First, a personal note. I had to take a 7am flight out of CLE to Vegas Sunday morning and figured I could attend the game, get on the road by 4 and be home by 8PM. With the 9 OTs, few left early so it created a mad dash for the entire crowd. I ended up getting home ~ 10 pm and got up at 5am to catch my 7 am flight. Damn!
Outcoached by Bret Bielema! Wow.
Defense:
A perfect storm of shit. Brisker dropped INT, Johnson dropped pass, missed chip shot FG, Cain not reaching the ball into the endzone, SC getting hurt, no confidence in other QBs, Levis in KY, bad call by the refs, bad weather at the wrong time, missing PJ....
nine overtimes, and NCAA record, and we lose to an inferior team to a crappy coach who's been fired several times who outcoached us. What did I miss?
Outcoached by Bret Bielema! Wow.
Defense:
- On the first play, Ill came out with seven offensive linemen and two tight ends. That was nine upfront a QB and an RB. (and a damn good one). I honestly don't believe I've ever seen that. They ran several variations of this but almost never had more than one WR on the field.
- Penn State's answer to this was a cover two. That is 4DL, 3LB, 2CB and 2S. That leaves 9 big guys blocking 7 big to medium guys and two more to take out a CB or S who was in the 200 lb range.
- Illinois: Genius. PSU: Insanity.
- No PJ certainly hurt but it wouldn't have made much difference. But with 9 OTs, just a little difference may have won the game. But I suspect those inside runs would simply have been outside runs.
- PSU never had a plan for this, never imagined it. I am sure tossing in 6 DL would have been difficult because people wouldn't know their assignments.
- Run a goal-line defense, you say? Not a bad idea until you realize that PSU had a lead almost the entire game and would have risked giving up an easy, long score.
- It really was the perfect storm for ILL....a PSU defense thin at DL with their best DL out, a really cold and rainy day limited offensive creativity, PSU trying to play a conservative game to hold onto a lead by not giving up a long score or turnover.
- PSU defended the 7 one-play overtimes because the "long score" and "lead" were no longer concerns.
- But, you give up ten points in college football, you expect to win 99 times out of 100.
- In the end, I'd have liked to have forced them out of that game plan but giving up 10 points was not the problem.
- WTF?
- SC was bad and got worse. He actually had a lower QB rating than Sitkowski (20.7 to 17.8). That is lower than a snake's belly.
- There was a horrible non-call when SC was cheap-shotted by an ILL DL that wasn't called. SC was injured and barely made it off the field. He was probably in the 80% range before that and around 50% after. He just sucked, really. The kid is a gamer and fights through but CJF HAS TO KNOW when the kid is too hurt because he isn't going to say it. And that cost the team.
- I believe we were deep into the third quarter before we ran our first WR screen, which has been a bread and butter play for us all year. It is the play that loosened up both Wiscy's and Auburn's defenses. Why?
- When the run game isn't working, you go to your short to medium passing game. You exploit all levels and all of the three sections of the field (left, right , center). We had only TWO competitions to a RB (lovett) and 3 to TEs.
- We score a TD on a slant. More slants you say? Nope.
- Where are our vaunted TEs? Johnson dropped a VERY important pass over the middle and also missed a very catchable pass in the EZ that would. have won the game in OT.
- In the end, zero creativity when the RG was shut down. CJF should have put Roberson in for at least one series in the third quarter to run the ball and change things up. Also would have given SC time to catch his breath and sort out his head. His passes were off all day and the weather was not that bad. I am sure the injury along with dropped passes were in his head and he started to overthink things when he couldn't run. He had 5 runs for -28 yards. In CJF's defense, he didn't want a TO because we were winning by 3. I get it.
- Then we missed a chip shot FG......perfect storm.
- This was the lowest energy game I can remember. I don't think there were over 70k in the stands. The team picked that up and had zero energy. None. They simply weren't mentally prepared. Nobody seemed to want to be there.
- The worst call of the game was the fumble forward progress call. First, it took WAY TOO long and looked like. a fix. OK, in my dreams I can see that perhaps a whistle blew. I didn't hear one. But I watched the rest of the game and never was there a quick whistle. But what was worse is that they marked the ball as "no gain". It was set at the ten-yard line when should have been marked at the 7 or 8. In all of the confusion, they marked it in the wrong place. Every fan was yelling and the PSU coaches didn't seem to notice it. Horrible. ILL ended up getting a first down on 3rd and 3 which should have been 5 and would have changed the play-calling sequence.
- There was a horrible non-call when their DL roughed SC, and may have been the turning point of the game because SC was iffy to start but incompetent after that hit. The scoreboard played it 20 times, which I was shocked to see.
- the sequence where they called the illegal lineman downfield then pass interference, followed by a facemask on PSU to give ILL a first down was crazy. The ref crew, again, looked dazed and confused the entire game. There was also a horrible PI call on Porter for a key first down that was really bad.
- Again, poor coaching but the 7 OTs are DO OR DIE!!!! A fumble or INT is immaterial unless it is recovered and the defender goes the length of the field. Reach the ball out for shit's sake! Cain didn't and missed a game-winning score. PSU has to coach the kids to go all out and make that play...there is no tomorrow.
- With SC hurt, not a single sprint out which is the go-to play there. Spring the QB out. If the OLB stays back you run the ball and burry your shoulder into his gut and push him back into the endzone after pump faking. If he comes, you hit a TE at the goal line for a short pass. Again, poor play calling. So we throw a pass to SC but don't run a sprint out pass....sheesh.
- Brisker HAS TO make the INT. Has to. That will haunt him for years. We also missed an easy INT in regulation by a LB (12 or 13, can't recall)
A perfect storm of shit. Brisker dropped INT, Johnson dropped pass, missed chip shot FG, Cain not reaching the ball into the endzone, SC getting hurt, no confidence in other QBs, Levis in KY, bad call by the refs, bad weather at the wrong time, missing PJ....
nine overtimes, and NCAA record, and we lose to an inferior team to a crappy coach who's been fired several times who outcoached us. What did I miss?
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