Illinois 50, Purdue 49 OT Postgame

#452      
Illini-Rule
mhuml32 said:
Game notes


1. Reminder about how Illinois isn't a blue blood and the system is so delicate that it falls apart with one person removed. Xavier Scott out for the game and there were at least three big assignment errors in the second half that led to 100+ offensive yards.
2. The warning signs are staring to pile up for the defense. Another bad showing from the defensive line, struggling to contain a mobile QB and missed tackles. Linebackers getting exposed for a second game. Not as much of an issue shedding blocks but so many missed tackles. Secondary had serious secondary issues for the first time this year and don't need to be repeated.
3. Going off of the previous number, tackling issues are becoming rampant - defensive contributors with tackling grades below 40: Jacas, Kreutz, Briggs, and Barna. Not a great quartet with the team coming into town next week that is going to run the ball 30+ times.
4. Rosiek was much improved yesterday. Him, X, Miles Scott, Bailey, Edwards, and Coleman are the defensive foundation.
5. Kaleb Patterson is taking some much-needed steps forward. Last two games he's been targeted seven times and only allowed one catch. His run defense needs improvement but he might be the best coverage corner on the roster right now.
6. Luke Altmyer appreciation B1G QB rankings:
*4th in adjusted passing yards per attempt (10.1, was only 6.3 last year)
*1st in passing TDs (14, he had 13 all last year)
*5th in passing efficiency rating (167.7, was 131.9 last year)
*On pace for most Illinois QB passing yards since 2013 Scheelhaase
*Current pace numbers are 2,852 passing yards, 28 passing TDs, 2 INTs
*Last one, and biggest: Altmyer's current QB rating would be the highest in Illinois football history.
7. Hank Beatty - #1 punt returner in Big Ten. Averaging 16.6 yards per return.
8. Pat Bryant still on pace to shatter the Illinois WR TD record. He'll need to pick up the pace to get to 1k receiving yards.
9. Offensive line - Henderson started in place as a change up from the past starting five and he was okay. Crisler later got snaps and had one of his better games by PFF grades. Kreutz with three straight 80+ passing grade games. The good pass blocking - bad run blocking on the interior is still a problem and there aren't a lot of remaining solutions beyond starting Wigenton.
10. McCray was awesome. Averaged 2.8 yards after contact. Had his highest elusive rating score of the season. He more than made up for Feagin being out.
11. Lunney needs to find a way to have more play designs under center. I don't have a ready stat for it but it feels like their run success rate out of the pistol and under center are miles apart. Michigan is a tough game to try to mix in more under center because of their pass rush so not sure it's something you see next week but it needs to be run more going forward. The team can't keep expecting Altmyer to bail out all of these 2nd and 8/9 yards scenarios.
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What is really discouraging for me is all of the talk last week about self-scouting during the bye week and fixing issues.
1) why did tackling not improve?
2) why did run blocking not improve?
3) why don't we self-scout every week? I would think that world be the #1 thing on the list for the coache's to do. But per Henry's presser last week it doesn't sound like that happens except during bye weeks. But maybe I just misunderstood him.
4) seemd to me our pass blocking is getting worse, or teams have just figured out how to play against our offense. We don't seem to have an answer for when teams blitz.
5) it also seems like our edge rushers/defense ends bite on every fake up the middle and crash hard to the middle. I thought they were supposed to stay home and look for outside runs/reverses, etc.
 
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#454      
pvaughn8
TheDrinkinLincoln said:
Starting to get the feeling/drift that Walters may have crossed a line professionally that might be linked to the long gaps from firings and hirings on the defensive side of the ball at Illinois. Like maybe someone caught wind of who we were hiring and bad mouthed Brett personally to spike the hiring. Which is on them for listening to that Dbag, but is definitely not something that is done in the old boys club of coaching.

That in addition to the more run of the mill recruit stealing, sign stealing, gamesmanship that is more typical of master apprentice coaching rivalries.
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I haven't seen this specifically alluded to here at loyalty. Did you hear this somewhere else or are we playing "everybody post a theory and see which one gets liked by an insider"?
 
#455      
Illini2010-11
Illini-Rule said:
What is really discouraging for me is all of the talk last week about self-scouting during the bye week and fixing issues.
1) why did tackling not improve?
2) why did run blocking not improve?
3) why don't we self-scout every week? I would think that world be the #1 thing on the list for the coache's to do. But per Henry's presser last week it doesn't sound like that happens except during bye weeks. But maybe I just misunderstood him.
4) seemd to me our pass blocking is getting worse, or teams have just figured out how to play against our offense. We don't seem to have an answer for when teams blitz.
5) it also seems like our edge rushers/defense ends bite on every fake up the middle and crash hard to the middle. I thought they were supposed to stay home and look for outside runs/reverses, etc.
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Offense was fine yesterday. Not really much to complain about there. Nearly 8 yards per play, and averaged about 5 yards per carry.

The defense was 100% the problem. Never adjusted to the offense run by the freshman qb.
 
#456      
Ander1345
pvaughn8 said:
I haven't seen this specifically alluded to here at loyalty. Did you hear this somewhere else or are we playing "everybody post a theory and see which one gets liked by an insider"?
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I'm pretty confident there's not a singular incident, or we would have heard about it by now. It's probably that Walters got an ego about him and didn't care what rifts he made to try to succeed. Frankly, we are better off. Patterson's recruiting had fallen off big. Love turned out to be not the back we thought. Card is looking like we dodged a bullet. Kane might be the only one we miss? Seems like we played the run a lot better though of course we had Johnny freaking Newton.

Frankly, Bret strikes me as the kind to work hard and build meaningful foundations. Walters perhaps tried to jump rungs on the ladder by poaching our assistants and supposedly trying to cozy up to a lot of our recruiting/portal visitors. Of course Bret takes it personally, he hired Walters and it reflects on him.
 
#457      
AutoPoster 3000
It’s been mostly lost that we were cruising to a blowout win in the first half. Purdue had 9 yards passing. Then they came out for the second half, ran through the Marching Illini during the 3 in 1, and then the game got out its mirror and razor and snorted ALL the coke. Purdue scored on every one of its second half possessions. Then add to that Bielema’s strange and cryptic post game where he was clearly signaling something.

Something odd happened. Maybe us message board outsiders will never hear the truth. But none of that was normal.
 
#458      
Illini2010-11
AutoPoster 3000 said:
Something odd happened. Maybe us message board outsiders will never hear the truth. But none of that was normal.
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You Cant Handle The Truth GIF by GIPHY News
 
#459      
STLini25
ChiefGritty said:
It was a plus decision at the 2 yard line and a minus decision at the 18.

It's an unusual scenario (and even more unusual for it to matter the way it did), but there's not really any doubt about the math.

That doesn't make Bielema a bad strategist in general, we all make mistakes.
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I think a lot of people including Bielema would disagree with you saying he made a mistake there. I’m confident he would defend the decision and he would do it again in the same situation.
 
#460      
gibb52
The good news: We won. If you've been a fan for 10, 30, or 60 yrs you've seen many nut punches where something weird or stupid happens and we lost games just like this one.

Also good news: It was a hellaciously fun, tragic, entertaining, excruciating and crazy game to watch. Enough to supply an entire season's supply of nerve calming cocktails and doobies.

The bad news: We were really bad defensively in the 2nd half. Purdue found something they could exploit and we were incapable of adjusting. The qb/rb running combo was deadly effective and when we did make some adjustments they would hit us with a surprise pass. I can't see Hudson Card starting again soon.

Head scratcher: We didn't stop the PU running game at all. So on the 2 pt conversion to tie the game they go empty backfield and and eliminate the dual threat? The one thing we couldn't stop? Pretty stupid play call on their part. Discuss.
 
#462      
Illini IndyCar Fan
Ander1345 said:
I'm pretty confident there's not a singular incident, or we would have heard about it by now. It's probably that Walters got an ego about him and didn't care what rifts he made to try to succeed. Frankly, we are better off. Patterson's recruiting had fallen off big. Love turned out to be not the back we thought. Card is looking like we dodged a bullet. Kane might be the only one we miss? Seems like we played the run a lot better though of course we had Johnny freaking Newton.

Frankly, Bret strikes me as the kind to work hard and build meaningful foundations. Walters perhaps tried to jump rungs on the ladder by poaching our assistants and supposedly trying to cozy up to a lot of our recruiting/portal visitors. Of course Bret takes it personally, he hired Walters and it reflects on him.
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This season would have turned out completely different if the Illini had landed the more highly targeted Card from the portal and someone else "had to settle for" Luke. Thank goodness it worked out the way it did.
 
#463      
lstewart53x3
Illinois football currently has the same record as or a better record than:

Georgia
Ohio St
Alabama
LSU
Clemson
Tennessee
Notre Dame
Texas A&M
Ole Miss
Mizzou
Kansas St
Michigan
Oklahoma

In the past 24 seasons, we have 18 seasons where we had 5 or less wins for the entire season and we’ve matched that in the first half of this season.

Enjoy the ride my friends.
 
#464      
Fly Illini Fly!
Poe's Law said:
Unrelated, but can somebody explain the offensive pass interference on the 2pt conversion? Don’t recall ever seeing that called against an O-linemen and the replay didn’t answer any questions for me.
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From what I understand, it should've been called ineligible lineman... not OPI... which is massive because the latter is 15 yd penalty as oppose to 5.
 
#466      
BlueFlag
gibb52 said:
Head scratcher: We didn't stop the PU running game at all. So on the 2 pt conversion to tie the game they go empty backfield and and eliminate the dual threat? The one thing we couldn't stop? Pretty stupid play call on their part. Discuss.
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Yep, . . . an odd play selection to be sure.

Their QB sat in the pocket looking for receiver separation on a short end-zone field and got sacked for the first time in the game.

Great result for us.
 
#467      
TheDrinkinLincoln
pvaughn8 said:
I haven't seen this specifically alluded to here at loyalty. Did you hear this somewhere else or are we playing "everybody post a theory and see which one gets liked by an insider"?
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Wild speculation trying to fish information out of true insiders ;)

It just seems like more than run of the mill axe to grind. Football is full of guys like Walters (Brett previously being one of them) and it seems odd Brett would be so heated about a guys personality he has dealt with regularly.
 
#468      
pvaughn8
TheDrinkinLincoln said:
Wild speculation trying to fish information out of true insiders ;)

It just seems like more than run of the mill axe to grind. Football is full of guys like Walters (Brett previously being one of them) and it seems odd Brett would be so heated about a guys personality he has dealt with regularly.
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Yeah it sure sounds like something specific happened, not just the long developing beef. I'll be keeping a close eye on this.

If Walters manages to save his job this year, we will have a truly exciting rivalry
 
#469      
Mr. Tibbs
Illini2010-11 said:
Offense was fine yesterday. Not really much to complain about there. Nearly 8 yards per play, and averaged about 5 yards per carry.

The defense was 100% the problem. Never adjusted to the offense run by the freshman qb.
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it is mind boggling that our coaches could not figure out adjustments by half way through the 3rd qtr when it was obvious they knew how to move the ball finally .

it wasn’t just the absence of X or Strain .
 
#470      
Illini in Italy
lstewart53x3 said:
Illinois football currently has the same record as or a better record than:

Georgia
Ohio St
Alabama
LSU
Clemson
Tennessee
Notre Dame
Texas A&M
Ole Miss
Mizzou
Kansas St
Michigan
Oklahoma

In the past 24 seasons, we have 18 seasons where we had 5 or less wins for the entire season and we’ve matched that in the first half of this season.

Enjoy the ride my friends.
Click to expand...
Happy Gavin Free GIF by Rooster Teeth
Happy Aww GIF by MCDM
 
#473      
18T
I don't think we should discount one other aspect of our poor performance in the second half. Football, as with all competitive sports, has an emotion component. Momentum and self-confidence count, too. These are 18-20 year old young men. Leading up to the game, the coaches could, and no doubt did, warn the players until the coaches were blue in the face that they could not take this game for granted and think that just because we were playing a very poor football team at home we could expect an easy win. Even so, it would have been easy for the players to think otherwise especially after taking a 27-3 lead. Over-confidence is a dangerous thing. As so we cruise through the first half playing well scoring 27 points and holding Purdue to 3 which supported a that over-confidence. And so, thinking the game was all but won, perhaps many of the players took their foot off the accelerator. Thereafter, our momentum vanished and Purdue's perked up big time. This should be a good lesson for this team going forward. Never, ever let up.
 
#474      
Hingle McCringleberry
Walters and Purdont have Oregon, Ohio State, and Penn State over their next 4 games, with a cointoss game with NW in that stretch. Best he comes out of those 4 is 1-3 IMO, so Walters staring 2-8 or 1-9 after that stretch (barring a miracle, which they almost got with us).

Then Purdont finishes with MSU & IU (#18 currently).

Most likely final total is 2-10 or 3-9. Does he survive that record?

Karma is a b!tch Ryan
 
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