Official Illinois Championship Week Thread

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RogueGopher

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4-1 Minnesota travels to 5-1 Illinois. Match up of too strong defenses and 2 elite rushers in Mo Ibrahim and Chase Brown.
First place on the line, season on the line, who's gonna get it?
 

Gophers open as 2 point favorites. Line could move higher if Illinois' QB remains out.
I would expect Mo to be playing this week.
 





Xerxes_ said:
Looks like the line has moved to Minnesota -6.5
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Did they announce that DeVito is out? Wouldn't be surprising given how bad the injury looked at the time and that would certainly explain the line moving in our direction as Sitkowski is not a good QB.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Did they announce that DeVito is out? Wouldn't be surprising given how bad the injury looked at the time and that would certainly explain the line moving in our direction as Sitkowski is not a good QB.
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Not sure, but the line moving was likely due to PJ saying MO is going to play
 

MNVCGUY said:
Did they announce that DeVito is out? Wouldn't be surprising given how bad the injury looked at the time and that would certainly explain the line moving in our direction as Sitkowski is not a good QB.
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This is mostly on the Vikings, but I'd rather play the injured starter than the back-up. It feels like Minnesota teams always make the back-ups look like stars.
 

RogueGopher said:
Not sure, but the line moving was likely due to PJ saying MO is going to play
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Maybe, but it is still a road game against a really good rushing defense and I have to think Vegas would have set the line with the idea that Mo was going to play given he was 2 weeks beyond nearly playing against Purdue.

DeVito injury however would explain a bigger swing.
 



howeda7 said:
This is mostly on the Vikings, but I'd rather play the injured starter than the back-up. It feels like Minnesota teams always make the back-ups look like stars.
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Not in this case. The starter at Illinois(DeVito) is actually pretty decent. The other guy will make them extremely one-dimensional.
 

Gophers flat out need to man up and win this game. This one will be tough. The defense they play is going to make it hard on us. Also, they saw what Purdue did, it confused our QB and Offensive coordinator. Expect them to sell out to stop our run.
Morgan and our WR have to do their job. You can't expect your offensive line to consistently win battles when they are undermanned and you are running the slow developing RPO all game long.

Likewise with our defense. If indeed their starting QB is out, this is a sell out game to stop Chase Brown. They have nothing that can hurt you besides him if indeed they have to start their #2 guy.
 

Go Gophs said:
Gophers flat out need to man up and win this game. This one will be tough. The defense they play is going to make it hard on us. Also, they saw what Purdue did, it confused our QB and Offensive coordinator. Expect them to sell out to stop our run.
Morgan and our WR have to do their job. You can't expect your offensive line to consistently win battles when they are undermanned and you are running the slow developing RPO all game long.

Likewise with our defense. If indeed their starting QB is out, this is a sell out game to stop Chase Brown. They have nothing that can hurt you besides him if indeed they have to start their #2 guy.
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especially if their most dynamic wr is also out
 

MN will face a stacked eight-man box and will need a very effective passing game right from the start.
It would be an excellent time to get the TEs some play-action passes.
 



This is a game where our tight ends really have to stand up and get noticed either catching a few passes or blocking. That opens up things for Mo, and occasional deep shots to Jackson and maybe another nameless wide receiver who has yet to make an impact for us. Defensively we should be able to stop them.
 



This week is not only going to show us the resolve of the gophs, but we also get to see if penn state is for real. Personally, I think the auburn win is not as impressive as it first seemed. This week should tell us a lot about both of the division races.
 


DoubleDeckerDons said:
This week is not only going to show us the resolve of the gophs, but we also get to see if penn state is for real. Personally, I think the auburn win is not as impressive as it first seemed. This week should tell us a lot about both of the division races.
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Off-topic side note, but college gameday going back to Tennessee and not ann arbor is laughable.
 

DoubleDeckerDons said:
This week is not only going to show us the resolve of the gophs, but we also get to see if penn state is for real. Personally, I think the auburn win is not as impressive as it first seemed. This week should tell us a lot about both of the division races.
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I like that our game with Penn State is sandwiched between their two huge division rivalry games.

As for the game with Illinois, it will be a huge one for the West division race. I have felt for a while that 3 conferences loses basically eliminates you in the West, so one of us is leaving with 2 conference loses after this weekend. Hopefully we take care of business and it is Illinois that finds themselves with no margin for error over the remainder of the season.
 




Go Gophs said:
Gophers flat out need to man up and win this game. This one will be tough. The defense they play is going to make it hard on us. Also, they saw what Purdue did, it confused our QB and Offensive coordinator. Expect them to sell out to stop our run.
Morgan and our WR have to do their job. You can't expect your offensive line to consistently win battles when they are undermanned and you are running the slow developing RPO all game long.

Likewise with our defense. If indeed their starting QB is out, this is a sell out game to stop Chase Brown. They have nothing that can hurt you besides him if indeed they have to start their #2 guy.
Click to expand...
We win the rushing battle by coming out throwing and get an early lead. That makes them defend pass and opens up running lanes for Mo. We know if front is not packed and he has some holes he is the best back in the land at yards after contact.

It will be a big mistake to try to establish the run first.
 


Cannot let Chase Brown have out of the gate plays. If Brown breaks tackles and gets lose it can be game over and scoring plays. Staying in the correct spots, and not over pursuing or getting out of position and tackling are key.
 



gopherdudepart2 said:
Cannot let Chase Brown have out of the gate plays. If Brown breaks tackles and gets lose it can be game over and scoring plays. Staying in the correct spots, and not over pursuing or getting out of position and tackling are key.
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Guess it is a good thing that our defense is very good at doing all those things then....
 


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