****Illinois Game Day Thread****

You aren’t going to win when;

1-Your defense gets out schemed and plays like a$$ for a full game.

2-Your special teams are the wrong kind of special and the only kicks you can make are extra points (maybe). And they wonder why we are chasing 3. It’s because we cannot get 3.

3-Your offense can’t play a complete game, progressively gets worse as the game goes on, gets out coached and completely folds in crunch time.

4-The B1G officials conspire to f#&% you every chance they get. No holding? Riiiight. No late hit? Umhuh. No arm hit to the QBs head right in front of them? Yup.

Now I’m not blaming the refs because not even they could have saved us from ourselves but man do they hate us for some reason.

The Kool-Aid has gone bad. At least it hung in there for 3 games this time.

 
Sure would have made a difference if the defense knew how to cover play-action passes, and simple crossing routes.  Cost them 3 TDs and several 3rd down stops.  

If only White knew the importance of that.  And if the players only knew how to stick with their responsibilities.  Guys were wide open.  

 
admo said:
Sure would have made a difference if the defense knew how to cover play-action passes, and simple crossing routes.  Cost them 3 TDs and several 3rd down stops.  

If only White knew the importance of that.  And if the players only knew how to stick with their responsibilities.  Guys were wide open.  
Click to expand...
It’s cuz you didn’t cheer hard enough

 
I was far too pissed last night to post. I woke up with the need to think differently to salvage my mood for the weekend.  Here is my attempt. The showing in overtime was a disaster, on both sides of the ball, and everyone saw that. A few plays fall differently by a few inches and we win in regular.   Yes, that is football I know.
 

I am still optimistic.  We have the most promising quarterback in college football. Read that again out loud. When was the last time Nebraska could say that?  Yes the line play and kicking game let us down.  Talent and development are critical but assignment and scheme are too. Going 12-0 was not a sincere expectation.  But using every game this year to improve and build around this kid should be not only an expectation but a demand.  

 
Watching live there were 2 plays that stood out to me in real time.

The first was the QB draw on 3rd & 9 from like the 13ish.  They motion empty to a diamond formation into the boundary.  NU has 4 vs 4 and Bullock leaves the box late to align in the alley.  That is just way too unbalanced defensively.  You'd prefer to see them peel the Jack off his pass rush post snap, but even if you aren't aware that's an RPO, the defenders on the field should recognize they just took that screen away, & have the field WR 2 on 1.  What's left???  They convert a 4th & 2 on the 2nd drive in a row and tie the game. 

The second was the run in OT.  They motioned the H-back from a trips formation into the boundary to outside leverage on Ty and Gifford was the only defender who made any type of adjustment and he merely took a few steps towards the middle of the field.  I don't know if Ty needed to remain the contain player & force the ball inside, but if he was supposed to spill that as he did, who was supposed to replace him as the force player and who was the alley defender?  As it turned out, Singleton took a bad angle and Gifford was too slow.  I'm not very familiar with the structure of the 3-3-5, but yielding all this open space to the wide side was exploitable, and as a player alarm bells have to be going off when you see this.  

 
OK, it took me a while to be willing to do this.  But, I had to go back and watch overtime again and figure out why it was absolutely so pathetic.  I think I was hoping that I could see the problem was maybe one player or something. But, it was a different problem on every play.

1st - Gottula jumps off sides.   :facepalm:

1st b - Gottula actually is blocking well, but the guard totally misses when he was supposed to pick up the stunting defensive player up the middle.

2nd - The line actually held for a little bit.  Raiola needs to get rid of the ball way sooner.  Wishful thinking is he finds a receiver on a shorter route to dump it.  But, once he's running for his life, he's gotta throw it away.

3rd - Not a bad play.  Should have been a penalty at the end giving us more life.

4th - The RB totally misses the blitz.  Doesn't even look.  He's helping Gottula.  My only thought is that maybe he was told to make sure he helps him.  But, by doing so, there's a free guy right up the gut.  The line was actually holding well.  But, there's just a free guy with nobody there to block him.  i don't think there were any short routes for Raiola to dump it to.

So damn frustrating.

 
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