Undone

"It's a great mental test for everybody," Riley said. Yes - it's a great mental test for you to try to run the ball on first down, and at least just see what happens.

That's just beyond depressing.

rofl

wtf are you even saying? I've never used the 'ignore' function on this forum, but you're probably a good candidate. You basically made up your point out of something that isn't there.

I mean, it does make sense to an extent. If it's truly a designed bootleg keeper, you probably want your guys running routes (except for your I-Back) in order to draw the secondary down field so your QB can make a play in space with his legs. But obviously, the point is that it was a bad play call. Hand the damn ball off to either Ozigbo or Janovich.

I think this is a reasonable point, good post. I also think there's a difference between the approach across the whole of the game, and what happened on our last series on offense. And probably way too many fans are combining the two. If we just hand the damn ball off on both 3rd and then punt on 4th, the percentage of Illinois' likelihood of winning the game drops to an incredibly low level. But it also seems obvious that we completely sucked on first down over the course of the entire game. In hindsight, we should have ran on first down, basically every first down. But you make a good point - that doesn't necessarily translate into "Riley doesn't understand the importance of running." I think that'll be determined in more detail this Saturday. Saturday is a pivotal game.

That's good to see, at least. Doesn't really mean that much at this point, but it's good to see. My only thought on Saturday night regarding this was basically just to lie to myself and say, "Maybe Riley really *is* planning to run against Wisconsin, and didn't want to show off his game plan to them against Illinois and just assumed that it would be a good time to try to work on Tommy's deep looks." Seems incredibly unlikely. And it's incredibly depressing.

This is a terrible post. GTFO with this stuff.

I don't know if that is the case in all scenarios, against Illinois on Saturday that was the case. When the weather is like that and you aren't throwing that well, the game plan needs to change. Agree with you both. I honestly believe that if Riley doesn't feature the run (and even more specifically, feature Ozigbo in the run) this Saturday that this will probably be the fastest "we hate our coach" campaign by the fan base at large that we've ever seen in the modern era. Would he deserve that? I don't know. Maybe not. My main question is, are we inventing this whole "Riley says that passing the ball is the hill he's going to die on" thing, or not? If that's really the guy he is, how does he really think he's going to fare in the Big 10?

This is a good thread, and a good OP by True. I agree with your thinking and the confusion of what's happening both with the running game and with our RB situation. A 'glass half full' response might be that even the fact that Ozigbo was featured at all shows that this staff isn't actually *completely clueless* in the run game. I'm somewhat hopeful in that respect. Maybe I'm way off here, but this is where I'm at - I have a much bigger problem with our coaches' approach to our first down presence than anything else. Way, waaaaaaaay too many lobs down the field (as Chatelain said, "like a grade schooler playing '500') on first down. Run the damn ball on first down, and set yourself up to *at least* play field position on the other team. That's Big 10 football - it's undeniable. We're going to fail miserably down the stretch if Riley fails to see this.

Agreed. That basically sums it up. Our defensive line was great. Like, really great. Collins was a force. There was a lot of rotation, lots of guys played, and almost all of them played well. I feel like we did more at linebacker, and had good help when we needed it to cut off running angles on the edge of the field. Defensively, it was a good day for us. Ozigbo finishes runs and hits holes with intensity. Those two things define him as worlds apart from Newby. The fullback 'trap' type play was again decent. Janovich's overall play is good. But Westerkamp's drop that would have put us in a position to either score on that play or at least get a field goal was so depressing. And the inability to convert one last first down to ice the game, which was practically exactly the same situation as BYU, was just unbelievable. So unbelievable, that it surely points to systemic problems this coaching staff has with both coaching the run, and their run philosophy in general. Illinois shouldn't have gotten the ball back, and BYU shouldn't have gotten the ball back. I think our coaches could potentially review the use of Ozigbo and create an altered game plan for Wisconsin...but I have very little faith in this.

This game was so incredibly painful. Dirty Dick nails it, obviously. Our offense had no direction or trajectory the entire damn game. Unbelievable.

It's unbelievable to think that they also missed both field goals, and we still let them stay in the game. It's so hard to lose this one, because our defensive line gave such a great effort today. Westerkamp had a TD reception in his hands and let it slip out. But our offensive effort, game plan, and execution was just about as bad as it's ever been.

F*** that f****** last series. It was BYU all over again. Our complete inability to ice the game by converting the first down on the ground is f******* awful.

This is what I'm saying. And furthermore, they really do not have the quarterbacks/WR combos to do it with, either. Let's get Pierson-El healthy. Let's work on our D-line. Then we've got a team that is definitely capable of winning all three against Wisconsin, Northwestern, and Minnesota. Period.

I'm really confident that we are a more *talented* team than Northwestern. And we've got an experienced coaching staff. So, on paper we should be a better team than they are. That's no disrespect to Northwestern - they've fielded a good squad this year. But we should not lose that game. So I'd be very disappointed with that one.

I know you made this post a couple hours after the game, so I'm factoring that in...but I don't think you've been duped yet. Because these non-con games don't really matter in the big scheme of what we're really capable of doing. We're still capable of winning a conference title. Does it suck that we're 1-2? Of course. But I'd have much rather played two challenging opponents (by anybody's standards) that will get us serious about conference play and lost than playing three South Alabamas and getting shocked when conference play starts. Nobody's been "Cally duped" yet. Not at all.

My expectations have lowered more as a function of how our program continues to not get back to "championship form," but not relative to anything with regards to entering the Big 10. We're in a drought that's going on 16 years of no conference title. I wanted a conference title so bad during the Bo years, and want one just as bad now. Have to end that drought...

The elephant in this thread with regards to the Dan Hoppen stat is that Bo was obviously so pathetically stubborn about not fully transitioning into a run-heavy defense when he moved into the B1G. Saying that he had a historically great pass defense here in the B1G years does nothing to assuage the pain of the Wisconsin blowouts that crushed our chances of winning conference titles at all, does it? It doesn't for me...

If we hold Wisconsin's running game in check and beat them, by any margin, and by any amount of passing yards allowed, I probably won't GAF about that hypothetical.

Exactly. And I don't understand the gripe about the quote from the presser in the OP. Why wouldn't you want to keep giving Davie the reps in order to work on his game in that area?

Totally agree, Saunders. I think this is what happens when you ditch the zone read and option - You free up countless practice hours that would have been spent running those plays, and you give him passing reps. Combine that with an offensive coordinator that clearly knows how to coach quarterbacks, and voila.

I'd say Cook has more intangibles as a QB in general. He's tougher; stands tougher in the pocket, can take more hits, etc. In my opinion, his arm is not as accurate as Kaaya's. And he's surrounded by a better team in general on both sides of the ball. But regardless of that whole discussion, we can give up the Michigan State game. We really need to do is to win against Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Northwestern. The point is, with an adjusted defensive scheme for stopping the run like Banker supposedly has, we're in a better position to do that this year.

Yeah. I'll take the opportunity to praise Kaaya again - dude has to be the best QB in the ACC, and is probably better than anyone in the Big 10, also (although it's a bit of an apples to oranges comparison with Barrett, probably). He really is pretty incredible.

And here's where I see the glass as half-full on defense also - Banker has his safeties play much closer to the line than Bo did. Banker wants to see his safeties in to help fill running lanes. So in the games that really matter for us in our division, I feel much more confident in our ability to stop the run. Stave and Stave's receivers, for example, are NOWHERE close to what Kaaya is/has. Even Connor Cook probably isn't as accurate as Kaaya. Meaning that in the games that matter, we're going to have the personnel and FINALLY the scheme to actually not get blown out against Wisconsin. And we should even be very competitive against MSU as well. All of this in theory should translate into much better Big 10 defensive play than what we've seen against Wisconsin when we've played them these last few years. Scheme-wise, I think our defense has a lot of potential to actually win our division this year.