The Buchanan Suspension And Defensive Depth September 9, 2010
As I’m sure you’ve heard, Bandit Buchanan has been suspended following a DUI arrest. Putting his decision to drive to get pizza at 2:30 in the morning aside – in my day, we ordered Grog’s at 2:30 (home of mold!) – I want to look at our ever-decreasing depth on defense.
Had I made a depth chart in March (around the time we began to understand what type of defense Koenning would run), it might have looked something like this. (Injured/suspended/released players are in bold)
DE: Clay Nurse – Whitney Mercilus
DT: Josh Brent – Akeem Spence
DT: Corey Liuget – Lendell Buckner
Bandit: Michael Buchanan – Nate Palmer
SLB: Nate Bussey – Ashante Williams
MLB: Martez Wilson – Evan Frierson
WLB: Ian Thomas – Aaron Gress
CB: Terry Hawthorne – PNY
CB: Tavon Wilson – Miami Thomas
S: Walt Aikens - Supo Sanni
S: Garrett Edwards – Trulon Henry
OK, so the linebacking corps remains intact. But we’ve lost half the two-deep in the secondary and half the two-deep on the defensive line. Can any team – let along a young team with a new coordinator – go through personnel changes like that and still be OK? There has to be a breaking point, right?
Thankfully, the next three weeks bring us SIU, NIU, and a bye week. Hopefully, by the time the State University Challenge gets here (OSU-PSU-MSU), we’ll have Hawthorne, Palmer, and maybe Buchanan back out on the field. But until then, we’re really thin in the secondary and Nicole Richie-thin on the defensive line.
So what will the D-line rotation look like this Saturday? Zook announced that Clay Nurse would slide over to bandit, with Whitney the Mercilus starting at rush end. I’m not sure if I like that – can Nurse really drop into coverage like Buchanan can? – but it’s probably our best option. The other option would be to start Justin Staples at bandit (he practiced at rush end most of camp), but apparently the coaches think getting Mercilus on the field is more important than getting Staples on the field.
Backups at each position would probably be Staples over at rush end and true freshman Brandon Denmark at bandit. Denmark did practice at Bandit all throughout camp, albeit third string behind Buchanan and Palmer, so he has the most experience at the position. Is a true freshman ready for 20+ snaps on the defensive line in his second game? I think we’re gonna find out on Saturday. Denmark burned his redshirt on the opening kickoff against Missouri – might as well find out what the kid can do.
Here’s how I think the defensive rotation plays out on Saturday night.
Defensive Tackle
Corey Liuget and Akeem Spence start and play the most snaps
Glenn Foster is first off the bench
Daryle Ballew gets 10 or so snaps
Defensive End/Bandit
Clay Nurse and Whitney Mercilus start and play the most snaps.
Justin Staples backs up both positions, getting a fair amount of snaps at rush end.
Brandon Denmark gets a decent number of snaps at bandit.
Linebackers
Same as it ever was – Nate Bussey, Martez Wilson, & Ian Thomas start and play the majority of the snaps.
Aaron Gress is first off the bench.
Ashante Williams gets a few snaps at SLB.
Cornerbacks
Justin Green and Travon Bellamy start and play the majority of the snaps.
Patrick Nixon-Youman is first off the bench and probably gets more snaps than the Missouri game.
Jack Ramsey is probably the same – many more snaps than he saw against Missouri.
Safeties
Trulon Henry starts at free safety and Tavon Wilson at strong safety.
Steve Hull gets a ton of snaps at free safety. Possibly more than Trulon.
Joelil Thrash gets 10-15 snaps backing up Wilson.
One more thing. This just hit me now, and I want to bury it here so I can quote myself next year and say something like “as I told you last September…”
If Steve Hull can produce at safety – a bigger “if” might be whether he stays at safety – I think you might see Trulon Henry move to the Nate Bussey Sam Linebacker/3rd Safety role next fall. Mercilus-Spence-Liuget-Buchanan, Thomas-M. Wilson-Henry, Green-Hull-T. Wilson-Hawthorne. 9 starters return, everyone has experience.
*takes deep breath, concentrates on beating SIU first*
Random thought: Would we better off having Ramsey move back to WR? Seems he’s 4th on the depth chart at CB and will move down after Black Cat gets back. Recieving corps could use the help, seems to me he could see more time at WR than CB going forward.
Also, anybody know how long Palmer is out? I haven’t seen anything about other than him being left off the depth chart and game notes saying “Toe Injury”.
BEAT SIU. The last two times SIU came in, they made things interesting. 1985, they had a chance to tie at the end of the game, but their FG was blocked or missed or something. Hell, I was 11, living in Maryland and not an Illini fan at the time, so I think that’s what happened. In 1990, Howard Griffith scored the first of his 8 touchdowns when SIU was up 21 points. And I’m almost 100% sure that this edition of SIU is better than their 1985 and 1990 teams and this edition of the Illini is worse than our 1985 and 1990 teams. BEAT SIU.
On the news last night down here, they showed SIUs practice and they are practicing with the music blasting to prepare themselves for the noise on Saturday night. I believe that the Illini need to just run the ball down SIU’s throats. SIU has a pretty good team and they beat Indiana a couple years back in Bloomington. We need to dominate the line. I think that this is a good SIU team, but they are not as big. The Illini need to go out and punch them in the mouth early and often to set the tone. If SIU hangs around, then this may not be pretty. The 1990 game was Dad’s Day weekend and Griffith actually accounted for 9 touchdowns as he was stripped of the ball by and SIU end who took it to the house. After that, Howard went off for his 8 touchdowns.
Awesome. Someone else remembers the “Home of Mold”.
Grog’s was there when I was there in the 90′s, but we always ordered Gumby’s. Are they still around?
As exciting as that defense looks on paper, the odds that Liguet is back for his senior year seem absolutely nil to me.
I’m not even confidence Martez will be back, not because he’s necessarily going to have a phenomenal year at LB (although one can still hope), but because he’ll be drafted on measureables alone.
It’s rare that a DT leaves early. Suh stuck around for his senior year, Odrick stuck around, Dan Williams stuck around – last year I think only two defensive tackles declared early – the otherworldly Gerald McCoy (OU) and Brian Price (UCLA).
I think that even with a huge year, Liuget stays.
“Random thought: Would we better off having Ramsey move back to WR?”
Ramsey is the 2nd string boundary corner. My guess is that he remains 2nd string even when Hawthorne returns because with experience he could easily be our 3rd best corner (Bellamy is better as a nickle, Miami Thomas and PNY are still not 100%). Zook has said that he expects all three of Hull, Ramsey and Green to stay on defense for the rest of their careers (though it will be up to them to decide at the end of the year).