brophog

Blowout baby, yeah

Boldness has its price.

Tanner Lee does not throw an interception.

Then the two worst QBs in the world become pick 6 pinatas.

Of everything I've seen in this thread, this is the most likely.

Someone has to do the dishes.

I usually do understand why, but early season lines can be all over the place at times.

That whole graduate transfer thing is a loophole that needs fixed, or make other player transfers easier. There is an argument birth ways, I suppose, but it's not a congruent philosophy as it stands by the NCAA. I'm a big fan of JUCOs, not a lot because you can easily overdo it and create class size imbalances, but we have some really good programs in the area. Especially athlete type players because even if they don't break into the depth chart in their limited amount of eligibility they can still play special teams and keep your talented 2 deep guys from having to play there. It's one of those things where if you do it smartly, you can get big dividends.

For Riley it's a no win situation. If they lose, it's the end of the world. If they win, it doesn't mean much....this is a very poor Illinois team. You almost can't beat them by enough.

I'm not a boo'er. If I'm that miserable, I'll stay home.

The notable thing about UCF is they are doing it on both sides of the ball. The offense gets a lot of attention because of what Oregon did and those connections, but the defense has probably played the bigger part in their success. Those records really just tell me Frost had some players to work with. A lot of openings do, but that's no guarantee of success. When you watch UCF, they look the part. There are execution mistakes, but they align well, they move well, and they really hustle. They look like a team that has a chance to really do something in year 2, and that's something we really need to watch for....because history strongly suggests any hire that can take us where we want to go will show it by years 2 and 3.

That's a good preview there. This is a different kind of bad team than Rutgers, whom is just devoid of talent. Illinois has some players ( though not at QB), they are just very young. Epstein has some very good runs, but they can't get enough drive consistency to get him enough carries. The two defensive ends listed, Gay and Roundtree, could present a big challenge if you try to throw the ball downfield 40 times a game. Unfortunately for Illinois, that's all they are at this point. Both of those players should be very good in a few years, though.

There's not a crispness to anything on the offense. The timing is always a little off, movements are clunky. It's a practice thing, obviously, but I don't know what they're doing in practice. You see it in the substitution patterns, too, only certain plays run with certain guys. I don't get it, tbh.

I wouldn't know. Can't recall the last time I saw so much max protect at the D1 level in non-conference play, and the running plays rarely leave the tackle box.

I would certainly stay away, for the reasons I cited earlier. I wouldn't trust any data models that rely heavily on scores and strength of schedule when it comes to Illinois. They're getting a lot of credit for Western Kentucky, but they played awful in that game. They won 20-7, but averaged less than 4 yds per rush and barely 100 yds passing. That game gives a very false impression of their defense, too...6 yds rushing on 16 attempts. Meanwhile Ball St had 171 on 51 carries, and South Florida had 376 on 66 carries. When you put on the tape of these three games, errors abound. This is a wretched offense and not a very good defense.

I'm now curious as to your reasoning.

-5.5 now. Curious.

This should be a cakewalk, but it probably won't be. Lovie has a good reputation, but this is a bad, bad defensive team. They do have a pair of DEs that can be disruptive if you allow them to pin their ears back. On the other side, their offensive line is one of the worst in college football. I couldn't believe what I saw, tbh.

Less than 1%.

Based on their written reasonings, I think they just couldn't stomach to watch these teams and just made stuff up.

Illinois has given up 3 sacks this year to their tackle sled.

Harmon is just trolling at this point.

Watching Illinois....believe it or not, Cav would improve that line play. Their pad levels are so high. Get pushed around up front against all 3 opponents. It's actually kinda gross to watch. Don't let your kids watch Illinois.

It's probably somewhere in between the Vegas spreads and that. UCF presents problems for any data model because they have only 2 games, where most others have 4, and those two games include a huge blowout and a respectable win against a team in Maryland. Furthermore, while Maryland looks pretty good in a dataset, that data doesn't know they're on their 3rd QB. Should be a good game, though.

The entire passing game has been awful. Bad play design, bad calls, no timing, bad decisions, bad awareness, sloppy routes, inaccurate passes, too many easy drops, poor pass protection by the line, backs and tight ends not knowing when to chip, backs and tight ends not knowing when to release. I'm probably missing things and I didn't even mention the i word. Can anyone think of anything that has been consistently not terrible in the passing game through 4 games?