Illini Football 2024

Status
Not open for further replies.
#127      
Fly Illini Fly!
Dan said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1816625791444119688
Click to expand...
Zakhari inheriting a whole lot with that #4...

1721954128584.png

Illinois Football GIF by Fighting Illini Athletics
 
Last edited:
#129      
Illiniguy74
#130      
Illiniguy74
"or it could be that he has a hard time doing anything outside of football, which doesn’t mean he’s a bad coach." Agree. Frankly, I have a hard time listening to an interview with our defensive coordinator. Speaks much, says little.
 
#131      
CaptainCrutch
RockfordIllini said:
I know I’m drinking the kool-aid (I do almost every year), but I think we surprise people and win 8 games.

Last year, our offensive line was solid when healthy but literally only 5 deep such that they were awful the first half of the year when we were playing through injuries. Our offense was pretty good the second half of the year when guys got healthy. We’ve now got depth such that we should never be as bad as we were the first half of w year.

Second year in the system for Luke who I think was top 5 in QBR last year. We lost some talent at WR but replace it with inexperienced talent and Franklin who is the active leader in receiving yards in this offense. We have a stable of big physical backs. We should be able to RPO people to death and I think we are going to score a lot of points.

Defense last year was just bad. We lost our 2 stud DTs but landed some key portal additions including an all conference caliber DB from a playoff team We also committed a lot of penalties and other self inflicted wounds. Bad defense and mistakes are very un-Bret-like. I think Bret can get us to at least an average defense that minimizes mistakes as has been his MO for 15+ years.

In short, I think we cleaned up a lot of things that killed us on offense and defense. Scoring a lot of points with a decent defense sounds is a recipe to win games!
Click to expand...
Not to rain on your parade, but hoping the defense just gets fixed is putting a lot of weight on the word “hope.” Aaron Henry may have just been inexperienced last year but I didn’t really see any signs of improvement from start to finish. His post-game pressers were always just “we’ll make changes because we have to” which tells you nothing, and then nothing would result. Bret could have taken over the defense but he didn’t, and we’ve got Aaron Henry served up for a year two now. Jim Leonhard left for the Broncos so there’s not even really the hope that he could do something (not that he showed me any benefit being on staff last year).

If the defense loses the people it did this year and somehow becomes *better*, that would be pretty amazing. There were a bunch of stupid mistakes that should have been coached out but never were. Same coaches are still here. Thinking that just changes because…idk just because?…is a fools errand.

I’m excited for some Illinois football and hopeful we can find our way to a bowl game but I’m not expecting our defense to be anything to write home about. I’d be very glad to be wrong though!
 
#132      
DeonThomas
GatorMcKlusky said:
Fickell or Ryan Walters - who does Coach B. dislike more? Shades of the Mike White days. Back then, White had only one friend amongst Big Ten coaching brethren, Haden Fry at Iowa. The other coaches were outright hostile towards White, with Bo and George Perles the worst of a bad bunch.
Click to expand...
He, who helped revolutionize Big10 football......
 
#136      
Genesis
Chukwuwumba said:
I have concluded Iowa is the same team every single year. Their record is reflected by how good the other teams are; Iowa doesn’t get better or worse. Being in the BIG West, teams have not been very good so their record has been good.
Click to expand...
Historically, you are probably correct - and that's an interesting perspective. This year will be different for Iowa, and especially next year. It's hard to predict what an effective offense combined with their consistently great defense will look like.
 
#137      
Dkayak
Genesis said:
This year will be different for Iowa, and especially next year. It's hard to predict what an effective offense combined with their consistently great defense will look like.
Click to expand...
It can only differ to the extent their HC is willing to take some chances offensively. How much of their offense is a result of his game philosophy vs weak offensive coaching?
 
#138      
bluemountain
Chukwuwumba said:
I have concluded Iowa is the same team every single year. Their record is reflected by how good the other teams are; Iowa doesn’t get better or worse. Being in the BIG West, teams have not been very good so their record has been good.
Click to expand...
They have a knack for staying close in games against teams with superior talent and winning more close games than they lose.
 
#139      
Fighter of the Nightman
bluemountain said:
They have a knack for staying close in games against teams with superior talent and winning more close games than they lose.
Click to expand...
Yeah, a majority of my buddies are Iowa fans, and they always complain as if the football they have to watch is the most painful thing possible. While I get where they're coming from (although last year the offense reached such futility that it actually provided comedic value even for them, lol), it's kind of an ironic opposite of how I always felt growing up watching talented Illini teams play dumb football and conjure up 3-4 wins. Iowa fans can pretty much count on 6+ wins every single year, and that has been a goal of Illini football for going on 30 years now...
 
#140      
Chuck Nuggets
I believe Iowa has the most returning starters in the B10 this year, including the 4 new teams. That means Iowa is going to be extra tough. I think they're really being overlooked nationally.
 
#142      
Calvin
Chuck Nuggets said:
I believe Iowa has the most returning starters in the B10 this year, including the 4 new teams. That means Iowa is going to be extra tough. I think they're really being overlooked nationally.
Click to expand...

The 12 team playoff format is going to make things very exciting. Lotta teams churning down in the top-25 will have have hope even late in the season, and a lot of names are going to be sleepers. So many changes in college football at this time, but the expanded playoff is one I wholeheartedly endorse.
 
#143      
Battle89
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Yeah, a majority of my buddies are Iowa fans, and they always complain as if the football they have to watch is the most painful thing possible. While I get where they're coming from (although last year the offense reached such futility that it actually provided comedic value even for them, lol), it's kind of an ironic opposite of how I always felt growing up watching talented Illini teams play dumb football and conjure up 3-4 wins. Iowa fans can pretty much count on 6+ wins every single year, and that has been a goal of Illini football for going on 30 years now...
Click to expand...
Excluding Rice & Hardy of course

1722016775007.png
 
#144      
Chuck Nuggets
Calvin said:
The 12 team playoff format is going to make things very exciting. Lotta teams churning down in the top-25 will have have hope even late in the season, and a lot of names are going to be sleepers. So many changes in college football at this time, but the expanded playoff is one I wholeheartedly endorse.
Click to expand...
Iowa was 10-4 last season (starting 10-2) and they almost literally could not score. They scored 28 points in their last 4 games. Combined. Zero in the last two games. They have the most returning starters and they finally fired Brian Ferentz. The offense will be improved. The offense doesn't even have to be good. They just need to be better than disgusting. Experience + improved offense = trouble for the rest of the league. Iowa has been in the national title race before. I expect them to be this year. They'll lose at Ohio State. The rest of their games are all winnable. They could finish 11-1.
 
#146      
therealmiket86
Love that the staff is expanding. Would like to see an experienced dc on the staff as an analyst. Also wouldn’t mind to see them add another assistant for OL and DL
 
#148      
therealmiket86
therealmiket86 said:
Love that the staff is expanding. Would like to see an experienced dc on the staff as an analyst. Also wouldn’t mind to see them add another assistant for OL and DL
Click to expand...

I also wouldn’t mind to see us add a coach like Ken Leonard or John Holecek. Both are retired hs coaches that are very respected in state.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back