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Illinois Postgame Thread


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18 minutes ago, jv1972iu said:

Shouldn't the question be "Why don't people care?".   Because that's why they're leaving early.  They're not invested fans, if you even choose to call them fans.  Most might care more if IU had some positive football history leading to football tradition.  IU doesn't.  In my humble opinion...the lack of winning over many years is the issue why many folks don't hang to the end.

Even though football brings in the most money but like it or not IU and the state of Indiana is a basketball first

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1 hour ago, jv1972iu said:

Shouldn't the question be "Why don't people care?".   Because that's why they're leaving early.  They're not invested fans, if you even choose to call them fans.  Most might care more if IU had some positive football history leading to football tradition.  IU doesn't.  In my humble opinion...the lack of winning over many years is the issue why many folks don't hang to the end.

Yeah, it’s really hard to be invested. IU has usually been really bad in football. Then every once in a while, they tease the fans but always seem to collapse just when they start to generate some hope. The best year in recent history occurred when fans couldn’t attend, then they followed up with a total collapse again last year. It’s just easier and more fun to go to a party or a bar. When I was at IU, most parties and bars didn’t start rocking until after 10. Why not go to the game until half, then hit the party scene. 
The football players I knew would be out partying after getting waxed at home. 

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The state of Indiana being a basketball first state is bull. Fans leave at half because of IU miserable records over decades of horrible football. 
Purdue has incredible fan participation the whole game! Norte Dame we’ll need I say more! 
That basketball first crap is IU way of saying wait till basketball. 

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11 minutes ago, OLDIUFAN said:

I do have a question? If someone has answered this I apologize. Why didn’t Illinois get a to many players on the field penalty on that last drive. Their players clearly didn’t get off the field in time.

I've seen that we apparently subbed, and the refs didn't stop us from hiking the ball.

That being said, I'm not sure we actually did sub anyone.

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19 minutes ago, rogue3542 said:

I've seen that we apparently subbed, and the refs didn't stop us from hiking the ball.

That being said, I'm not sure we actually did sub anyone.

And @OLDIUFAN

This is also what I've seen, since we some how can't get a ref's mic to work... arggh.

But at the same time, when was the last time the the ref's let a play run and then just swipe it totally from history. put all time back, do over, nothing to see hear, please move along. It was strange.

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8 minutes ago, Seeking6 said:

I don't think I gave enough praise to Cam Camper. I know he had the fumble but given the transfers we had at the end of last year at WR the kid stepped in and hit the ground running. Nice to see him and Matthews compliment each other. Now we just need one more option out there.

I think Bazelek will be just fine as he gets more comfortable with the offense and his receivers. Agree we should have 2 really good WRs. With plenty of depth there, some others will hopefully make their mark as the season progresses. We look to be ok at TE as well. 

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OK was at the game Friday night.  Overall great atmosphere up to half time.  Was disappointed in student section after half.  

The run game needs some work.  There were no openings in the middle all night.  It felt like we were very slow and mechanical after the snap with no flow to the offense.  I felt like our D kept us in the game most of the night even being on the field as much as they were.  Overall very happy with the W but was not impressed with the O play calls.

 

Edited by 68Hoosier
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Cam Jones…what that kid brought in terms of production, toughness, and leadership…another all timer in my book.  I hope we get good news on his injury.  

It’s nice to have two receivers who are dynamic, Camper and DJ.   Between QB and those two guys, we are much better than last year as a team just based on that.  We were as much of a zero last year in those two areas as the season wore on as is possible at this level.  The other players were probably demoralized after that. Players know; they aren’t stupid.

As for running back, I get that Illinois stacked the box and it ended up hurting them in the pass game as we had receivers open down the field.  But the run blocking still wasn’t there.  I love Haggard and Bedford but the inside three guys gotta get some running lanes going.   I’d love to see some of our other backs get some run.  Trent Howland is a kid who has always intrigued me since we recruited him plus Allen has mentioned him recently.  This is a big, downhill kid who may break some tackles and give our running game some power.   Holloman is incredibly fast and may carve out a niche.  I’m not sure how they will put together a role for Lucas but he’s going to be electric.  Get him the ball in space one on one with a LB or S and good luck to them.   The other back is Spegal.  This is a kid, just throw out the hype and pedigree, he just gets yardage.  Runs hard and tough.

As for the D line.  Tevis was incredible.  Plus he’s smart enough to do double duty in the MBA program.  Proud of him as a representative of IU football!   This kid is a football player and you just got to love him.   I thought Lucas, one of the Ole Miss kids, flashed.  Sio was tough.   I thought the run yardage was more off the edge or wide not where the D tackles were.  I thought the right side of our line was most vulnerable.  It looked like they exploited Alfred Bryant in the run game.  Hopefully we can clean that up.

Man, Allen went full on Bobby Knight at Myles Jax for the lack of motor on that poor angle he took on that QB scramble  Colby is another and he killed us with a drop on the interception.  It’s one play for both of ‘em but those were killers.  One play can lose you a game.  I have to be honest, I’d lose trust in them right now.  They’d need to show me something to make up for those key plays to get back to significant snaps.  I hope they prove themselves in that regard.

You have to love Dasan.  He’s special.  He’s a true freshman and plays with a confidence bordering on athletic arrogance.  I mean that in a good way.  He’s good and athletic and knows he’s one of the most dynamic players on the field.  I love players like that.  

Give our staff credit.  Our defense against the run game, especially off the edge, got much more robust late.  Can’t say enough about how we played better the second part of the 4th quarter to pull out the win. Say whatever you want about this issue or that issue, as a staff and the players, they did the most important thing, which was have the moxie, game plan, and execution, to win the game in a comeback. Everybody rallied together as a team.  The win was huge and might give us a glimpse of what could be possible against Rutgers, Purdue, Maryland, Nebraska, etc.  

Edited by BobSaccamanno
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10 minutes ago, btownqb said:

Thats gunna be a thing? My goodness. 

Back in March of 2019 a new mascot vote was brought to the student body at Illinois suggesting the mascot be changed to Alma Otter. That one failed by a vote of 3,807-3,510.  😂

 

https://footballscoop.com/news/could-we-be-on-the-verge-of-a-big-ten-program-changing-their-mascot

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4 hours ago, BruceDouglas said:

Close game like I predicted. Illinois just made way too many mistakes to win on the road. Turnovers, penalties and coming away from the red zone with no points is not a formula to win conference games.

It was a good, hard fought game.  You guys are on the right track.  You have a good team.  Good luck the rest of the way.  

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26 minutes ago, BobSaccamanno said:

It was a good, hard fought game.  You guys are on the right track.  You have a good team.  Good luck the rest of the way.  

I really felt like Illinois lost the game more than we won it. I'll take it because sometimes that's the way a game goes. But I thought that for most of the game they were the better team.

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4 minutes ago, cthomas said:

I really felt like Illinois lost the game more than we won it. I'll take it because sometimes that's the way a game goes. But I thought that for most of the game they were the better team.

I could see that but in terms of that last drive, I consider us “winning it.”   There were a lot of plays we had to make to pull it out.  Those weren’t handed to us.  We had to make the plays and we did. You need a TD and you go 75 yards with 2 minutes.  All credit to IU.  

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2 minutes ago, BobSaccamanno said:

I could see that but in terms of that last drive, I consider us “winning it.”   There were a lot of plays we had to make to pull it out.  Those weren’t handed to us.  We had to make the plays and we did. You need a TD and you go 75 yards with 2 minutes.  All credit to IU.  

I absolutely get that. But going forward we can't hope to have a drive at the end of the game to win. Watching the game, I could not believe we were down by 1 for a good part of the game. They seemed to be doing everything but scoring. That kind of effort won't win us many games unless Illinois is way better than I think. I like our potential on defense but the offense didn't show me enough to think we are headed to a bowl game.

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15 minutes ago, cthomas said:

I absolutely get that. But going forward we can't hope to have a drive at the end of the game to win. Watching the game, I could not believe we were down by 1 for a good part of the game. They seemed to be doing everything but scoring. That kind of effort won't win us many games unless Illinois is way better than I think. I like our potential on defense but the offense didn't show me enough to think we are headed to a bowl game.

We definitely need to improve in some areas and Illinois certainly made some head scratching plays.  I just wanted to give us credit for pulling it out when we had to.  

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19 hours ago, BobSaccamanno said:

Cam Jones…what that kid brought in terms of production, toughness, and leadership…another all timer in my book.  I hope we get good news on his injury.  

It’s nice to have two receivers who are dynamic, Camper and DJ.   Between QB and those two guys, we are much better than last year as a team just based on that.  We were as much of a zero last year in those two areas as the season wore on as is possible at this level.  The other players were probably demoralized after that. Players know; they aren’t stupid.

As for running back, I get that Illinois stacked the box and it ended up hurting them in the pass game as we had receivers open down the field.  But the run blocking still wasn’t there.  I love Haggard and Bedford but the inside three guys gotta get some running lanes going.   I’d love to see some of our other backs get some run.  Trent Howland is a kid who has always intrigued me since we recruited him plus Allen has mentioned him recently.  This is a big, downhill kid who may break some tackles and give our running game some power.   Holloman is incredibly fast and may carve out a niche.  I’m not sure how they will put together a role for Lucas but he’s going to be electric.  Get him the ball in space one on one with a LB or S and good luck to them.   The other back is Spegal.  This is a kid, just throw out the hype and pedigree, he just gets yardage.  Runs hard and tough.

As for the D line.  Tevis was incredible.  Plus he’s smart enough to do double duty in the MBA program.  Proud of him as a representative of IU football!   This kid is a football player and you just got to love him.   I thought Lucas, one of the Ole Miss kids, flashed.  Sio was tough.   I thought the run yardage was more off the edge or wide not where the D tackles were.  I thought the right side of our line was most vulnerable.  It looked like they exploited Alfred Bryant in the run game.  Hopefully we can clean that up.

Man, Allen went full on Bobby Knight at Myles Jax for the lack of motor on that poor angle he took on that QB scramble  Colby is another and he killed us with a drop on the interception.  It’s one play for both of ‘em but those were killers.  One play can lose you a game.  I have to be honest, I’d lose trust in them right now.  They’d need to show me something to make up for those key plays to get back to significant snaps.  I hope they prove themselves in that regard.

You have to love Dasan.  He’s special.  He’s a true freshman and plays with a confidence bordering on athletic arrogance.  I mean that in a good way.  He’s good and athletic and knows he’s one of the most dynamic players on the field.  I love players like that.  

Give our staff credit.  Our defense against the run game, especially off the edge, got much more robust late.  Can’t say enough about how we played better the second part of the 4th quarter to pull out the win. Say whatever you want about this issue or that issue, as a staff and the players, they did the most important thing, which was have the moxie, game plan, and execution, to win the game in a comeback. Everybody rallied together as a team.  The win was huge and might give us a glimpse of what could be possible against Rutgers, Purdue, Maryland, Nebraska, etc.  

Excellent post.

Any news on the Jones injury front? He obviously had a major impact on the rest of the game, just curious if it was something isolated or if it's bigger/more serious.

Receivers - I definitely saw improvement out of this group as a whole. Lots of new pieces, but they are playmakers. Once Penix went down last year, it seemed to demoralize Fryfogle to the point that he didn't give maximum effort. Drops/fumble aside, I didn't see a lack of effort on Friday. Very promising unit.

Errors - Jackson, Colby (and Camper)'s errors were big, but important for their growth as players. They were all game-changing events that will likely not be forgotten. While it's natural to lose a little trust, I believe they will all put extra focus on not allowing those types of plays to happen again. You can learn a lot through failure.

Dasan - Totally agree here. He's physically there and mentally plays with a swagger that you love to see. Wasn't afraid to mix it up with them. I see his confidence expanding greatly in the next few weeks -- it could be a runaway freight train in the best possible way.

Hopefully that's also indicative of the defense as a whole.

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