Check The Tape – Louisiana Tech September 25, 2012
Stay with me.
This wasn’t as bad as I thought. Checking the tape, that is. I expected a horror show. I expected to cover my eyes. I really thought that at one point, I’d behave like the 4 year-old me when he watched The Wizard Of Oz the very first time, hiding behind the couch whenever that awful green woman was cackling on the screen. And the monkeys. Oh God, the monkeys.
(Could I sound any older right now? Should I reference On The Waterfront next? That Karl Malden could ACT.)
But I didn’t behave that way. In watching this tape, I was most impressed by the Louisiana Tech offensive line. Yes, the guys in that dance video I tweeted last week. They were very impressive on this tape. Four seniors – most of them three year starters and one a juco transfer – settling in for their 40th game of running the same scheme and the same plays.
Meanwhile, when Hugh Thornton left, we were left with possibly the youngest offensive line in the country. A freshman, three sophomores, and a junior playing in his third ever game. And it shows on tape. Confusion in blocking assignments, struggles picking up a blitz, falling for elementary pass rush moves – we have a long way to go with this young line (and we need Pocic and Thornton back like there’s no tomorrow).
But I won’t concentrate on that with this CTT. Let’s see how an offensive line is supposed to block in a zone blocking scheme. Let’s look at Louisiana Tech.
Here’s a running play in the first quarter. Keep in mind that zone blocking can best be described as “move the line over there and block somebody”. Wisconsin’s running teams have mostly been catch-and-turn OL blocking. There’s a specific hole to be created for the tailback to run through. Zone blocking means each OL has an assignment but not necessarily a specific player to block. At least not on every play. Get out into space and block someone – the tailback will look for and then run through holes that are created.
Like this. Here’s where the LaTech offensive line is set on the snap of the ball (right hashmark)…
…and here’s where they’re setting up the blocking for the running play:
This was only a three yard gain – Earnest Thomas came up and made a nice tackle – but it shows how assignment sound the Louisiana Tech offensive line was. Go to your spot and put a body on someone. It’s really that easy.
And they could create lanes as well. Here’s their second touchdown. Their alignment just before the snap:
And the lane they immediately create. Left tackle and left guard have their guys perfectly blocked, center and right guard do as well, just the other way, and the right tackle gets just enough of Tim Kynard to prevent him from cutting down the tailback in the backfield. I mean, look at that lane:
Meaning the tailback comes through virtually untouched. I think Kynard got a piece of his foot – you can see him stumbling here – but he kept his balance and got into the endzone. Why wouldn’t he? Once he got through the line he had zero players to beat.
Football looks so easy watching a play like that. All five linemen do their job and the tailback has an easy route to the endzone.
But wait. There’s more.
Here’s their third touchdown. Like the first play we looked at, watch where the ball is snapped, and then watch where their line moves their blocks. And yes, if you would like to interpret this as “why are our defensive linemen allowing themselves to be pushed around by a WAC offensive line”, you are quite welcome to do that. I don’t get it either. As the ball is snapped:
Here’s not even a second later. Watch how the entire line is moving in unison to the right, while the right tackle cuts our defensive end:
Still moving to the right. Remember, the ball was snapped on the right hash. Jonathan Brown hesitates on the fake – he has the assignment if the quarterback keeps and runs or throws. So as the lane opens up, there’s no Brown to stuff it:
I mean, look at how far this line is from the right hash. And there’s the tailback, lane open, Brown arriving too late, scoring yet another LaTech touchdown.
Man, you don’t know what I’d give to see our line operate like that. Unfortunately, it takes time and repetition and coaching and time and more coaching. But mostly time. Sonny Dykes taught these guys these plays in the spring of 2010. And they’ve run them over and over and over until they had everything down.
And do they ever have it down. Here’s the last play we’ll look at. Their alignment at the snap:
If you’re a football coach, you love this next screencap. As soon as you see the alignment of their linemen coming around to the right side, you know it’s an 8-10 yard gain, minimum. Look at how this play is set up for success. I mean just look at it. Every lineman has a body on somebody, and they have two blockers coming around the corner to take on our two tacklers:
And when both of those blockers take on both of our tacklers…
…their tailback gets the corner, untouched, and goes one-on-one with our cornerback. Which is what you want to set up in every running situation – get your ballcarrier one-on-one situations with a defender.
Hawthorne won the battle here and made the tackle, but the war was already lost. Our defense, which allowed -6 rushing yards to Western Michigan in the opener, was gashed by a WAC offense. There’s really not much more to say.
OK, NOW I want to go hide behind the couch.
Robert, nice post but….
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BS. When you are getting it handed to you just go get a hat on somebody. How hard is that? These kids watch enough film and have played enough ball at this point to do that. This is on the coaches. They have had 9 months. 9 MONTHS!!! to figure this out. Other teams deal with injuries and coaching changes and don’t look anywhere near this sloppy.
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Our offensive line featured 3 nflers last year (Allen, Cornell, pocic) and looked this terrible for 6 straight games. The problems go a lot deeper than being inexperienced
HANDS DOWN~Two biggest losses this year:
Coach VIC
Coach LOU
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Even the vaunted Vic K coached defense had its bad days in the past two years – at a time when we weren’t so devastated injury-wise and actually had some offensive flow (i.e. offense took some pressure off the defense). In 2010 we gave up 45 and 38 points in successive weeks in regulation (and one of them was Minnesota!). I think La Tech will prove to be one of the country’s better offenses come year end. This team runs a clever scheme and has had TONS of practice at it. You get somebody out of place by just a step or a half step in footbal (due to scheming and misdirection) and the battle is pretty much won.
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Football is so incredibly technical now and I agree with Robert that our guys have not had much time under this new system and we just effectively switched QBs and La Tech has had tons of practice. Gone are the days of smash-mouth, line ‘em up and the guy who wants it more will win. Football is really a highly orchestrated game (usually a passing game) that takes a ton of practice and timing to get right. I am always amazed at the precision of NFL QBs until I realize – he had probably thrown that pass to that guy in that spot on the field maybe 100 or 200 times. La Tech is well groomed in their offense due to tons of practice and we are a mangy mutt. But we’ll get better.
So ranger, question(s) for you. You think running a scheme in practice is the same as having to execute it in a game? You think that 9 MONTH is enough friggin time to implement new schemes when it’s been shown time and time again that it takes time when new coaching staffs are brought in? Sure there are times when the transition is smooth and it seems to not take that much time but that’s rare. Hell La Tech is a perfect example of it as Robert has shared. Go look at Mizzou’s first few years under Pinkel. My God that guy would have had his house burned down if he coached here and had those records.
9 months is enough time to not get embarrassed like that. Do I expect us to score 45? No. But we scored less then Rice against la tech, at home, at night, in front of 50k. Dana holgorson put in a system at wvu that took very little time. Same with graham at asu. While its not a purely apples to apples, it’s pretty clear to me that it can be done way better than we are.
if we had 3-9 talent and went 3-9, I’m fine with that. I’m still hopeful that becks can turn us around. But I am not buying that we got blown out at night, at home by a WAC school because we need more time.
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We’re also devastated with injuries, have just handed the keys to our ‘Honda Civic’ offense to our teenage son who can’t drive stick (meaning, backup QB who is now on a spread offense intended for a different type of QB altogether) and we had an insane amount of turnovers. Ranger, I’m certainly not letting our coaches off the hook so I didn’t mean to imply that. They have underachieved as well. And I’m surprised by all of this too. I thought Robert said that practices had a more “professional” feel to them this summer so this lack of preparedness is upsetting.
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I guess I look at a team that might only have 5-7 talent (maybe 4-8 now with injuries) and may still end up going 5-7 with some luck. My hope is that we’re not as bad as we looked on Saturday. It’s just that we literally didn’t catch a single break. It happens – to good teams too. As frustrating as that game was to watch, it was sort of “explainable”. Offensively, they had more talent out there than we could send onto the field with all of our injuries. Defensively, we seem to have a couple of studs and then some mediocre/injured guys.
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Bottom line is, we’re 2-2, we may end the year with these two ugly losses to teams that play in really good bowls and we might still go 5-7 or 6-6 with a good bit of luck (3-9 with no luck). But if we call for Beckman’s head now after 4 GAMES, then who in the world do we come across as? Basically, as a fan base, we’re saying “win immediately or will find someone who can” – full well knowing that nobody can do that. And that we’re not the kind of program that can demand that anyway. We’re Illinois football – We’re a Honda Civic. Nice and all but you really shouldn’t drive it too fast or expect too much from it. Especially at night.
The problem with all of this is that it isn’t just one game. ASU beat the snot out of us, and they’re as fresh to their system as we are to ours. So you can’t hang this all on coaching turnover.
Being 2-2 right now isn’t the end of the world, but we’ve outscored our non-conference opponents by a grand total of 2 points. If we count BCS teams only, we’ve been outscored by 42 points.
And this is the softest portion of our schedule. This is not a good football team. And it will likely not be a good football team next year (Spence, Buchanan, Hawthorne, Green, Foster, Supo, Thornton, Pocic are gone), or the year after (Scheelhaase, Lankford, Millines, Harris, Brown). Recruiting won’t fix it for another 3 years, at least, and that’s only if we can somehow keep guys interested despite the lousy product on the field.
I think Illinois can win if we get a good coach first, recruiter second. We need someone who can with with Purdue or Northwestern-level talent. Win enough, and we can upgrade that and start swinging for the fences, but we’re trying to hit grandslams with no one on base when we hire guys who are primarily recruiters.
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If not for a Terry Hawthorne pick 6 in our bowl game (against a sub .500 opponent), Beckman would have inherited a team that had lost 7 games in a row -many not competitively. I think he deserves the entire season before we pass judgment. Maybe the staff will make the adjustments and rally the troops. 4 games – and 4 games of wildly varying skill level of the opponents that we have seen – is too small of a sample size. We’re not as bad as the score says of the La Tech game (nor or we as good as the score of the Charleston Southern game says). Beckman already recruited one stud. Hopefully he wil prove to be a good recruiter – and coach.
ASU seemed to take their coaching change in stride, while we look like we are going backwards. The front 7 has not been decimated by injuries so the injury excuse doesn’t quite apply there. So when we lose we have no talent, however coming into the year most people talked about all the talent on the defense, which is it? I tend to think that coaching staff has done a horrible job in the first 4 games. How many players have looked better than they did last year? Running backs have, maybe a couple non-starters here and there but not many.
I get that La Tech has a great offense but this was a La Tech team that beat 0-3 Houston 56-49, the same Houston team who was blown out by Texas State. AHSIllini32 – Gary Pinkel took over a team that was 3-8/4-7 the two years prior to his arrival. Coming off 7-6 seasons isn’t much better but it’s not quite the same as 3-8.
Chief – first, on the ASU coaching change. They’re healthy. Big difference. They also may have the talent to run the spread that their coaches want them to run since they ran a form of it under Erickson. That makes the transition soooo much easier than switching from a pro-style, pistol type to a spread and having to do it basically all year with your backup QB (who isn’t really suited for the offense to begin with).
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And you think each of the 4 games have been a “horrible job” by the coaches? Really? What about the WMU game to open the year? Regardless of the opponent a 44-0 nothing win is not a horrible job either.
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In terms of Pinkel that’s all well and good but as was just pointed out, we were one pick-6 in a bowl game away from losing 7 GAMES IN A ROW…think about that. Plus, we are just now coming into the last couple Zook recruiting classes. The talent level of Mizzou when Pinkel took over and UI’s at the moment and going forward are about the same I would bet. I don’t have the time to look at the Rivals class rankings (if they even go back that far) but I would bet they are quite similar. Just for clarification, I’m talking about the couple classes at Mizzou before Pinkel took over and Zook’s last couple classes here before TB took over.
I don’t know how comparing this staff to last year’s team does this staff any favors. Last year’s team was so bad, the coaches were fired.
And Charleston Southern is so bad, it’s a joke. They’ve been outscored 168-10 in their last 3 games against BCS teams. It was like playing a high school team. From Vermont.
Because it’s a pretty good predictor of what’s to come this year???
Rah Rah, guys like AHS trying to sugarcoat things won’t work. The games against ASU and LaTech revealed the glaring inadequacy in the Illini coaching ranks. Granted some of the coaching staff apparently weren’t any better last year either but that fact doesn’t give this year’s newly appointed and hired staff a pass, it don’t. If anything more is expected from this year’s coaches as they were hopefully brought in to improve the situation at Illinois and bring us championships as Mike Thomas promised. From what they have shown so far, they couldn’t coach their way out of a paper bag. Pathetic and shameful results thus far! I don’t care much for excuses either, just show me results. Show me there is a reason Thomas passed over other coaches Beckman to give you your first big shot. Show me something different than you have so far. Do it now, not 3-4 years from now. Do it now and consistently!
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So are we now the school of knee-jerk reactions? “You’ve had your 4 games to prove yourself, you’re done?”. Usually, when a coach takes over a program that is struggling, it takes a year or two to turn the ship around. Regime changes take time. Just because ASU’s didn’t, doesn’t mean it’s the norm. Or maybe they had really good talent and were being coached by a guy asleep at the wheel last year. Food for thought…
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Kirk Ferentz first year record .. 1-10 (0-8 conf), then 3-9 (3-5 conf)
Barry Alvarez first year record .. 1-10 (0-8 conf), then 5-6 (2-6 conf)
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Even Fitzy, who took over a stable 7-win program after the death of Randy Walker…
Pat Fitzgerald first year record .. 4-8 (2-6 conf)
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Or even the great Mizzou coach whose name has been thrown around…
Gary Finkel first year record .. 4-7 (3-5 conf)
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Bill Snyder basically built K State into what they are..
Bill Snyder first year record .. 1-10 (0-7 conf)
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Mack Brown made N. Carolina strong in the ACC in the late 90s and then took the Texas job as a “reward”
Mack Brown first year record at UNC .. 1-10 (1-6 conf), then 1-10 (0-7 conf)
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Takes time to see if someone is a good coach (and recruiter) people. Becks is 2-2 and may be 1-0 in conference after this Saturday.
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And I guess I bring up a point that some people may say that Illinios wasn’t struggling because we won back-to-back bowl games. The KFHB shouldn’t exist and our opponent had a sub .500 record. The year before that, we had a decent bowl win – pretty much on the shoulders of an NFL back who was a stud in college. Clearly we struggled last year without him. And we saw in the last 6 games of the season that the emporer had no clothes. We squeaked into a bowl that shouldn’t exist last year with the help of 8 home games and some patsies in the beginning of the year and conf wins over Indiana and NU.
Don’t attempt to persuade Salt with actual facts about how other coaches have fared…it gets in the way of mind-less bashing.
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Heh, fair enough. I also think La Tech is a good team and is going to have a special year (for that program). Vegas has them favored going into Virginia this weekend. A Virginia team that won 8 games last year and played Auburn in a bowl. An Auburn team one-year removed from the BCS title (yes, yes, without Cam Newton).
“But I am not buying that we got blown out at night, at home by a WAC school because we need more time.”
I agree!
Zook never had blow outs like these first two losses all of last season. The margin of loss already after four games is = to ALL of last season. The coaching staff needs to pick up the pace. They are NOT getting the job done. This team is NOT this bad.
Can we stop acting like La Tech and ASU are Alabama? I want Beckman to succeed as much as the next guy but I won’t make excuses for him. ASHIllini – Why does ASU suddenly have so much more talent than Illinois, we beat them last year albeit at home, but to get crushed this year? Grogs – What were the records of those teams before those coaches took over? Are you really comparing apples to apples?
Lousiana Tech is a good team, but Illinois should never lose by 4 TDs to them on their home field. Ever.
The Beckman era is off to a tragically bad start.
Huge game saturday…just monumental….you lose that and its telling the world that Illinois is back in the dumpster of the Big 10 battling Indiana.
Sure, one can quibble about this or that, but it is absolutely ridiculous to pass any sort of judgment on the coaching staff with as many injuries as this team has had.
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Chief, are you serious? Apples to apples? Did you happen to watch the second half of our season last year? Because, quite frankly, I couldn’t. We were as bad as any team in the country and it was a forgone conclusion our coach would be fired. An eventual sub .500 OSU team beat us by throwing, what, 2 passes? Purdue had us down 21-0 at half. We weren’t competitive at all against Michigan who did whatever they wanted. We led Wisconsin briefly and then completely imploded and should I even mention the Minnesota game? Then we faced a sub .500 team in a very weak bowl in which the other teams’s coach had also been fired. You want a dumpster fire, it’s right there. And then, a good chunk of the talent we did have headed off to the NFL and was not being backfilled as recruiting was clearly falling apart under our lame duck coach. I hardly think Beckman inherited a well-oiled machine capable of coasting to a bowl under any coach that took over. People who followed Illinois football could see the writing on the wall. We were taking on water quite quickly.
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I’m not saying the coaches haven’t underperformed, but can we at least look at a bigger body of work than the first 4 games?
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But since you asked, the year before Ferentz, Iowa won 3 games (so did 2 wins worse in his first year). The year before Alvarez, UW won 2 games (so did 1 win worse in his first year). Fitzy inherited a 7-win team (so did 3 wins worse in his first year). Pinkel inherited a 3-win Mizzou team (so did 1 win better in first year).
UNC had 5 wins (one against Illinois) the year before Mack Brown went 1-10 (for 2 years). And Bill Snyder inherited a no-win trainwreck that he eventually turned into a contender.
Lol don’t lecture me on Illinois football, I know all too well. Who said I wasn’t looking at the bigger body of work? My point is it’s not my job to make excuses for the coaches. The defense has looked terrible, no getting around it. They are highly compensated, if they can’t take a little heat then they should find a new job.
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I guess I’m not that surprised we’re suffering on defense. New scheme, we lost some studs from last year to the draft, Hawthorne appears to be hurt, Hull is out, Sanni out, Bates out and we’re starting a freshman at linebacker.
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I didn’t mean anything personally, Chief. Sorry if if came across that way. My guess is that this staff is taking plenty of heat right now – some of it deserved. And now let’s see if they can respond. Vegas keeps favoring us – oh, if they only knew the whole story…
Chief, it’s not anyone’s job to make excuses. It is your responsibility to be rational and think critically about the ENTIRE situation without making snap judgments 4 games into a new regime.
@ahs, after two brutal, devastating spankings I’m not sure it is overreacting at this point. I was all for more time after asu, but the la tech stinker is a HUGE warning sign.
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@ grogs, sure we were bad the last 6 last year but we never got whipped like we have against asu and la tech. Sure, la tech is very good, but we are a b1g team. I didn’t expect to win that game, but a 28 point loss where you give up 52 at home, at night is just not acceptable against a WAC opponent.
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I’m willing to give Beckmann time, but this season is probably 4-8 at best
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You could be right, Ranger. But in a Big Ten as weak as this year’s, who knows. We could get healthy and start to click and maybe win 6 games total. Or keep laying eggs and finish with just these 2 wins and Becks may have some explaining to do because we should be better than that. Sadly, I just remember so many drubbings in Illini football in my life that I wasn’t so shocked by our really bad loss on Saturday. Maybe I should have been.
Ranger, if you don’t think it’s overreacting then you aren’t looking at everything rationally. Take a look at past recruiting classes, the experience/talent we lost, how new coaching changes USUALLY go when implementing entirely new systems (on offense), the collapse of last year, the culture around the program, injuries, and so many other things.
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This isn’t as black and white as 2 blowout losses this year and those making it that way are quite frankly just being lazy and wanting to criticize because it’s the “fun” thing to do.
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Yes I know what we had coming back on D but if you think losing a guy like Tavon in the backfield getting guys lined up and such didn’t hurt this team then you’re fooling yourself. That’s just one example but there are many.
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I am in no way saying those losses should be accepted. But there’s a difference between that and thinking we should fire this guy.
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Something else to bring up, anyone think we would have anywhere close to this same type of recruiting class had we kept the same guys around? Beckman and co. have made significant strides in recruiting (HI AARON BAILEY!!) and are continuing to do so.
Forgot to mention in that post right above this, but ranger you forget to mention that we had 6 TO’s…think that might have had a hand in the 52 points don’t you? Especially considering it was 21-17 at half after we shut them out in the 2nd quarter.