Fixing the Illini

Enough ranting, raving, and bitching. Now that the Illini are 1-4 and the season outlook seems really bleak. After listening to podcasts, and reading message boards and newspaper articles, it seems like everyone has a different person to blame for why Illinois is losing. I also have plenty of people to blame, but instead of doing just that, we at Durty Butter are going to tell you exactly what Illinois needs to do in order to maybe finish 6-6 and make a horrible bowl game.



1) Let Juice throw the ball/play.


Juice can't throw 5 yard outs, and he can't really throw bubble screens. In order for the Illini offense to be good, we need to have crossing routes and deeper routes where Juice is forced to either fire the ball in, or put a little touch on the ball. Juice's arm strength does not allow him to throw the ball with any touch inside of 10 yards. Beyond 10 yards, he has good touch, he makes great throws down the sidelines, its just that Fayson and Cumberland haven't been able to catch them. We have all seen the great throws that Juice has made in his 3+ years. If you don't agree, then you are an idiot and should start hitting yourself in the head with a tack hammer because your brain is useless anyways. Where Juice gets in trouble is short timing routes that make him lock on to a receiver. Eliminate those, and Isiah can be a solid QB.
Eddie McGee should only enter the game if Juice is hurt. And by hurt I mean that both of his arms are broken. I have been a Ron Zook apologist for the last 5 seasons, but last week I couldn't take it anymore. Feel free to go back and read my post about how terrible Eddie was going to be. I really love to say "I told you so", so Will, I told you so. If anyone still has any doubts about Ron Zook's coaching ability, you need to look no further than the fact that he has yet to say that Juice is starting this week. Both players are taking equal snaps in practice!! I am appalled, and if Eddie starts, or heaven forbid, even plays, I will never forgive Zook. Not making a bowl last season was bad enough, but becoming the BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL is unforgivable. Which brings me to my next point.

2) Zook needs to swallow his pride a little bit

First example is the Eddie McGee fiasco. By benching Juice, Zook basically gave the Spartans a 2 quarter and 24 point head start. And according to him, it wasn't the fact that Eddie went 2-11 with a pick 6 and 60 yards of offense that led to him getting benched. No, it was the look on his face after the interception. Screw his look!!! Are you out of your god damn mind?! You have 60,000 people in the stadium, and thousands more at home that want to see the team win a god damn game, or at least compete in one!! Zook would rather see his players look like they are trying to perform, rather than perform. I for one am not going to pay 50 bucks to drive down to Champaign to watch this shit anymore, and there are a lot of other people who have joined me.

Second example is the defense. Zook will not allow his secondary to play tight on people until the game gets out of hand, and we know that the team plans on running the ball for 2 quarters. Zook isn't a god damn mind reader, and I have news for you, neither is Urban Meyer, Mack Brown, or Pete Carroll. You don't win a damn football game with the game plan you came up with on Monday morning!! Ohio State threw the ball 2 times in the first half of a down pour, yet Zook would not put 8 people in the box to stop the run. Mizzou never wanted to throw the ball past 10 yards, yet Zook didn't want to tighten his coverage. Penn State was content to run the ball, and also throw less than 10 yards, and Zook neither placed a safety in the box, or brought up his corners. How hard is it to try and take away what the other teams offense wants to do and make them change their gameplan?

The last example is Mike Schultz. Zook obviously does not want to admit that allowing Schultz to change the philosophy of the offense was a mistake, and that Schultz needs to adjust his play-calling in order to adapt to his players. After the first damn game every Illini fan saw the flaw in Schultz play-calling!!! We threw one pass over 20 yards when the strength of our offense was our receivers and a QB who can throw it deep. Yet now 5 games into the season, we still don't open up the playbook until the middle of the 3rd quarter when we are down by 3 touchdowns.

3) We need to pick up the pace on offense

I find it really humorous how the last 10 or so games that we have played, when Juice is getting drilled in the backfield or basically running for his life on every other play people don't really seem to care. However, all it takes is 2 quarters of Eddie McGee looking like shit and people are starting to realize that our offensive line is crap. You know why our line was good 3 years ago? It really didn't have a ton to do with the talent, it had a lot to do with the tempo that we ran our offense. Locksley loved to hurry up after a big pass or long run, it was his calling card. By doing this you catch everyone on the defense off guard, but especially the lineman. Here are 5 things that happen when you run a hurry up, or no-huddle when the other team doesn't expect it.

1) You don't allow the other team to substitute. Either they have to keep the same people on the field or call a timeout. Who does this hurt the most? The big ass defensive lineman.
2) The defensive lineman don't stunt at all. Basically all 4 of the them are coming straight at the offensive line, there are no tricks or surprises.
3) The defense can't call a blitz. If a blitz does come, it is very vanilla in the fact that it is usually just a linebacker.
4) You know exactly what personnel is on the field. If the team is set in a nickel, you can run the hell out of the ball, if they have a 4-3, you can assume that they will either be in man coverage, or 2 linebackers will be dropping out into a zone coverage.
5) Your team is reacting instead of thinking. You will limit the amount of dumbshit false starts and holding penalties that our O-Line loves to get because their assignments are basic.

You want to know why we could move the ball so well last season, but got bogged down inside the 20? It was because we could move when ever we wanted when we picked up the pace, but inside the 20 we slowed down, and then defenses were able to take advantage of our weaknesses. We didn't have a power back like Mendenhall, who could not only run it in, but could keep defenses honest with a play action fake. We were afraid to try and run the ball. We relied to heavily on the pass towards the end of the season, that teams would pin their ears back and take advantage of our 2 Freshman offensive tackles. Our line and QB got worn down, and we couldn't rely on Dufrene to carry the load, and we had 2 true freshman trying to help him out.

Here is the secret to our success in 2007: In a 13 game season we only had 17 touchdowns that were scored from 10 yards or less. 5 were scored from 10-20 yards out, and 18 were plays that were 20 or more yards. Think about that! We had less touchdowns within 10 yards as we did outside of 20. 8 of those were running plays, but 10 were still touchdown passes of over 20 yards. The sad thing is, is that isn't even in the game plan anymore. We were able to do this with a Sophomore QB who was coming off one of the worst seasons that an Illini QB has ever had throwing the football, and a receiving corps that was led by Freshman Arrelious Benn, Jacob Willis, Jeff Cumberland, Brian Gamble and Kyle Hudson. Not the most talented group, but we caught people off guard by our changing of the tempo.

4) We need to cause turnovers.

It has gotten to the point of the season where we can no longer sit back and watch other teams beat the shit out of our defense in the first 2 quarters of the game. I was asked last week why we don't have many turnovers. We actually get a decent amount of fumbles, but we don't get any picks for the 2nd straight year. Last season we had 6 (2 were courtesy of Eastern Illinois) this season so far we only have 3 (2 were courtesy of Illinois State). This is probably the most glaring deficiency of our team because it's not like the Big Ten is putting out quarterbacks in the First Round every year. Here is what needs to happen in this order:

1) We need to play tighter on the wide receivers and disguise our coverages more. If I see another corner playing a zone coverage in the flat not at least bump the receiver off his route before the guys flies past him, I'm going to kill somebody. This is not the corners fault, because this happens all of the time, so this has to be a Zook philosophy. Bumping the receiver throws the timing of the route off!!! And guess what, this is actually legal in the NCAA!! Why on God's lovely green earth would you rather have a receiver get a free release when bumping him is an option????

2) With the coverage tighter, it will take away quick routes that are consistently thrown and completed on us. Teams like Mizzou and Northwestern will no longer be able to complete slants, drags, 5 yard outs and 7 yard stops on us when ever they fell like it. When you take away quick routes, you allow your defensive line a chance to actually get a pass rush. With how quickly teams get rid of the ball against us, there could be 3rd grade girls playing on the offensive line, and the D-Line still wouldn't be able to get to the QB.

3) With pressure, QB's make poor decisions, and a scrambling QB is less accurate than one who can sit in the pocket. By actually playing man occasionally with safeties over the top, you no longer have QB's just throwing the ball to an open spot, and a receiver just running to that spot. You might actually have a defender there to make a play on the ball. In order to do this though, Garrett Edwards can not be in the game. He is the perfect safety for a loose cover 2, or cover 3 because he has enough speed to get to a receiver after he has caught the ball. In the current defense all he has to do is make sure that he is in position to make a tackle. Go back to Penn State and Michigan State and look at how many times the ball was thrown over the top of the corner and in front of Edwards. It is staggering. Bottom line, the idea that we don't want to give up big plays is useless, because instead of giving up big plays, we just allow teams to march on us and score a touchdown and use up 7 minutes of the game clock. It is time we played a little risk reward defense.

4) Stop using a delayed blitz. If teams are already getting rid of the ball as fast as they can, what the shit is sending your middle linebacker on a delayed blitz going to do? If you are going to continue to do this, then the corners have to be allowed to jump routes, otherwise all you are doing is opening up the middle of the field to a TE or a receiver slanting across the middle. If you are going to blitz, then time the damn thing right. Also perhaps a weak side blitz more often would be great. Ian Thomas almost killed Pryor from Ohio State, and we have brought the corner a couple of times, but not nearly enough.

That is basically it. A lack of pressure allows QB's to get comfortable and get into a rhythm. They don't have to make spectacular throws, because there is really no one there to defend the pass, and they don't have to do it on the run because they aren't holding on to the ball long enough to get rushed.

Here is the bottom line: I feel as though you can't really place too much blame on the players because they are not being placed in a position to maximize their potential. Plain and Simple, it is the coaches fault. Sure the defense misses tackles occasionally, but that is going to happen when you are running 10 yards to a spot and trying to make a play on a receiver that has already caught the ball and is turning up field. And really does it matter? What is the difference on 3rd and 5 if the receiver picks up 8 or 12 yards? You still conceded the first down when you lined up 7 yards off the ball, and your first move was to back peddle.
I even can't blame the offensive line for giving up so many sacks, because by the 3rd quarter even the lady selling nachos knows that the Illini are going to drop back and pass, so teams are blitzing the hell out of them.
I can't blame the running backs for not playing better because they each only get 7 carries, and everyone knows that they are either running a zone read in the middle, an off tackle zone read, or an option to the trips side of the field. Its like going on a blind date and bringing your friends and family along to tell stories about how you peed your pants in kindergarten, how you cried at the end of Titanic, and how you have probably spent more time in a strip club in the last 10 years than you have inside of a church. You don't really have a strippers chance in heaven do you?
I also can't blame the QB's or receivers, because you are running and throwing routes that you are not comfortable doing. No one on this team should have to try and catch a pass from Juice while running a 5 yard drag because no one can. (Rejus was actually the one who dropped this one, and even though the commentator got on Juice about it, the ball hit him in the hands, and was in front of him).
It has gotten to the point now with this team where no one has any confidence in any of their abilities. Not one person was put into a position to excel or succeed because they were going to be put in a position where their talents were enhanced (except maybe Garrett Edwards) The only thing that I can safely predict is that Donsay Hardemann will hit somebody hard against Indiana. Thats it. Other than that, all we can do is pray that Indiana is worse than we are.