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Any info on the Illinois defense?

Dreinhart

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Aug 25, 2019
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I think it’s fair to say they will be the least talented defense we’ve seen so far. I know I’ll get a bunch of “if we don’t score 50 were in trouble” type comments but does anyone know what they do well/not so well this year? I think our offense has at least an opportunity to catch it’s stride heading into the home stretch of this already half over season.
 
Well Nebraska looks like the least talented offense to each team we play.
Hope they get SOMETHING going soon. They need to start finding some kind of identity.
Illinois seems to be focused on causing mistakes, from the bits I’ve watched of them. I think Nebraska should score at least 35 but who knows with how they’ve been playing.
 
It will probably come down to our penalties and turnovers and if we can keep those at a minimum. What I'm most anxious to see though is if Luke makes progress from his first to second game as a starter. Obviously especially in the long passes.
 
Illini have the worst ranked pass D in the B10. Not sure what that mean for us?
It means that Frost needs to allow Luke and young receivers to have a full fledged practice of their passing game. Inferior pass defense should allow us to do this and still win even with a few growing pains (ints and such).
 
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We average 2 points in the second half of games this year. Two. We also happen to be near the worst in points allowed per second half at 19.7. Those stats are, of course, intimately related.

If that doesn't change, I don't see us winning another game. Sean Clifford is a big reason we won last weekend.
 
It means that Frost needs to allow Luke and young receivers to have a full fledged practice of their passing game. Inferior pass defense should allow us to do this and still win even with a few growing pains (ints and such).
Agreed, absolutely no reason to go conservative against them.
 
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When the opposition is playing 2 deep zone it would be foolish to have our QBs throwing bombs.
I remember last year they sat back and waited to light up JD and Wandale.
As bad as we need deeper throws, if they’re playing deep off the ball it may be tougher.
The proverbial take what the defense gives will apply.
WR’s may need to settle down in the soft spots to get their yards, which fortunately is our only pass game so far. But on time, accurate throws are a must.
If they press in man, seeing we haven’t completed any deep throws in 3 games, we gotta be ready to test them taking shots.
 
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From what I've seen their DL is fairly talented. Minnesota ran all over them which is good news for us.
 
We had a tough time with them last year. We played sloppy and had several turnovers which gave them the lead in the first half. Eventually our O wore they out and scored at will. They were laying the wood to our WRs. Play a clean game and Huskers should win by 10-14 pts. Play sloppy and it’s a toss up. Hate to say that but our guys are still figuring out how to win games. Definitely don’t want to see them come out flat after a big win over Pedo St...
 
I think it’s fair to say they will be the least talented defense we’ve seen so far. I know I’ll get a bunch of “if we don’t score 50 were in trouble” type comments but does anyone know what they do well/not so well this year? I think our offense has at least an opportunity to catch it’s stride heading into the home stretch of this already half over season.


Illinois and Michigan are the only two teams in the Big Ten to have allowed both 300+ yards rushing and 300+ yards passing in separate games. Illinois has done it twice. That's a pretty interesting stat because its not overly common thru a four game stretch. Most teams hang their hat on one area defensively. Or opponents go into a game plan thinking, "we can run the ball on these guys that's what we're gonna do, or we can light up their secondary, that's where we are going to focus."

Teams are going into Illinois only focusing on themselves. They aren't fearful of Illinois taking away anything.

It starts with up front, Illinois had a good defensive line last season. But all four starters are gone now, and that really impeded the direction of their defense. So far, they haven't been able to ramp up the same pressure which propelled them to a rare 4 game league win streak in 2019. One of their starting Defensive Tackles is a Grad Transfer from FCS South Carolina State. So far this season, he's been overmatched and outclassed.

Their linebackers and Safeties are good. ILB Jake Hansen is arguably the most underrated defensive player in the Big Ten. I won't be surprised if he's playing in the NFL ten years from now.

Illinois is good in the back middle third of the defense. But they are really struggling out on the perimeter. It really rests with that Defensive Line. They're just getting lit up regardless of opponent.
 
Other factors to consider-- we just won our first game- against a name opponent- and with a new quarterback. We can't wait to get back on the field for another game. Illinois beat Rutgers (big deal) but is going nowhere, and its going to be 46 degrees and rainy. I don't think they will want to be here. As long as we don't fumble 4 times in the rain, I think we win by 2-3 touchdowns and maybe more.
 
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This year has been nearly impossible to get consistent reads on teams. Illinois is no different.

I am still waiting for a complete game from the Huskers in all three areas. It has been so long, I don't recall the last one. We don't have to dominate all three but winning them would be a nice change. We can't give up 32 points a game and let a QB run up and down the field at will. When will be ever get a consistent running game established? If not this weekend, when? I am one to think if our passing game does not improve significantly, there is not much hope of our running game doing better. Right now we just stink throwing and catching the ball.

This will be a good game to break out of the funk.
 
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I think it’s fair to say they will be the least talented defense we’ve seen so far. I know I’ll get a bunch of “if we don’t score 50 were in trouble” type comments but does anyone know what they do well/not so well this year? I think our offense has at least an opportunity to catch it’s stride heading into the home stretch of this already half over season.
yeah they suck
 
I agree. There aren’t going to be any pushovers for us. We need our best game or we could easily lose.

The sad thing is Pennsy, our teams of late are completely capable of losing every game they play no matter the opponent. It is the reality we are currently in. The days of looking at the schedule and putting a check in the win column are long gone. Every game is a toss up and battle to the end.
 
From what they've shown so far, they are overall a worse defense than they were last year.

With the loss of Betiku, Illinois has virtually no pass rush from their D-Line and they don't blitz much as they can't cover in the back end one on one.

Their best best overall player on Defense by a wide margin is MLB Jake Hansen. The rest of the front 7 though is not good. Besides not having a replacement on the line for Betiku, it doesn't look like they have a replacement for Harding at linebacker - and the guy that they probably thought might be that replacement in Milo Eifler looks like he's regressed.

*not sure it has any bearing on the reason for that regression but Eifler was one of the few players who was quite outspoken about not wanting to play this season.

It doesn't help that their Outside Linebackers and Safeties take awful angles too often and don't have the speed to recover.

They were expected to have a very solid (though incredibly thin) secondary this season with Hobbs, Adams and Smith being joined by RSFr Marquez Beason - their highest rated recruit in the Lovie Smith era as a legit DB rotation. But Beason has been a complete non-factor and the rest of the DB's are having to make a ton of tackles in the 2nd level because their front 7 outside of Hansen can't do anything and thus they end up getting burned deep pretty regularly.

The one thing they do well (especially Hansen) is create turnovers. It is almost like either they get a turnover before you reach the redzone or they aren't stopping you from scoring. Minimize turnovers and you win pretty easily against them. Otherwise you end up in a dogfight, just like we saw last year.
 
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