Wistrom Disciple

- Illinois might be in the coaching search business sooner than later. Bert doesn’t look happy and his team looks bad in all phases. - the Bye week comes at the absolutely perfect time. We need to heal up a whole host of players - Haarberg survives another week as the starter. I cannot tell if he’s improving or simply improvising. Each step forward seems to be followed by a step or two backwards. Ultimately we are winning which is most important, but man are we getting lucky.

HIP HIP

Haarberg dropping the snap on the first play put us behind the chains. I understand the frustration with Sims, but HH does not look like he's ready to be the starter and finish games. Plenty of opportunities today and has looked largely unimpressive.

You mean as a tight end?

Gotta love when that happens!

Haarberg couldn't hit him with the passes in the first half. They're trying to find ways to get him the ball with a limited passing threat.

I didn't mind the play calls as receivers were open and the line was giving him quite a bit of time. I did not like the decision making coming from the gunslinger. And based on Rhule's reaction after that third down pass, he also didn't like Haarberg's decision-making. FWIW, I didn't mention Sims or 2-minute drill. Haarberg is going to need to hit some more passes if we hope to get our run game going. They have stuffed Grant and Johnson as the first half progressed. If we hope to be able to continue running, we need some of the passes to connect and soften up the defense.

Which part was nope? The coaches being unhappy or HH making bad decisions? That said, I agree that we should have ran, but the play developments looked decent. We just didn't have a QB in who could complete those passes.

Let's not blame the wind for poor decisions by the QB there. Overthrew Kemp twice and the sidearm motion is just asking for the defense to pick him off. That said, the coaches should have taken the ball from his hands and just run it up the gut to get to halftime.

That was more on HH... coaches unhappy with his decision making.

You two gave me a good laugh back to back. He's made some good plays today, lucked out on a few more. We're very lucky Illinois looks more NIU and not Michigan.

Just leaning on the goal line... HH needs to keep the legs moving, that is a basic.

I don't think that was broken, I think that was by design. By HH never pitches it so the defense is keying in on hitting him. He hesitated and they hit him at the line.

A lot of drop back passes in a row. Need to keep running at them and not fall in love with the pass.

Fair point, our defense did have to regularly face 80+ plays a game so the new clock-eating offense this year has helped us a lot this year on defense.

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Extending that steak without being shut out... looks like we've already won the day fellas (and ladies)!

Both penalties on Teddy, otherwise they've been looking solid to start today.

Haarberg looking more confident to start today, nice to see.

Van Poppel getting some early PT, nice to see some of the new guys getting in and making some impact plays. I think Rhule might have some of Bo's eye for talent in him. Cam, Van Poppel, Princewell look very promising at this stage.

Still significantly better than +90% of the country and most of our opponents. So the NIL argument is essentially a moot point. Comes down to the coaching and development. Thank you for the link though, pretty neat stats.

Bingo! Anyone thinking NIL is the reason we have not been winning at the level we expected is looking for the easy answer. I would have thought last year's Texas A&M NIL program would have taught some lessons as they bought the top rated class only to see a disappointing season followed by a lot of players transferring. To win anything of importance, football still comes down to coaching, development, and game strategy. We have enough talent, size, speed, etc. on the team to win +80% of our games in any given year. Where we have been falling short is in the development and coaching of the talent on the roster. I believe Rhule & Co. is in the process of correcting this, but it will take time. NIL alone will not solve these issues and bringing in mercenaries is not a sustainable strategy.

I've never understood why we are on the East side. I get that for the one, maybe two games a year where it is cold and the sun is out, it can help keep the team warm. But for the other 5-6 games, especially the early season games, we're looking into the sun and/or getting blasted from the heat without shade. Looking up at the West skyboxes is a pretty cool visual for recruits, but otherwise I don't see a lot of value in sticking to the East side. Additionally, it seems more logical to put the opposing team closer to the louder area of the stadium near the students.

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I've acknowledged the long runs, they were impressive. If he continues to be the starter, I hope that he can replicate those more often the rest of the year. Short of that however, he will need to significantly improve his passing and/or ability to create plays outside the pocket when a play breaks down.