Week 8 Other Games Thread, 2020 Season

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Mertz was helped by ILL playing a classic defense against WI.
Put too many defensive players within a few yards of the line of scrimmage for the WI OL to block and make WI beat you with a passing game.
It seems that will not work as well as it often did in the past.
 

Stan said:
BIG TEN GAMES ARE ON THE SLATE!!!!!!!!

Illinois at wisconsin
Nebraska at OSU
NC State at UNC
KU at KState
Auburn at Ole Miss
Alabama at Tennessee
Notre Dame at Pitt
Iowa State at Oklahoma State
Penn State at Indiana
Iowa at Purdue
Virginia at Miami
Cinci at SMU
etc.
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For extra tie breaking points

G5 GSU at 3-1 vs G5 Costal Carolina at 3-0
 

Plato said:
Mertz was helped by ILL playing a classic defense against WI.
Put too many defensive players within a few yards of the line of scrimmage for the WI OL to block and make WI beat you with a passing game.
It seems that will not work as well as it often did in the past.
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Mertz made some nice passes. But Wisconsin beating a team with their passing game was simply Illinois not covering someone in most cases.
 
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noamfromm said:
When you say Big Ten team we assume a level of competence above what Illinois is showing. Doesn't detract from Mertz, but Illinois is playing impressively bad.
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This. The only thing Illinois did right was run defense. But their offense was laughably bad. Even when their quarterback ran them into Wisconsin territory....you could just tell that they were done. Their QBs combined to go 8/22. And it's not because of lockdown defense. Their QBs couldn't throw $hit. Not only missing open receivers.....but missing BAD. On the other end....any play that wasn't a run saw a receiver or TE wide open. They're at Nebraska next week. That should provide a better test.
 





Wonder what all those Gopher fans picking us to lose to Illinois are thinking now...
 

No offense to Mertz, he looked really good. And he threw some dimes. But I think you could have taken the high school QBs from Kittson Central, Ely, Worthington or Lanesboro and they would have hit on at least 75% of those passes. The receivers were so open it was laughable. I really thought Illinois would be improved. Maybe they will work the kinks out...
 



Crosby said:
No offense to Mertz, he looked really good. And he threw some dimes. But I think you could have taken the high school QBs from Kittson Central, Ely, Worthington or Lanesboro and they would have hit on at least 75% of those passes.
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Don’t even get me started on how badly the kid from Totino Grace would tear them apart.
 

Crosby said:
No offense to Mertz, he looked really good. And he threw some dimes. But I think you could have taken the high school QBs from Kittson Central, Ely, Worthington or Lanesboro and they would have hit on at least 75% of those passes. The receivers were so open it was laughable. I really thought Illinois would be improved. Maybe they will work the kinks out...
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So Mertz is better than the past 40 yrs of gopher sht qbs. Morgan excluded.
 

MGGopher said:
The talk of Illinois being much improved may have been premature. Their secondary is putrid. Mertz has made 3 or 4 very nice throws. The rest have been to wide open receivers off play action. Typical Wisc QB'ing. He's a good looking player though for sure. Good for Wisc, because their RB situation looks extremely average as someone else mentioned. There's very little explosion there it would appear.
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Fire Lovie. Hire the best upcoming coach from the MAC.

Has worked very well for Minnesota and Iowa State.

That's the no-brainer move, if I'm the (new?) Illinois AD.
 

Their QBs combined to go 8/22. And it's not because of lockdown defense. Their QBs couldn't throw $hit. Not only missing open receivers.....but missing BAD. On the other end....any play that wasn't a run saw a receiver or TE wide open. They're at Nebraska next week. That should provide a better test.
[/QUOTE]

True, but Illinois' receivers also made a contribution to their stinky passing game.
 



MplsGopher said:
Fire Lovie. Hire the best upcoming coach from the MAC.

Has worked very well for Minnesota and Iowa State.

That's the no-brainer move, if I'm the (new?) Illinois AD.
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Also worked poorly for Illinois with Beckman and Purdue with Hazel. Though I think Sean Lewis at Kent State would be a great hire for them.
 

noamfromm said:
Also worked poorly for Illinois with Beckman and Purdue with Hazel. Though I think Sean Lewis at Kent State would be a great hire for them.
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Sure. And lower level coaches will continue to be not guaranteed things. But for a program like Illinois? I think it's much less likely to succeed with some retread head coach, or some assistant at a big program. Those guys seem to bust more often, to me.
 

MplsGopher said:
Sure. And lower level coaches will continue to be not guaranteed things. But for a program like Illinois? I think it's much less likely to succeed with some retread head coach, or some assistant at a big program. Those guys seem to bust more often, to me.
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Two notable retreads being Herm and Mack Brown have done well in the last couple of years. Though it'd be interesting to have the data on the comparison between establish coach vs rising star.
 

noamfromm said:
Two notable retreads being Herm and Mack Brown have done well in the last couple of years. Though it'd be interesting to have the data on the comparison between establish coach vs rising star.
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Good points.

I guess I was thinking in my head, but obviously failed to articulate: only fairly high-level retreads have worked out, and Illinois wouldn't be able to grab someone like that.

Maybe? Anyway, yes the actual data would tell the story much better than my gut.
 

ALTHOUGH ... you know who played at UIllinois .... don't you?

Hint: speaking of Mack Brown's (initial) retread staff at UNC .....
 

Well it appears that one guy on the gameday set knows something about Nebraska.
 


Holy sh*t! Nebraska just ran it down OH State's throat. 7-0 Huskers
 

Well that sucked. Nebraska O goes through OSU D like it wasn't there, on first drive.
 

Nebraska looking live very early. I've said it for awhile but it's best to get a team like Ohio State in the first game. We'll see next year.
 

Luckily Nebraska's defense is still horses**t.

Still holding out hope for an ugly loss for the corndicks. Might be a shootout though.
 


Rutgers with Schiano returning as head coach will be a team to reckon with. I think he had a good recruiting class, and he has won there before. The BIG has gotten a lot more balanced the past few years.
 


Wow, they just showed like 9 out 11 starters on Ohio State D are new.

Might have something to do with it.
 

Nice. Benhart gets bitched on 3rd down. Sorry, you left Minn for an awful program. No sympathy.
 

Ahhhh. Much better.

Do the Jets take Lawrence or Fields as #1? (or trade it) Tough call.
 

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