Wisconsin 27, Illinois 10 Postgame

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#201      
Indy Illini Fan
The thing I’m also concerned about … This current staffs ability to evaluate talent … They’ve been VERY high on a lot of these guys … I don’t see it …

There’s a reason the elite teams continue to get 4 stars and 5 stars and play them and win …

I’m all about development and sure we’ve found some diamonds in the rough and developed them …

But it’s very clear, some of these kids … Aren’t Big Ten caliber starters … Rotation guys ? At best …

Talent upgrade is needed … Coaching upgrade is needed …

Bret has the tools … Get it freaking done …
 
#203      
Cary67
therealmiket86 said:
What’s disappointing to me is how bad we have looked against Indiana, Washington and Wisconsin.
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#208      
BoiseBaller
Indy Illini Fan said:
The thing I’m also concerned about … This current staffs ability to evaluate talent … They’ve been VERY high on a lot of these guys … I don’t see it …

There’s a reason the elite teams continue to get 4 stars and 5 stars and play them and win …

I’m all about development and sure we’ve found some diamonds in the rough and developed them …

But it’s very clear, some of these kids … Aren’t Big Ten caliber starters … Rotation guys ? At best …

Talent upgrade is needed … Coaching upgrade is needed …

Bret has the tools … Get it freaking done …
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We certainly have money to compete now, unlike under previous regimes where IL did everything on the cheap and just hoped for the best.

I'm not sure if it's eval or coaching guys up making them better. Probably a bit of both.

Seems to me that Bret isn't a micromanager and wants to give his staff autonomy to do their jobs. I think ultimately that's a good thing but it does mean your staff has to actually be solid. One of the most disappointing things to me in the last year was not getting Leonhard to stay and make him the DC. Would have been a game changer.
 
#210      
DERV64
Illini88 said:
They had 92 yards passing and 209 rushing of which 84 was on one play. Why is everyone so down on the D? Now special teams and the O line I get as both were horrendous
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Defense got mauled by a team they knew couldnt throw throw the ball. Defensive line was getting pushed back 5-10 yards nearly every play, they were soft, weak, pathetic and missed tackles right and left. The defense sucked. Worst offense in college football looked like a dominating ground and pound team last night. Thats why we are down on the defense as well
 
#212      
Dkayak
therealmiket86 said:
What’s disappointing to me is how bad we have looked against Indiana, Washington and Wisconsin.
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Exactly. Losing those didn’t bother me. It’s how we lost that was so very disgusting. Three complete collapses in 11 games! In each of the three I had to turn off the TV and go find something else to do. I’m just not wired to watch :poop: shows like this, not as a committed fan anyway. This team and staff failed to earn their big paychecks or fan commitment last night.
 
#213      
CogDog
DERV64 said:
All this talk of getting rid of Henry, Discher, and Miller (all correct), but what about the strength and conditioning coach? These guys are visibly slower than most opponents and considerably physically weaker....we need a better off season strength and conditioning program, its embarrassing watching these guys get bullied and burnt every week.
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I feel like to some degree this is still a recruiting/talent issue, but I absolutely think that other teams seem to have an edge over us physically. We just seem small on defense especially.
 
#214      
Future Insider
If you need to rebuild your coaching staff and bring in good players via the portal…… this is the year to do it. Lots of talent on both those will be available. Going to have to $Pony$ up though. Last night gave BB a window so let’s see what he does with it.
 
#215      
PNWIllini
CaptainCrutch said:
I think this was a clear example that our offense cannot handle an above-average defense. Obviously our defense cannot handle anyone. Embarrassing.

I’m gonna have a hard time re-upping my season tickets until Aaron Henry, Robby Discher and Bart Miller are shown the door.
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I’m going to use this comment to pivot to something bigger.

This view right here is what separates Illinois fandom from UW (Washington).

Out here they don’t quit going to games. They keep showing up and DEMANDING that the program stop bleeding and get right Or They Will Not Accept It.

I grew up an Illini and will die one. But living among the Huskies has shown me what real fandom does. They light up the call shows and they fill up social media but above all they ATTEND AND DEMAND success. Or else.

Sorry that’s aimed at you personally, you just happened to be the first one saying this.
 
#217      
Pikeillinifan
CogDog said:
I feel like to some degree this is still a recruiting/talent issue, but I absolutely think that other teams seem to have an edge over us physically. We just seem small on defense especially.
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On most plays, we just seem slow. Are we really that slow, or is it the coaching or play calling?

There were some plays we came at them and looked good, but those were few and far between.
 
#218      
Illini2010-11
OrangeBlue98 said:
It would be great if we could get through a season without a WTF loss to a bad opponent.

Let’s focus on that for next season.
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We did last season...Minnesota was the "bad loss", and even they went 8-5. The closest was the Purdue game, but we avoided that disaster loss.

Outside of yesterday, the Illini have been handling the bad teams, even if they played down to competition.
 
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#219      
Dkayak
BoiseBaller said:
Seems to me that Bret isn't a micromanager and wants to give his staff autonomy to do their jobs. I think ultimately that's a good thing but it does mean your staff has to actually be solid.
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Delegation is a wonderful thing, but it only works if you 1) make excellent hires and 2) invest your time in developing your direct reports. If you make mediocre hires, delegation is a recipe for failure.
 
#220      
Da88
Username said:
I'm upset, disappointed, frustrated, dejected - all the adjectives - about last night. That said, even if northwestern were to beat us by 20+ at home, we are not making a HC change. This take (not you - so not a personal attack) is bananas. We all remember what IL football history has been over the last 20 years, right? BB continues to be the guy to lead us into the future. He's not perfect but he's well above average, and we couldn't get anyone nearly as good as him at this point in time if Josh were to fire him. Some may say, well - yeah, but Josh is the best AD in the country and people want to work for/with him. I agree with that, but one of the reasons he's the best AD in the country is that he's not going to fire BB.

There are other parts of your post that I disagree with as well
-slow developing ball control offense is not what I've seen this year.
-wins are wins rather lucky or not. Sometimes a team benefits from that and other times not. Most of us tend to think that we get the short end of the stick on calls/replays/etc, but even if that's just homer-bias we're certainly not consistently getting the benefit so much that we are winning games we shouldn't due to outside factors.. You can't argue both ways.

I also think we all probably envisioned this team being something beyond what it is/was capable of being. We were always a team with a 6 win floor and 9 win ceiling and had no legitimate business being in any CFP discussion. I'd say the same was true last year. If that is actually true, then last year we very much outperformed (maybe due to some lucky bounces), and this year we are tracking with about where we should be.

The good news is BB is still an above average coach, and we have increased talent coming in that we haven't seen the likes of since the Zook days. I'd like to see some changes in the support staff, but firing BB is just beyond the pale and should not even be part of the discussion because it's just not going to happen.
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The future of that talent increase will be heavily influenced by the perception of the progress of this program.
We can't assume that we can get future good classes if we have too much of a setback the next 2 seasons. The old chatter about Illinois being unable to sustain success will be back and then we may revert to our same old cycle of short term success followed by crashing back to losing seasons.
I don't think BB's floor will ever be as bad as our worst years, but we also can't afford to become a team that regularly needs the bowl win to get to 7 wins and expect recruiting success, even with NIL.
The next 2 years will determine the fate of BB here. Right now, it's up in the air if this will work out. How we respond in the off-season to coaching deficiencies will set the tone. This is the most important off-season for BB at Illinois.
 
#222      
FloridaMan
PNWIllini said:
I’m going to use this comment to pivot to something bigger.

This view right here is what separates Illinois fandom from UW (Washington).

Out here they don’t quit going to games. They keep showing up and DEMANDING that the program stop bleeding and get right Or They Will Not Accept It.

I grew up an Illini and will die one. But living among the Huskies has shown me what real fandom does. They light up the call shows and they fill up social media but above all they ATTEND AND DEMAND success. Or else.

Sorry that’s aimed at you personally, you just happened to be the first one saying this.
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Agree totally. You get what you expect. Comments about this fanbase being spoiled or that we should be so happy with a 7 win season given our history, I feel, are off the mark. College sports is a totally different game in the NIL era. This fanbase and donors have stuck with and committed to the program even after decades (read that again: DECADES) of incompetence. Top 20 resources are now being poured into the program so the expectations are for a top 20 product. And that has not been met this season. That seems harsh, but it is the reality, and no one should be surprised when that reality is pointed out.

I think just about everyone agrees BB is the man to lead this program in this new environment. However, we are seeing the painful results of him avoiding to address issues that a lot of people have pointed out over the past 3 seasons. There was a mass exodus of very good coaches and he chose to ride with who was left, and it has culminated in disappointment this season. He has to now address the situation under even more pressure to get the right people in to get the job done.

This is the business these guys chose. They understand all of this. BB has led this program to so many steps forward, but it has taken at least a step back in a year that we had one of the program's best QBs ever come back to one of his most experienced teams. It doesn't get any easier next year.
 
#224      
CogDog
Pikeillinifan said:
On most plays, we just seem slow. Are we really that slow, or is it the coaching or play calling?

There were some plays we came at them and looked good, but those were few and far between.
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I’ve said elsewhere that LB talent and athleticism is lacking. Bailey and Rosie are good players, but I wouldn’t call either of them fast relative to others who play their position. We have an absolutely critical offseason of talent acquisition ahead of us.
 
#225      
Marshall_Lucky
Illini2010-11 said:
Just got back from the game. Wow, was that a rough one -- got dominated in the trenches from the get go and costly special team mistakes throughout which made the game a runaway. Wisky felt like in complete control of the game from the first snap. Without seeing replay there were a few calls (or lack thereof) that hurt: the offensive pi that stalled a drive (it looked like two players hand fighting from naked eye), the long td run had a potential hold in middle of field (but the hole was so large it likely would have had minimal impact), and a crucial missed holding call in the drive where Wisky extended lead to 14 (though they converted a 3rd and 14 right after, so hard to complain too much).

Now to gameday atmosphere: there were plenty of seats open, but the fans were super engaged for a terrible now 4-7 team. The students were also there in large numbers and stayed until the end. Huge props to them for being supportive and engaged throughout. They really created a ton of noise. From a cultural standpoint, we have a ways to go in fan/student engagement. I fear the engagement we will have next week.

Huge game next week. We can still get to the 8-4 record that I predicted pre-season, but it will not be easy. Really a huge disappointment of a game tonight, and it marks the 4th blowout loss of the season, which is tough to swallow and is super disappointing given preseason expectations.
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I know our fan base is jaded, but we will never have the kind of program we want if everyone takes their ball and goes home the minute things get detailed. The best part of the USC and OSU games this year (aside from us actually playing like a big boy football team even though OSU game had too many mistakes) was that we saw what illini football could be on gameday.

If every fan base bailed after a clunker game, 3/4 of stadiums would be empty on any given Saturday
 
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