Illini Football

Huge commit from Gabe Megginson yesterday. One of the top OL's in the nation.

HighJump31 said:

Huge commit from Gabe Megginson yesterday. One of the top OL's in the nation.

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Nice preview of a kid who will decommitt in a few months.

Probably. The excitement around this kid reminds me about the excitement around CJ Fiedorowicz committing to us. We all know how that ended.

What'll he be thinking when Illinois wins 4 or 5 games this year while OSU wins double digits and Wisconsin probably does too?

What scares me is there are rumors Illinois will also get two more big in-state guys in OL Quinn Oseland and TE David Edwards. Beckman better not fuck this up (he will).

HighJump31 said:

Probably. The excitement around this kid reminds me about the excitement around CJ Fiedorowicz committing to us. We all know how that ended.

What'll he be thinking when Illinois wins 4 or 5 games this year while OSU wins double digits and Wisconsin probably does too?

What scares me is there are rumors Illinois will also get two more big in-state guys in OL Quinn Oseland and TE David Edwards. Beckman better not fuck this up (he will).

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Those guys are marginal prospects anyways. I like Edwards more just because of his frame and athleticism but Oseland to me is a non-factor type guy. He's a big body...and that's it.

Season starts Saturday and more people are excited about Jalen Brunson's official visit. At least we'll get to see a victory for once.

I can't wait to see Lunt throw the ball around a lot. If Ferguson stays healthy, he should have a big year, too.

Apparently Lunt will have some nice receivers to throw to as well. Geronimo Allison has looked good, and won the starting spot in camp. Keep an eye on freshman Mike Dudek. Catches anything thrown in his vicinity. Starters are Allison, Martize Barr and Justin Hardee. Cubit wants to use about 7 receivers frequently this year too. Too bad Steve Hull isn't here anymore. Lunt to Hull would be dangerous.

Yes. Even though the Receiver corps had a lot of turnover this year, they should be pretty good. What will be interesting is to see if the D can improve. From a size standpoint, at least they matchup against other B1G teams on the D Line now. Ward, while not necessarily a starter, will be fun to watch. Hopefully, they get a surprise win somewhere and win the games they should and get to a bowl game. I-L-L!

I'm really excited about sophomore TJ Neal at MLB. I think he had one of the best camps. Have a feeling we'll see plenty of Ward and Paul James on the line this year.

Here's the schedule and my predictions-

Best case scenario
vs. Youngstown St- W 1-0
vs. Western Kentucky- W 2-0
@ Washington- L 2-1
vs. Texas State- W 3-1
@ Nebraska- L 3-2 (0-1)
vs. Purdue- W 4-2 (1-1)
@ Wisconsin- L 4-3 (1-2)
vs. Minnesota- W 5-3 (2-2)
@ Ohio State- L 5-4 (2-3)
vs. Iowa- W 6-4 (3-3)
vs. Penn State W 7-4 (4-3)
@ Northwestern W 8-4 (5-3)

Probable scenario
vs. Youngstown St- W 1-0
vs. Western Kentucky- W 2-0
@ Washington- L 2-1
vs. Texas State- W 3-1
@ Nebraska- L 3-2 (0-1)
vs. Purdue- W 4-2 (1-1)
@ Wisconsin- L 4-3 (1-2)
vs. Minnesota- L 4-4 (1-3)
@ Ohio State- L 4-5 (1-4)
vs. Iowa- L 4-6 (1-5)
vs. Penn State L 4-7 (1-6)
@ Northwestern W 5-7 (2-6)

I think Minnesota and Iowa are toss ups. But we'll finish anywhere from 4-8 to 8-4.

I think it will be really hard for them to finish 4-8 unless the defense is a total disaster again. 5-7 to me is the baseline. It's also interesting that UW has a new coaching staff (Peterson) and a new QB, yet it's an automatic win for UW. I thought UI competed well last year against them and they were clearly out-manned last season. It's just a really uncertain season. I hope they breakout and win the games they are supposed to win and suprise one or two teams while they are at it.

I don't trust Beckdick to fix this team. Should have kept Zook.

Part of Beckman's issue is that he came from a school in Toledo where he had a great recruiting base...and he wasn't even that great at Toledo. He wasn't having to run up against the big boys for recruits. He was having to out muscle schools like Bowling Green and Miami of Ohio. He jumped to Illinois from Ohio at a really rough time to try and recruit Big10 level players from his strongest area. Urban Meyer and Brian Kelly run that state right now. James Franklin going to PSU really hurts as well. In a few years Chuck Martin will have Miami turned around and he'll keep kids in the state too. The state of Illinois isn't a tremendous state for recruiting anymore(depth wise) and it's tough to get kids from Chicago to qualify.

I was never enamored with the Beckman hire to begin with. But a school at the level of Illinois in today's CFB environment is really hamstrung. Unless you find an alum like NW did in Fitzgerald it's not a destination job. It's a stepping stone or reclamation project job. You either need to catch a coach like Zook, O'Leary, etc looking for a second chance or latch onto the next hot name from the MAC, WAC, FCS, etc and ride the success for a few years like Cincy did with Brian Kelly or hope a coach like Chris Peterson stays around for years for no real reason.

The one thing Beckman does have going for him is that the B1G 10 right now outside of OSU and MSU is a dumpster fire of average to suck so he might be able to generate some wins against a Charmin soft schedule to save his neck. I think Illinois at it's best can be an upgraded version of NWestern for spots but for the most part it's always going to be the Big10's 6th team or so behind tOSU, scUM, PSU, Neb, MSU, and Wiscy fighting with teams like Iowa in the middle to middle lower tier.

Urblock said:

I don't trust Beckdick to fix this team. Should have kept Zook.

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Keeping Zook was not an option. His program was a mess and part of the reason why Beckman has had so much difficulty turning things around. Not that Beckman was my first choice but outside of a few guys on defense, Zoom didn't have a full team. Very unbalanced classes, etc. There is a lot to fix.

This is apparently going to be a weekly thing posted by the Illini Football twitter account.

This weeks uni's

It's time to dump the program

They didn't look very fucking good. Beckdick sucks.

Lunt looked nice after his rusty start. Him and the receivers will have to carry us this year though, because the running game sucks and the defense sucks.

I know a couple of the refs on that game.

Part of the problem with the defense was the offense not being on the same page for 3 quarters. As good as Lunt is, with all the moving parts that are new (WR) it's going to take a bit of time for the offense to click. The D line looked much better than the past several years. TOP was horrendous. WKU will tell a better story of where the team is at, but the OL is suspect with the run.

If the offense finally started to click in the 4th and they're good to go for next week, the final score next week is going to be like 57-54. WKU is a high flying offense. If we get off to a shaky start again, then we're going to get blown out.

Their QB Brandon Doughty is very good. He went 46/56 for 569 and 6 TD's last week against Bowling Green. Former Illini coach Jeff Brohm is their new head coach.