MSU vs Illinois

[johnny2x2x]

Delton Williams is diesel!

 

[LuciousGameWinner]

Thomas in at DE

 

[johnny2x2x]

After an iffy 1st half, very impressive win. Feel like we're playing well and are ready to have a great game next week.

 

[johnny2x2x]

Illinois had 17 yards and 1 first down in the 2nd half. Outside of a 20 yard run, they had -3 yards in a half total.

 

[LuciousGameWinner]

I know we haven't played the toughest schedule but this defense is right up there with Alabamas, not just statistically, but the schemes, the pursuit, the tackling. They're really impressive. The more dominant they are the more confident I am that this is Narduzzis last year.

 

[johnny2x2x]

I know we haven't played the toughest schedule but this defense is right up there with Alabamas, not just statistically, but the schemes, the pursuit, the tackling. They're really impressive. The more dominant they are the more confident I am that this is Narduzzis last year.

Illinois was averaging 446 yards of offense a game, we held them top 128. It's a great defense. We did this without our best DT in Hoover who will play next week. This will drop our yards per game allowed to about 216 yards a game, over 50 yards better than the #2 defense in the nation.

Should be a fantastic matchup next week, won't be posting as I'll be sitting at the 50 about 30 rows up.

GO GREEN!!!

The O line is playing well. Backs are showing potential and the receivers are catching everything. Cook is hot and cold, but shows he has potential, the one thing I am noticing more than anything offensively is that our WRs are blocking very very well.

 

[Sbee]

Looked good this week, UI defense is non existent though. We did a really good job w their passing game. We definitely have the legends inside track with Nebraska losing

 

[johnny2x2x]

Graham Couch predicted a 24-14 win for Illinois, Drew Sharp 24-23 for Illinois.

Hey, it's not like we looked great the 1st half, but mostly it was self doing, a lot of mental mistakes. Last week against PU Cook was very bad, but the offense was OK, Cook just was inaccurate. If the team plays smart and doesn't beat itself, they can win out.

 

[Spartanmack]

The record and defense look great but I'm not convinced we're a good team. Ill DOES NOT have a good offense. In 4 losses they've only thrown for over 175 yards in one game - against wisco where they had 4 plays over 25 yards and 70 yards in garbage time. This was not a good team on either side of the ball. We've still played more bad games than good ones and yet posters are calling last week a blip and pointing to this game as proof - Ill hasn't won a B1G game since 2011 when they won only 2. As many points as we scored this game was won as much on defense as offense - gave great field position and 128 yards and 3 points. The offense did possess the ball 39 minutes and scored a bunch but that says more about ill defense than our offense.

At least the coaches figured out that we need to be a running team - 55 carries to 16 pass attempts and none by a tailback. It's about time.

All that said, the B1G is soft enough that the defense could win them all.

 

[johnny2x2x]

Illinois and Michigan were averaging the same yards per game coming into yesterday, except Illinois did it against defenses whose average rank was 49th where as Michigan opponents defenses averaged 73rd. Illinois was a bad team, but a good offense.

Early line is MSU -4.5, opened at -3.5, went up to -5, but seems to have settled at -4.5.

 

[Spartanmack]

Illinois and Michigan were averaging the same yards per game coming into yesterday, except Illinois did it against defenses whose average rank was 49th where as Michigan opponents defenses averaged 73rd. Illinois was a bad team, but a good offense.

Early line is MSU -4.5, opened at -3.5, went up to -5, but seems to have settled at -4.5.

Excellent cherry picking of data. Look at Illinois' performance in their losses vs the performance in their wins against cupcakes. Illinois' offense stinks. Thankfully their defense is worse. Also look at the difference between the 49th and 73rd ranked defenses. They don't look all that different. Anyone who thinks Illinois is better than Michigan is crazy.

 

[johnny2x2x]

Excellent cherry picking of data. Look at Illinois' performance in their losses vs the performance in their wins against cupcakes. Illinois' offense stinks. Thankfully their defense is worse. Also look at the difference between the 49th and 73rd ranked defenses. They don't look all that different. Anyone who thinks Illinois is better than Michigan is crazy.

No one thinks they are better than Michigan. Just that they have a decent offense that we just completely shut down. Scheelhasse is a good and smart QB, after the 1st quarter he got nothing. They had 17 total yards in the 2nd half, take away a 20 yard run and they had -3 total yards in a half. That's total domination.

Illinois is not good, but we did to them what a good team should do to a bad team. Illi's biggest win was dominating Cinci and blowing them out while putting up 522 yards, Cinci is not chopped liver, they blew out UConn 41-6, the same Uconn that had Michigan beat.

We're a 4.5 favorite over Michigan, and we deserve to be.

 

[johnny2x2x]

Cannot wait until Saturday.

 

[LuciousGameWinner]

Spartan mack you're a half empty kind of guy aren't you? I don't see how someone can't see improvement in our offense. Do you remember that we couldn't score on USF and Western? Western is winless if I'm not mistaking, so the fact that we put up 42 on an 'awful' defense in week 9 is pretty good considering the fact we couldn't score without the defense the first few games. The Legends division is really weak this year so a subpar offense just might get the job done.

 

[LuciousGameWinner]

Cannot wait until Saturday.

Have fun at the game!

 

[gotime909]

Excellent cherry picking of data. Look at Illinois' performance in their losses vs the performance in their wins against cupcakes. Illinois' offense stinks. Thankfully their defense is worse. Also look at the difference between the 49th and 73rd ranked defenses. They don't look all that different. Anyone who thinks Illinois is better than Michigan is crazy.

What exactly were your expectations for this team?

 

[Green and White 95]

Boy was I wrong, lol. Illinois stinks. It was kinda close in the first half until we decided to run them out of their own stadium. Now, we see the best offense we have seen yet next saturday. I cant wait !!!

 

[Sbee]

Boy was I wrong, lol. Illinois stinks. It was kinda close in the first half until we decided to run them out of their own stadium. Now, we see the best offense we have seen yet next saturday. I cant wait !!!

pretty amazing that we held the ball for almost 13 straight minutes of game play. we went from the goal line stand with 8 minutes left, ran it all the way down, scored, then got it in the 2nd and had another long drive. scheelhause left the field down 7-3 at the goal line and then gets it back 21-3

 

[Sbee]

No one thinks they are better than Michigan. Just that they have a decent offense that we just completely shut down. Scheelhasse is a good and smart QB, after the 1st quarter he got nothing. They had 17 total yards in the 2nd half, take away a 20 yard run and they had -3 total yards in a half. That's total domination.

Illinois is not good, but we did to them what a good team should do to a bad team. Illi's biggest win was dominating Cinci and blowing them out while putting up 522 yards, Cinci is not chopped liver, they blew out UConn 41-6, the same Uconn that had Michigan beat.

We're a 4.5 favorite over Michigan, and we deserve to be.

IL was averaging almost 450 yards per game, we held them 300 under their average. it's not often you get to say that, they also played good teams in the big ten so far, they just scored 32 against Wisconsin.

a good part of the yardage differential can be attributed to the time of possession but our defense brings it, every week

 

[Spartanmack]

Spartan mack you're a half empty kind of guy aren't you? I don't see how someone can't see improvement in our offense. Do you remember that we couldn't score on USF and Western? Western is winless if I'm not mistaking, so the fact that we put up 42 on an 'awful' defense in week 9 is pretty good considering the fact we couldn't score without the defense the first few games. The Legends division is really weak this year so a subpar offense just might get the job done.

Screw the glass, I prefer to drink from the bottle. How soon you forget the Purdue game. How much did our offense score against them? Are they better in week 9? Yes. Are they good? No, as evidenced by week 8. We just hung 42 points on a team with a front 7 full of guys that probably didn't earn much better than all-conference or honorable mention all-state in high school (this is an exaggeration Johny so don't waste your time finding out how many of them were recruited by WVU, Cinci, BC and even MSU). They suck. If you think we'll have the same success against michigan whose line is better but far from elite, with 55 carries and 16 pass attempts you're kidding yourself. We scored 10 points on them last year with Bell. Our o-line is our major weakness and it will be revealed again this week against a marginal defense.

I think we will beat michigan but not because of anything new I saw from the offense against Illinois.