We follow the trend and get up 2-3 scores early. Make it close toward the end though. 40-35 Dawgs. Also, ILL will run something more traditional than UH or Rice, which will play more into the ability of our defense.
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We follow the trend and get up 2-3 scores early. Make it close toward the end though. 40-35 Dawgs. Also, ILL will run something more traditional than UH or Rice, which will play more into the ability of our defense.
Dawgs 41
Illini. 30
SO shutting down our running game compared to what we have seen is us getting like 5-6 ypc?? is that bad? Maybe if we can get that it will improve our time of possession and limit the time our d is on the field. Also our passing game hasn't been ineffective so even if we don't have the same success we should still have that option.. Just sayingOriginally Posted by dawg78
I think SD is going to push our offense to scoring some crazy numbers in the first half with the intention of getting do far ahead that the Illini cannot catch us, I really think the Illini will have a lot of trouble adjusting to us in the first half. The second half will be a different story though, the Illini will outscore us in the second half, but not quite enough to pass us, I believe we leave with a victory and still some questions about our defense.
King breaks off at least one long td run and eclipses 100 yards for 3rd straight game. Dawgs win 34-24
I'm sitting here watching Illinois get manhandled by Arizona State on ESPN3 and am seriously wondering why everyone thinks the Illinois defense is so good. I'll be honest--and I've heard the same thing about all the NFL talent on their roster--they don't look a bit better up front than Houston or Rice. ASU was in its second game under Todd Graham and didn't look nearly as polished/efficient on offense as we do, yet they ran the ball at will against Illinois using nothing more than the zone read. The few times Illinois did stop ASU's running game, it was because their safeties came up in run support. But with our play action passing game, they won't be able to sell out on the run. If they do, Patton, DJ Banks, and White will burn them deep. ASU was also able to exploit Illinois with its inside receivers in both the running and passing games, which could bode well for Lee and Holley. I see nothing in this game that leads me to believe we'll see much, if any, drop-off in production this weekend.
On defense, I'm thinking it could be to our advantage if Scheelhaase plays. Although he's a senior and the most experienced QB on the Illinois roster, this is his first year in this offense and he's only played 2.5 quarters this season. The other two guys--O'Toole (passer) and Osei (runner)--have played the last two games and look pretty good. No question they'll both be more comfortable in the offense at this point. Plus, I've seen Scheelhaase play several times and have not been impressed... although we have a knack for making any QB look impressive...
As far as the ASU game, it looks like the Sun Devils were mainly using 3 down linemen and varied the number of LBs and DBs. What I like is that they're walking their nickle and sometimes even one if their safeties up on the line of scrimmage, giving them as many as 8 in the box. This allowed ASU to disguise its blitzes and coverages, and it really seemed to confuse the QB and the Illinois OL. I have been hoping to see something like this out of Spangler in the first couple of games since we have some pretty seasoned (and hard hitting) nickles and safeties, while our main deficiency seems to be from the LB position. This would, I believe, help us get some more speed up close to help pursue sideline to sideline, which we desperately need after watching the Rice RB and QB break contain time and again last week. Anyway, just thinking out loud after watching Illinois get spanked by ASU. I honestly see no reason why we don't win this game comfortably.
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