Illini Football 2024

#1      

Dan

Dan
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Dan
Welcome to the Illinois Football 2024 & College Football news thread :illinois:


Tickets | Schedule | Roster



2024 Illini Football (5-1, 2-1)
DateOpponentResult
Thu, Aug 29Eastern IllinoisW 45-0
Sat, Sept 7KansasW 23-17
Sat, Sept 14Central MichiganW 30-9
Fri, Sept 20@NebraskaW 31-24 OT
Sat, Sept 28@Penn StateL 7-21
Sat, Oct 12PurdueW 50-49 OT
Sat, Oct 19Michigan2:30pm CBS
Sat, Oct 26@Oregon2:30pm CBS
Sat, Nov 2Minnesota
Sat, Nov 16Michigan State
Sat, Nov 23@Rutgers
Sat, Nov 30Northwestern
(Wrigley Field)

All times CT
 
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#2      
phats22
tumblr_owdgo0jdmI1ur5m8bo6_r1_400 (1).gif
 
#3      
Fighter of the Nightman
Some conversation for a Monday afternoon ... would there be a consensus on what our best performance of the year has been so far?? I was thinking about this when I thought how we would need to play to beat Michigan. Nebraska? Kansas still, even with their bad record? Penn State minus a few key blunders? Hell, the first half of Purdue?!

I honestly felt that the "best team" I watched was against Penn State in many ways. To blow a 1st and goal from inside the 5 and get zero points fundamentally changed that game ... maybe if we punch it in, we force OT. The 21-7 score in no way does that game justice, it was a great battle.
 
#4      
aaeismacgychel
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Some conversation for a Monday afternoon ... would there be a consensus on what our best performance of the year has been so far?? I was thinking about this when I thought how we would need to play to beat Michigan. Nebraska? Kansas still, even with their bad record? Penn State minus a few key blunders? Hell, the first half of Purdue?!

I honestly felt that the "best team" I watched was against Penn State in many ways. To blow a 1st and goal from inside the 5 and get zero points fundamentally changed that game ... maybe if we punch it in, we force OT. The 21-7 score in no way does that game justice, it was a great battle.
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I'd vote Nebraska by a large amount. Thought we played pretty much an A-/A game against them. Raiola played great, Nebraska recovered all 5 fumbled, and yet we still had enough to beat them on the road. I think PSU and Purdue had solid 1st half moments, but we also benefitted by opposing missed opportunities that they later took advantage of in the 2nd halves. Nebraska I really felt we played an all-around great game with just a couple critical errors.

To beat Michigan, we're going to need the defense and line play that showed up at Nebraska and not lose the turnover battle. It would also be nice of a couple of those loose bouncing balls pop into our hands rather then the opponent.
 
#5      
Battle89
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Some conversation for a Monday afternoon ... would there be a consensus on what our best performance of the year has been so far?? I was thinking about this when I thought how we would need to play to beat Michigan. Nebraska? Kansas still, even with their bad record? Penn State minus a few key blunders? Hell, the first half of Purdue?!

I honestly felt that the "best team" I watched was against Penn State in many ways. To blow a 1st and goal from inside the 5 and get zero points fundamentally changed that game ... maybe if we punch it in, we force OT. The 21-7 score in no way does that game justice, it was a great battle.
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I go back and forth about that PSU game. Optimistic me says what you wrote above, pessimistic me says we scored on our first and scripted drive and never saw the end zone (or even a FG) again. I think our best game was Nebraska, at least in how it made me feel about the overall team and season possibilities.
 
#6      
Battle89
aaeismacgychel said:
I'd vote Nebraska by a large amount. Thought we played pretty much an A-/A game against them. Raiola played great, Nebraska recovered all 5 fumbled, and yet we still had enough to beat them on the road. I think PSU and Purdue had solid 1st half moments, but we also benefitted by opposing missed opportunities that they later took advantage of in the 2nd halves. Nebraska I really felt we played an all-around great game with just a couple critical errors.

To beat Michigan, we're going to need the defense and line play that showed up at Nebraska and not lose the turnover battle. It would also be nice of a couple of those loose bouncing balls pop into our hands rather then the opponent.
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Great minds...
 
#7      
mhuml32
Fighter of the Nightman said:
I honestly felt that the "best team" I watched was against Penn State in many ways. To blow a 1st and goal from inside the 5 and get zero points fundamentally changed that game ... maybe if we punch it in, we force OT. The 21-7 score in no way does that game justice, it was a great battle.
Click to expand...

Depends on your perspective, Connelly's PGWE says that Illinois was very fortunate to keep the score close. They missed a couple field goals, failed to convert a crucial first down, and took their foot off the gas on the final two drives.
 
#8      
Fighter of the Nightman
mhuml32 said:
Depends on your perspective, Connelly's PGWE says that Illinois was very fortunate to keep the score close. They missed a couple field goals, failed to convert a crucial first down, and took their foot off the gas on the final two drives.
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Yeah, I get this is all speculative. However, I think PSU missing a field goal is "more likely" than us getting zero points from a 1st and goal, especially with how great our kicking game has been this year. It easily could have been 14-14 with just a couple minutes left in one of the most hostile environments there is.
 
#10      
BWBW
I agree with Nebraska. I also hope the officials we get are competent, call the game as evenly as possible, and remember it is our home field (referencing the Michigan game).
 
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#12      
Illini2010-11
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Some conversation for a Monday afternoon ... would there be a consensus on what our best performance of the year has been so far?? I was thinking about this when I thought how we would need to play to beat Michigan. Nebraska? Kansas still, even with their bad record? Penn State minus a few key blunders? Hell, the first half of Purdue?!

I honestly felt that the "best team" I watched was against Penn State in many ways. To blow a 1st and goal from inside the 5 and get zero points fundamentally changed that game ... maybe if we punch it in, we force OT. The 21-7 score in no way does that game justice, it was a great battle.
Click to expand...
I would say the Eastern Illinois game solely for the reason that my blood pressure was at a good level that whole game.

But more seriously, I would have to say the Nebraska game was the best performance as a whole. It was the first true road game (against a ranked foe), and those are never easy. The Penn State game felt a lot more lopsided than the final score indicated. Sure the game was close in the fourth quarter, but the offense did absolutely nothing outside of the scripted first drive. After the first drive, the Illini only mustered 144 yards of offense. Hard to say that was a great product that night.
 
#13      
EyeoftheIllini
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Some conversation for a Monday afternoon ... would there be a consensus on what our best performance of the year has been so far?? I was thinking about this when I thought how we would need to play to beat Michigan. Nebraska? Kansas still, even with their bad record? Penn State minus a few key blunders? Hell, the first half of Purdue?!

I honestly felt that the "best team" I watched was against Penn State in many ways. To blow a 1st and goal from inside the 5 and get zero points fundamentally changed that game ... maybe if we punch it in, we force OT. The 21-7 score in no way does that game justice, it was a great battle.
Click to expand...
If by performance you mean for an entire game, I think Nebraska fairly easily. Now if you’re talking about a portion of a game, first half at Penn State minus the last minute and a half might be the answer.

I believe I am very much in the minority, but at no time in the second half did I feel any confidence at all that Illini would come back in the Penn State game except for maybe first minute or so. Sure if Illini had scored at end of first half it might have been a different story. But the defense was absolutely getting gashed versus the run in the second half of Penn State game . . . and that carried over to the Purdue game. Overall Illini were out gained by 150 yards and out gained on the ground 34 to 239. Illini also lost the turnover battle 2 to 0, and PSU had 7 sacks and 13 TFLs. Give the Illini credit, they battled until the end and I was cheering for them. But half a game doesn’t make a great performance for me.
 
#14      
Battle89
Illini2010-11 said:
I would say the Eastern Illinois game solely for the reason that my blood pressure was at a good level that whole game.

But more seriously, I would have to say the Nebraska game was the best performance as a whole. It was the first true road game (against a ranked foe), and those are never easy. The Penn State game felt a lot more lopsided than the final score indicated. Sure the game was close in the fourth quarter, but the offense did absolutely nothing outside of the scripted first drive. After the first drive, the Illini only mustered 144 yards of offense. Hard to say that was a great product that night.
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Which further confounds my optimistic and pessimistic selves. Seemingly our defense kept us in the PSU game and our offense kept us in the Purdue game, with corresponding poor performances by the other half of the team. Who shows up in a given week?

Parallels the national ranking in the 20s and a computer ranking in the 40s I guess. You got me fired up today @Fighter of the Nightman !
 
#15      
bluemountain
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Some conversation for a Monday afternoon ... would there be a consensus on what our best performance of the year has been so far?? I was thinking about this when I thought how we would need to play to beat Michigan. Nebraska? Kansas still, even with their bad record? Penn State minus a few key blunders? Hell, the first half of Purdue?!

I honestly felt that the "best team" I watched was against Penn State in many ways. To blow a 1st and goal from inside the 5 and get zero points fundamentally changed that game ... maybe if we punch it in, we force OT. The 21-7 score in no way does that game justice, it was a great battle.
Click to expand...
It's Nebraska - we outplayed them on both sides of the ball - it's the best I've seen our lines play all year
 
#16      
ChiefGritty
ChiefGritty said:
Yeah it's not even close
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Battle89 said:
Seemingly our defense kept us in the PSU game and our offense kept us in the Purdue game
Click to expand...
https://twitter.com/x/status/1845822809722982572
https://twitter.com/x/status/1840753435530166658
https://twitter.com/x/status/1838215142343049600

We were significantly dominated on a play-to-play basis against PSU and were just lucky to find ourselves in the game, were in fact meaningfully worse than Purdue on a play-to-play basis taking the full game into account and were lucky to win, but we genuinely (albeit narrowly) outplayed Nebraska, and a narrow victory was a fair reflection of the quality of the performances, not a matter of luck (or bad refereeing, Husker Twitter).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1835677826777051621

We were also only narrowly better than CMU on a play by play basis and a couple of very costly CMU errors made the score look worse than the game was.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1833134249324798405

It was anybody's game against Kansas, which is maybe a little more favorable than it felt at the time, but being neck-and-neck with Kansas at home is a performance that has aged like fine milk.

The most impressive performance is Nebraska by a country mile. I feel like once you become advanced stats-literate you can pretty intuitively feel this stuff, the difference between luck and actually playing well (but luck is very important!)
 
#18      
ChiefGritty
https://twitter.com/x/status/1845881913812156489

Agree with this, a very rare sight for an Illini QB. Which,

<whispers>....are we 1000% sure we're not losing Altmyer to the draft?

I was an Altmyer doubter, borderline hater coming into the season in full disclosure. But this is the most pro-ready QB play I think I've seen from an Illini since Kittner, he's a player totally transformed.
 
#19      
Battle89
ChiefGritty said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1845881913812156489

Agree with this, a very rare sight for an Illini QB. Which,

<whispers>....are we 1000% sure we're not losing Altmyer to the draft?

I was an Altmyer doubter, borderline hater coming into the season in full disclosure. But this is the most pro-ready QB play I think I've seen from an Illini since Kittner, he's a player totally transformed.
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Draft or portal are both questions
 
#20      
GrayGhost77
Keeping Altmeyer for one more year should absolutely 100% be our number one priority for next year. Followed by improving our D line. If we can get him back, shore up the d-line, and keep our top players happy we have a chance to be really good next year with all that we have returning plus the expected development of those returning players. Playoff caliber good. Please, please football gods (and NIL coffers) let it happen.
 
#21      
BalloonsTheElephant
ChiefGritty said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1845822809722982572
https://twitter.com/x/status/1840753435530166658
https://twitter.com/x/status/1838215142343049600

We were significantly dominated on a play-to-play basis against PSU and were just lucky to find ourselves in the game, were in fact meaningfully worse than Purdue on a play-to-play basis taking the full game into account and were lucky to win, but we genuinely (albeit narrowly) outplayed Nebraska, and a narrow victory was a fair reflection of the quality of the performances, not a matter of luck (or bad refereeing, Husker Twitter).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1835677826777051621

We were also only narrowly better than CMU on a play by play basis and a couple of very costly CMU errors made the score look worse than the game was.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1833134249324798405

It was anybody's game against Kansas, which is maybe a little more favorable than it felt at the time, but being neck-and-neck with Kansas at home is a performance that has aged like fine milk.

The most impressive performance is Nebraska by a country mile. I feel like once you become advanced stats-literate you can pretty intuitively feel this stuff, the difference between luck and actually playing well (but luck is very important!)
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NCAA football is the sport where a team thinks it's vying for a playoff spot can lose a couple games and just collapse. Were they that good? No. But the separation from their perception to the reality of their situation causes the culture and locker room to crumble and it cascades into a lost season. I feel like that's Kansas this year and to a lesser degree, Purdue.
 
#22      
aaeismacgychel
ChiefGritty said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1845881913812156489

Agree with this, a very rare sight for an Illini QB. Which,

<whispers>....are we 1000% sure we're not losing Altmyer to the draft?

I was an Altmyer doubter, borderline hater coming into the season in full disclosure. But this is the most pro-ready QB play I think I've seen from an Illini since Kittner, he's a player totally transformed.
Click to expand...
My gut feel on Luke is that NFL scouts will tell him they want to see him get through his progressions faster. His accuracy especially on slants and the deep ball is already pretty much NFL ready and his feet are an added bonus. My guess is they advise him to stay one more year to show quicker recognition and eyes and if he can do it he has the possibility of working himself all the way up to a first round pick as crazy as that sounds. I think another year would be beneficial to him, however he will be losing 2 NFL caliber receivers, sooooo it might make sense if he dips his toe on the pool if he is told he's likely a midround draft pick.
 
#23      
therealmiket86
aaeismacgychel said:
My gut feel on Luke is that NFL scouts will tell him they want to see him get through his progressions faster. His accuracy especially on slants and the deep ball is already pretty much NFL ready and his feet are an added bonus. My guess is they advise him to stay one more year to show quicker recognition and eyes and if he can do it he has the possibility of working himself all the way up to a first round pick as crazy as that sounds. I think another year would be beneficial to him, however he will be losing 2 NFL caliber receivers, sooooo it might make sense if he dips his toe on the pool if he is told he's likely a midround draft pick.
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Luke can get a huge pay day in nil. It also doesn’t hurt that he would be in year 3 of this offense and have most of the starters make. Obviously losing Bryant and Franklin hurt a lot but we have a lot of talent at wr and will have money to spend in the portal. Will also have to find a LT in the portal but besides that the we will have a very experienced OL
 
#25      
Illinicpa14
aaeismacgychel said:
My gut feel on Luke is that NFL scouts will tell him they want to see him get through his progressions faster. His accuracy especially on slants and the deep ball is already pretty much NFL ready and his feet are an added bonus. My guess is they advise him to stay one more year to show quicker recognition and eyes and if he can do it he has the possibility of working himself all the way up to a first round pick as crazy as that sounds. I think another year would be beneficial to him, however he will be losing 2 NFL caliber receivers, sooooo it might make sense if he dips his toe on the pool if he is told he's likely a midround draft pick.
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Because there’s only one QB on the field - it’s probably a mistake to leave if you are not a top 1-2 round pick with a clear path to starting. If you’re a late round pick at QB, not even a guarantee you stick in the league (vs say a 5th round WR pick that can move up to 4th on a depth chart and prove they can play). If the moneys right, feels like NIL would always be the way to go.
 
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