When his team would win or lose on the road....Raiders owner Al Davis on the plane ride home would ask his assistants coaches individually to sit with him give Davis five reasons why that assistant thought the Raiders won or lost? Davis felt it was a great way to figure out which assistants knew their stuff/football and those that were not up the job/understood why teams win or lose....five reasons why Illinois defeated the Minnesota Golden Gophers 26-14 Saturday in Champaign.
*Gophers vs. Illini crazy stat lines....Had to add some of these crazy stats…..Gophers averaged 2.1 yards per pass attempt....yikes that Mark Hoekstra/Brian Menkhausen territory (both good guys but not good QB's)....time of possession Illinois 40 minutes, Gophers 19:04....Illinois offense out-grained Minnesota 472-180 yards....beans and weanies this week for the Gophers offense......Gophers 'D' literally played a doubleheader Saturday 40 minutes on the field? that's a crime against football....one sustained Gophers scoring drive first half, eight plays/80 yards 55 of those yards came on two plays (44 on run/11 on pass)....Mo Ibrahim 127 yards rushing Saturday for Minnesota, 66 of them on two runs....game nowhere near as close as the score indicates....onto the countdown.
11AM-Football game of emotion/momentum....Illinois coming off two 'big' wins over Iowa/Wisconsin at home vs. a Gophers team off a bye week/home loss to Purdue/11AM road game...whack a mole the Goofs early....don't let them get that 'mo' emotion start the game....Illini offense take the opening kickoff/go on a nine play 75-yard touchdown drive showing Minnesota they came ready to play.
Returned serve-Illini 13-7 lead at half (should have been more will get into that later).....Gophers return 2nd half kickoff inside Illini's ten, TD few plays later lead 14-13.....uh oh....Momentum all Gophers....Illini return serve with a seven play 75-yard drive ending in a Tommy DeVito scoring run.....20-13 Illinois....shut Gophers offense down rest of the 2nd half.
Tommy DeVito-Running back Chase Brown another great game over 200 total yards...few in college football read/set up their blocks better than Brown...To me, DeVito was the 'star' on Saturday...25-for-32 with a TD pass/run...kept chains moving/no critical errors.…..in control, ran the game at quarterback like an Illini hasn't done since Kurt Kittner...yes I put DeVito's performance same sentence with Kittner....took what the 'D' gave him, wasn't reckless with any throws (couple of fastballs that went incomplete only nit picks had of QB)….outstanding day as ball distributor/game manager for DeVito Saturday.
Bad offensive lines don't travel-Late Bill Walsh's top priority for building a winning team/program wasn't the quarterback/offensive line it was.....'Must first find talented players on defense.....Defense is the key to improvement.....Must have pass rushers in the fourth quarter to be at least a .500 team'.....Illini have both.....write it all the time bad offensive line's don't win on the road and Gophers have a bad offensive line that the Illini 'D' exposed time after time....Minnesota knew they couldn't block the Illini front using their usual power/man gap scheme so they went outside zone...worked for awhile....Illini front too many times early tried to beat the Gopher blockers up field resulting in open run lanes for Minnesota runners....Defensive coordinator Ryan Walters adjusted, his backside defender was being washed out/blocked allowing cut back lanes....Walters kept that defender out wider, brought another defender over the top to plug the back side run lane, stuffing the Gophers run game after adjustment....Illini front did better job staying in lanes/gap control after adjustments.
As in the last five wins, Gopher QB's spending more time looking at the Illini rush vs. receivers down the field......after Minnesota QB Tanner Morgan knocked out....true frosh QB replaces him....three times frosh didn't slide/adjust pass protection correctly each time Illini 'D' saw the mistake/immediately blitzed free off the corner resulting in a sack/interception/negative play...2nd half again Illinois linebackers pointing where the Gophers were running the ball/beating blocker to hole......coaching/preparation matters.....hard to remember a time when an Illini defense has played as well as this unit has last five wins.
Discipline-Everyone remembers the 1985 Chicago Bears defense....best defensive unit in modern NFL history...what many don't remember is that the Bears offense that year was a ball control/time consuming drives that kept the Bears 'D' on the sidelines/rested....Illini offense had the ball 40 minutes on Saturday keeping their 'D' on the sidelines rested...loved it....wrote in the game preview Gophers were schemed not to give up chunk/explosive plays to the Ilini offense and other than the 40 yard wheel route TD...they didn't...made Illinois sustain drives on offense which they did....only a few times did Illinois 'fall behind the chains'....#63 twice called for holding an example, first hold call legit, 2nd one? nope....coaches always preach, 'don't beat ourselves' to their team....Illini disciplined on offense in the win.
*Airing of grievances...
Drank one of those Mountain Dew energy drinks before writing this....stuff makes me cranky too 'old' to be drinking them....got some things to say.
Red zone play-calling of Illini offensive coordinator Barry Lunney Jr. just has to be better.....game should have been a 38-14 42-14 win.....curious red zone play calling/execution by Illinois....as field shortens Lunney Jr.'s play calling gets more suspect....call that a '20-20' play caller very good between the 20's in the red zone? Able to get away with it vs. the Gophers Saturday down the line, not improving red zone play calling/efficiency going to lose the Illini a game they should have won……and don’t even get me started about having a lead 2nd half snapping the ball with 15 seconds on play clock with game clock running.
Bret Bielema said after the win bye week he was going to lead the Chase Brown for Heisman campaign touch base with his 'media' contacts get the word out.........isn't that the job of the Illini sports information office? I know head SID ‘Autograph’ Brown is allergic to football….He does have a staff to pass it off to....and friend of Bielema Patrick Pierson is the Director of Illini Football Branding and Creative Media with an SID background....seems odd the head coach feels he needs to 'lead' that campaign…c’mon should delegate to 'his people'...has more important things brewing...like recruiting.
'Toast of Champaign'....Illini off next weekend...everyone now slaps players/coaches on the back 'great job/great team'....how will the team prepare/react when they have to go on the road in what will be a tough game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers 29th? Everyone loves a winner/being a winner...Always a battle for college coaches....especially for a team/program that hasn’t had a lot of success recent years.
3 ? blocks on that return but....Illinois cover guys got out of their lanes....quite a mess that return
About the long KOR by Minny - it sure looked to me like a block in the back on Marchese. Thoughts?
Agree completely about Devito's performance, but you're right, he should be snapping the ball with :02 on the play clock.
I went cold turkey on any forms of Mountain Dew about 30 years ago. Too sweet... Thanks as always for your excellent insight and analysis.