Check The Tape – Charleston Southern September 17, 2012
I do this kind of thing all the time. Watch the game, rewind the play, watch the line, rewind the play, watch the linebackers/receivers/safeties, move on to the next play. Sometimes I have this little self-awareness moment while doing this where I realize my behavior is that of a child playing airline pilot. You pull up a chair, you set a bunch of ketchup bottles on the table for levers and a skillet for a “steering wheel”, and you fly an imaginary plane. I don’t have the technology the a coach or scout has, where they can easily pause and rewind game tape. But there I am, after every game, pulling ketchup levers.
God I love it.
Because I do this often, I kind of have a feel for the talent level of opponents. You watch the Ohio State defensive line and you wonder how on earth we ever gain a yard. You watch Indiana’s secondary and you realize how we threw for so many yards. And then you watch Charleston Southern, and you confirm that this was the worst opponent you’ve ever seen your team play.
I really feel for those kids. Once something like that spirals out of control, it’s impossible to recruit, players quit, and suddenly you’re losing to Division III schools. And then you have to go play a BCS opponent. It’s an impossible hill to climb.
So as I was watching this tape, I’d pause it, thinking “maybe I could screencap that”, and realize that the reason our receiver was so open/linebacker was unblocked/etc. was because Charleston Southern is really struggling to hold together their FCS football program. Which leaves very little tape to check. But I did find a few plays I want to cover. Here we go. *pushes mustard lever*
Actually, first, I want to go a little Good Will Hunting on Tim Beckman.
It’s not your fault.
It’s not your fault.
It’s not your fault.
I know this has been a lifelong dream to coach a Big Ten program, so it has to be extremely disheartening to run out of the tunnel and see crowds similar to your Toledo days (Toledo averaged 22,000 fans per game last year – no chance either crowd was over 30,000 the first two games). Just please know that it’s not your fault. As recent as 5 years ago we sold out four of our six home games. In 2008 I think we cleared 44,000 season tickets. But then 2008 ended without a bowl, and 2009 ended 3-9, and everyone who had said “I’ll give Illini football one last chance” basically quit.
So when the players were walking out for the coin toss and you saw a crowd like this…
…that has everything to do with Ron Zook. And a little to do with the opponent being Charleston Southern. OK, and some to do with the fact that high definition television has made a dent in the Fickle Five Big Ten programs (Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Northwestern) whose stadiums only sell out when they’re winning (or, in the case of Northwestern, never sell out unless the opponent brings 15,000 fans).
Bottom line: once you win, the fans will return. We sold out 27 consecutive games in the 1980′s, and that’s when the stadium had a capacity of 72,000. Show that you have this program pointed in the right direction and sellouts at the current capacity of 60,000 will be no problem. Win it, and they will come.
OK, to the tape. First play is Ayoola’s touchdown. I want to point out the maturation of Michael Heitz. I’ve heard the coaches yell “finish your block, Heitz” many times. And here, his block is the key to Ayoola squeezing out. On the snap, Heitz (#74) pulls to the right and heads into the hole.
He cuts off the linebacker waiting there for Ayoola, allowing Ayoola to gain enough yards to get the first down.
And as Ayoola is driving the Charleston Southern defender back, Heitz is still on his block, spinning the guy away from Ayoola.
Heitz is still on his block, opening up a side door for Ayoola. And take note of Hugh Thornton, realizing the play isn’t over and he might be able to get in one more block.
Heitz is still on his guy, Thornton has the edge locked down, and Ayoola is off to the endzone. Great run from a very promising freshman. And great blocks from two linemen who kept going until they heard a whistle.
I really should have added Ayoola to “I’ll remember this as the Monheim/Hardee game” on Sunday. Because he had a pretty eye-opening game on tape. Of course there’s that whole Charleston Southern asterisk.
Speaking of Hardee, my favorite thing he did on Saturday was stay on his feet while being tackled. Here’s the long reception he made in the third quarter. Take note of the yard line. Here he just caught the ball at about the CSU 48 yard line. The cornerback is already hanging on him.
The safety comes over, but he’s now seven more yards downfield at the 41.
But he’s not done. They finally get him off his feet at the 37 yard line…
…and he tumbles forward to the 34.
Caught the ball at the 48, cornerback clings on immediately, down at the 34. Do that 145 times over the next four year years please, Justin.
Lastly, here’s my favorite play design from Saturday. So good it felt like Arizona State’s offensive coordinator drew it up. O’Toole in the shotgun, single back (Ayoola), Jon Davis at H-back, on WR left, twin WR right. So CSU brings an outside linebacker up to cover the slot receiver.
The slot receiver (Fritz Rock, #20) goes in motion on what looks like a fly sweep (he’ll arrive at the QB just as the ball is snapped). This draws the outside linebacker in and causes both safeties to drift right.
On the snap, O’Toole fakes to Rock first and then Ayoola. The CSU free safety is reading this and charging up to make the play. Which is exactly what we wanted him to do. Notice that Jon Davis (#3) is getting ready to sneak out the back, and the CSU linebacker (#22) is biting on the Ayoola fake.
There goes their #22 chasing our #22. And notice the reaction of their free safety as he realizes that the h-back who just ran past him is going to score in the space he just vacated.
Now Jon Davis only has one choice. Read which way Justin Hardee is blocking the cornerback. He sees that he’s blocking him to the outside, he cuts in, no safety home, touchdown.
145 more plays this season that are executed just like we drew them up, please.
Re: the crowd. In fairness, shots of the West balcony (or the horseshoe) look so much better. Even Saturday, it looked to be >80% full. The east stands look ugly, though. I’m sure things will look better Saturday night.
I went back and watched our first few drives and concluded that our OL play was terrible. The CSU DL is small, slow and lacks explosiveness. Yet here is what happened.
Drive 1: Quick pass for 6 yards, run blocking is a disaster for -5, O’Toole takes a hit right after releasing the ball for a pass short of the 1st down (think that was a blitz). Punt.
Drive 2: Take over at the 7, two running plays for 3 yards, CSU drops 7 into coverage on 3rd down (no hint of a rush) and doesn’t cover Lankford for a TD.
Drive 3: One good running play on this drive for 13 yards (well blocked) and several nice QB scrambles. But because we don’t have a consistent running game, there are two 3-and-long situations (one of which we converted on 4th down) as well as a 3rd-and goal from the 4. This doesn’t bode well for how we might perform against a capable defense.
Drive 5: One nice 9-yard run by DY at the start of the drive, but when he is later stopped for no gain on the 10-yard line, we are forced to pass and throw an INT.
Drive 6: DY stuffed on the first play and the OL caught holding. Three straight passes move us downfield before O’Toole is sacked, forcing a punt.
Yes, as CSU started to tire we had more success offensively. But we should be able to move the ball against a team like this from the start. Our run blocking was generally terrible. Our pass blocking was okay as long as we went with relatively quick throws. If we can’t block Charleston Southern, what are our chances of blocking anyone else? And if we can’t block anyone else, what are our chances of moving the ball and scoring in the B1G? Yes, getting Pocic back will help but count me as very, very worried about the OL.
I just got the fightingillini.com email with all the festivities for saturday’s game. It lists “postgame: fireworks.” I’m imagining ushers rushing people out of there before the fireworks. “HEY YOU – YOU CAN SEE THEM FROM YOUR CAR, GET MOVING.”
Robert,
Thanks for your work here. You should check out SnagIt – you could annotate your screengrabs rather nicely with it… in all your spare time of course!
http://www.techsmith.com/snagit-gslp.html – coupon code: “jingpro” gets it half off.
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I bought it for work and it comes in pretty handy for doing tutorials and the like.
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Anyhow, I agree with Groundhogday that overall the offense, specifically the offensive line did not look near overpowering enough against an opponent of this caliber regardless of the scoreboard. I’m pretty scared about the next game.
I disagree with your notion that its not even partly Tim Beckman’s fault that the crowd was bad. If it isnt…then it has to be Mike Thomas for hiring him. Mike Thomas hired a no name guy that didnt create any buzz about illini football, and you get bad crowds to start the season. Getting demolished by Arizona State certainly didnt help matters either.
In fact, you just said winning will bring the crowds…but Illinois is coming off back-back bowl games for the first time in forever and the crowds are worse than they’ve ever been. Cant blame Zook for that.
Crunch.
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We have got to at least put an asterisk on the “back to back bowl wins’ thing. Come on – the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl should not even exist. We all know our opponent didn’t even have a winning record. At the very least, it’s not a fair comparison to the 80s and 90s – or even the early 2000s – when there were fewer bowls, they were harder to get into, and they actually meant something.
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Instead of saying “back to back bowl wins” just say “one year of a 7-5 regular season record followed by one year of 6-6 (with 6 straight losses)”. Our coach got canned for crissake – it’s not like we’re riding some wave of awesome momentum. This crowd was “mostly” not Beckman’s fault – but yeah, some of it was due to the ASU performance.
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Again Joe John, you’re all upset about who MT hired. Look, Urban Meyer and guys like him are not going to take this job. And in basketball, MT tried to get the 2 top guys out there – they didn’t want the job. He can’t put a gun to someone’s head and make them take the job. Also, we can’t justify him throwing crazy big money at some big name to get him. We are who we are – and Beckman (a guy hopefully on the way up) is a pretty good fit for the Illinois football in its current state. MT is not a magician.
Not even that – both seasons were 6-6. And we were 6-10 in the Big Ten over those two seasons. 11-21 in the Big Ten since the Rose Bowl season.
HOW DO YOU GO 11-21 AFTER A ROSE BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Sorry I had to get that out…just…I dunno, pick any word that means bad and then multiply it by about a million.
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Robert, I’m curious as to where you stand on this issue and I’m sure you’ve mentioned it in one of these many blog posts since Beckman was hired. If we happen to miss a bowl game this year (whatever the record may be barring a COMPLETE collapse) are you going to question whether Beckman and co. are the right fit. If not how much time does he get considering schedules, talent being lost over the next year or two, etc.? Or does none of that matter and he has X amount of time to show you something?
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Just curious as I said, thanks.
My official position: unless it’s a Turner Gill Tire Fire, he gets 4 full years.
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If he shows complete incompetency, yes, have to let him go early. If he shows he’s recruiting well, implementing systems, building stability, he gets 4 full years, no questions asked.
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This will be tough, because I think the next two years will be much worse than this one, so if we go 5-7, 3-9, 4-8, I’ll take all kinds of heat at the end of 4-8 by saying he needs to return. But you can’t really judge him until he has players experienced in his system.
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And if we make a surprise run to the Big Ten Championship Game this year? Same thing. We won’t really know anything until 2014 or 2015.
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Ah, good catch Robert. We were 6-6. Our 7th win was the bowl game (a win over RGIII – still a headscratcher).
Wasn’t a headscratcher to me. NFL players on that defense:
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Corey Liuget
Martez Wilson
Nate Bussey
Whitney Mercilus
Tavon Wilson
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Akeem Spence
Michael Buchanan
Terry Hawthorne
maybe Justin Green
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(head down in shame) Yes, I concur.
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It was almost how I went into the game that made the win so impressive to me afterward (and still today). Yet again, playing a school in a bowl in their home state, us being so removed from post-season, Zook being our coach, etc. You’re right – we deserved to win and didn’t get lucky or anything. Still – beating a Heisman winner is pretty cool. If not a headscratcher, at least “things that make you go hmmmm”
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And maybe it was how soundly we beat them. Man, that was a great game.
That makes sense Robert. I’m just trying to keep 2013 out of my head until this season is over and I see how it goes. I’m really hoping things don’t turn out like the example you threw out but I could certainly a scenario where it does.
But with 9 NFL players on defense, and Mikel LeShoure and Jack Cornell and only Robert will remember who else on offense, we were 6-6. We’re Illinois football and we can’t be trusted.
Scheelhasse, Leshoure Prosch, Jenkins Fayson, Palmer Hunt Pocic Thornton Allen, E. Wilson
and if we do go 4-8 that third year, we’ll be averaging about 12k in attendance – won’t be an ideal time to try to lure a dream coach to UI, not that there has been “an ideal time” for decades now. if anything, this last hire was made in one of the better times (relatively speaking), and we got Beckman, for better or worse.
I think I finally got Robert to concede that multiple weedwacker bowls does nothing for the program…So simply scheduling 4 wins in the preseason and finishing 2-6 in the Big 10 isnt a way to build anything.
This is completely contradictory to his stance that it was Ron Guenther’s preseason scheduling keeping Illinois in the toilet…when in fact it was actually being able to win Big 10 games.
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I don’t think a sparsely populated game against a pointless Charleston Southern opponent a week after we got blown out at ASU proves anything. The point was more to not schedule our pre-season like we’re USC. Not that we should get our sustenance by patsy wins in the preseason and just “mail it in” for the Big Ten season. We can’t control who we play in the Big Ten so that is what it is. But we can affect the preseason. My interpretation of what he said is that it’s still better to make the Texas Bowl than no bowl (since you’ll play the same Big Ten teams regardless). And I agree. Playing in the postseason helps recruiting (baby steps here – we’re trying to move up from Texas Bowls and Kraft Fight Hunger Bowls, not live there) but it doesn’t necessarily help in getting a packed house for a horrible FCS team a week after you crap the bed in the desert.
What scares me about the ’4 years no matter what’ stance is that we wasted 21 years or so with tepper/turner/zook..”if we go 5-7, 3-9, 4-8″ – I’d rather see a change at the end of year 3 based on past history, may not be fair but 20 plus years of football futility will do that to a fan.
Then you would have fired Ferentz, Alvarez, and many other coaches who turned around programs in their fourth season.
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Repetition is the key. Implement systems, recruit to systems, and by year three (Turner, Zook) or four (Ferentz, Alvarez), everything is clicking. The next key is to maintain, which Zook and Turner were unable to do.
What is the definition of maintaining? Zook was able to make Illinois a 500 team…is that considered maintaining? As you like to point out, if the schedule had been as easy in his non bowl years..he’d have been a consistent crappy bowl game program. Is that what you call maintaining and at what point do you fire someone to try to get something more?
Ferentz and Alvarez took over teams that were 3-8/2-9 the year prior
Zook was 11-21 in the Big Ten over his final four seasons. 2.75 Big Ten wins per season is not maintaining.
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Although, admittedly, that’s not too far off from maintaining. Maintaining in an Illinois sense is probably .500 in the B1G, leading to consistent 7-5, 8-4 seasons.
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With the new schedule and Penn State about to become Charleston Southern, we’re locked into four games with Indiana, Purdue, Penn State, and Northwestern. Sure, Purdue and NW could surge, but with a schedule like that, 4-4 should be attainable in the next decade, if not easy.
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But this is Illinois football. It’s never easy.