they ran by them. Our QB’s were bad, but they had no chance. Blitzes came thru untouched. Even when we had a back in to protect they ran right by them. Every offensive play for Wisconsin had blockers running downfield or pushing the pile. Every run play for us had 3 or 4 defenders running to the ball and we had no one blocking.

I’ve seen us lose games by much worse scores obviously, but I don’t know if we’ve been dominated more physically than we were today. Just a disappointing performance on every level. Thank goodness for Blake Hayes.
 
#97      
Do we have faith that Bret Bielema can recruit? Beckman and Lovie brought in MAC talent. Forget the ability to coach anymore, we need a coach that can recruit. I do like that he is engaging with the IHSA coaches again, unlike lazy Lovie. I just feel like we have a major problem, since the good high school recruits are well aware of the recent past at Illinois, and would rather go to a team that is winning. And i'm still sick about us starting with 6 straight passes yesterday. Instead of playing to our strengths, we were afraid and changed our game plan, basically running scared. Not utilizing Chase Brown and McCray at all was mind boggling to me, regardless of how good their run defense is. You use your strengths, and if that is not working, then go to Plan B, not the other way around. Makes me sad when overpaid coaches overthink things. That being said, i don't think we had a chance in this game either way, but we would not have laid a goose egg, and would have kept our dignity.
 
#99      

Illinivek23

Gurnee
Recall when TP was hired, discussion was on his experience with different schemes. Have we gone away from tailoring and evolving the system over time with some success to rigidly installing a new system, damn the results while we get there?
 
#100      
Recall when TP was hired, discussion was on his experience with different schemes. Have we gone away from tailoring and evolving the system over time with some success to rigidly installing a new system, damn the results while we get there?
I don’t think that is the takeaway from yesterday’s game. I can’t imagine BB is looking for a system based largely on passing rather than running. I think they felt we’d have a hard time running and hoped that they could have some success with passing game and that would open up the running game enough to where we could have some success running. Unfortunately the passing game was atrocious and things snowballed. I would have liked to see them run more, but not sure how much it would have helped. As good as WI run D is, the passing game still would have needed to contribute and it seemed unable to do that. Still it is frustrating to see our strength used so little — especially when we’ve shown no real ability to pass thus far this season.

On another note, can someone with more football knowledge than I tell me why when the Illini run a jet sweep it seems to get strung out more often than not but when I see other teams run it (and not just against the Illini) they seem to get several blockers out there. Do Illini run a different type of jet sweep or is it just talent and/or execution?