Robert, You are good. Has Mike Thomas offered you the job yet?

I really did not realize the turnover problem until your post. It seems to beat special teams in terms of importance, though some of the turnovers probably happened on special teams play.

Not turning the football over is a skill of dsciplined football teams and their QBs.

Looks like Indiana has the advantage this weekend.

More to the point…I think the only thing about turnovers is that your offense can control not making them…but on defense, I dont think its helpful to try to emphasise creating them because it leads to undisciplined play (guys trying to strip the ball instead of tackling, guys going for picks instead of playing straight up assignment football)…the turnover problems are all on the offense IMO.

I’m curious as to how many of those TO’s came at the hands of our inexperience backup QB’s.
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The answer: 5. Not a huge difference but a difference none-the-less.

Robert, great point. Now, to be a smart aleck for a second, I don’t see how you can devote 80% of practice time to this when it is your 8th point out of 11. Think you have to be on this a bit earlier. But a great point, absolutely.
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Joe John, Peanut Tillman of the Bears says you can be a disciplined tackler and force lots of turnovers. He even thinks you can do it to Calvin Johnson.

to Joe John’s point, disciplined football teams force turnovers not because they are trying to force them but because they are doing the right things that lead to turnovers. gang tackling and hard play = fumbles. we never seem to gang tackle, ergo, we never force fumbles. getting pressure on the QB and/or confusing him = interceptions. we never pressure the QB or seem to confuse him, ergo, we rarely intercept passes.
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oddly enough when VK and PP show up in 2010 we go from 83rd to 22nd nationally. why is that? a defensive coach that brought a 4-2-5 scheme with multiple looks and a culture of hard play. an offensive coordinator that had a terrific running back and used him as such. then in 2011? Mikel Leshoure moves on and we spike back up because Jason Ford et al are turnover machines. Leshoure DID NOT FUMBLE ONCE IN OVER 250 CARRIES HIS JR YEAR. think about that. that is incredibly difficult to do and one of the more amazing stats if you think about it. That 2010 team was very close to being 9-3. they were probably as good as the 2007 team – maybe better considering the throttling they gave Baylor in the Texas Bowl.
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so what do we do? bring in a 4-2-5 scheme that is similar but different enough that we are all nimbly bimbly on defense. and we bring in a spread offense that we will probably never be able to recruit to and can’t move the ball with despite having a QB that has the physical ability to run this offense.
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goodness we are a mess right now. i’m still willing to give the coaches time but being above average is really pretty simple – play defense, play good ST, don’t turn it over.
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Ranger, you conveniently forgot to mention that with those same coaches we went from 22nd in 2010 to 95th in 2011.
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And the concept of being above average is as easy as you listed. The actuality of it when all things are considered is much tougher.

And why will we “probably never be able to recruit to” a spread offense especially considering we have one of, if not the, top dual-threat QB in the country committed? We also have a couple RB’s committed who fit the spread fairly well.
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The reason we aren’t running the spread we way we need to right now is because have OL who seem to not fit any scheme but especially not a spread, our QB has missed more than half the games this year, we lack a true playmaking WR.
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You could substitute “pro-style”, “west-coast”, “pistol”, “wishbone”, etc. in for “spread” in my first sentence of that last paragraph and the point would still hold when you look at everything else.

AHS, what changed in 2011 from 2010 is pretty simple and i mentioned it in my post. Mikel Leshoure left the team. without Leshoure’s running ability the offense didn’t work because nobody was respecting play action. oh, and our offensive line got terrible for some reason and we didn’t block anybody. our TOs spiked on offense causing our aggregate ranking to plummet.
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As far as recruiting, no, i don’t think you’ll ever see Illinois recruit elite athletes to make the spread work. the spread is really a “talent amplifier.” if you have a lot of great athletes and you can put them in space you can make the scoreboard explode. if you have average athletes they never get to the corner on that zone handoff or they never get open against good defenses. Chris Brown explains it a lot better in this article. the fact he wrote this in 2006 is scary.
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http://smartfootball.blogspot.com/2006/01/has-spread-offense-reached-its-apex.html
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why don’t i think we can’t recruit to it? because the Midwest in general and Illinois in particular produce very few elite skill level players. you tell me Aaron Bailey is a great dual threat QB and that’s true. I also remember another great dual threat QB named Juice Williams who was limited passing the ball to say the least. what if Aaron Bailey doesn’t work out? who is the next elite dual threat QB that Illinois is going to produce? Juice came out of HS in 2005. Aaron Bailey in 2012. That’s a 7 year difference between those type of athletes. I can’t remember another guy like those two that has come out of Illinois in that 7 year window. maybe i’m wrong, but i don’t think so. there have been some guys like dan lefevour and mike kafka, but we never seem to be able to evaluate and offer them – why would that suddenly change? We need to recruit one guy like that a year or every two years minimum. and the 4 stars and higher from places like FL and TX and OH are not going to come here. they are going to go closer to home to better programs like UF, FSU, UT, aTm, OSU, etc.
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but the problem really isn’t QB nearly as much as it is WR and RB. Our top 3 WRs are all from the South. Milines, Lankford, and Spencer Harris. What do they share in common? they are pretty average. none of them is spectacular. sure, they get open (sometimes) but they can’t really get open against anybody decent.
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what else do they share in common? the SEC and ACC schools in their backyards didn’t want them. you want to run the spread? you have to have the athletes. and we aren’t going to get the elite athletes consistently enough from the Sun Belt states to compete in this offense. that’s not to say we won’t uncover the occasional gem, but it’s not about diamonds in the rough. it’s about diamonds and lots of them if you run the spread. especially if you want to compete with UM and tOSU who are recruiting LIGHTS OUT. and comparing their ability to recruit to ours is like comparing the STL Cardinals to a AA ball club. Yeah, they both play baseball, but it ain’t the same game.
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the other problem is that Beckman has no ties to the South. Like, Zero. Not only that, he doesn’t really want to recruit the Sun Belt. go back and review where his coordinators geographic responsibilities are. he has more guys looking at central illinois than he does Florida! where in the hell are we going to recruit elite athletes in central Illinois? Tuscola? Sullivan? The tire fire that is Decatur prep football? puh-lease.

Very interesting point that I’m really glad you put such great emphasis on. Last year, we were 95th with the offense turning over the ball 28 times in 13 games and the defense only gaining 22 turnover in the 13 games (which is about average). Last year coach Banks was the DC for Cincinnati where they ranked #9 in turnover margin. Cincinnati had 33 defensive gains which is about the 3rd highest in the country. I will repeat this….Banks defense created turnovers more than almost any or all the teams in the country. Cincinnati ranked #1 in TFL and #2 in Sacks. Cincinnati’s offense had 21 turnovers in their 13 games, which isn’t the mark of a good offense, but that didn’t effect the WIN column because the Cincinnati defense could step in. So when I keep reading about this great Defense that we had last year under VK, it leaves me scratching my head. If you want to see an example of a great defense, take a look at one that is creating turnovers, that’s sacking the QB, that’s creating TFL situations, or one that’s scoring points and helping win games. Take a look at the defense that Banks was leading last year as the DC at Cincinnati. There’s tons of information online and so easy to get the facts about the Cincinnati defense last year and how the improvement on defense made it one of the reasons Cincinnati was able to win most of their games AND grab a Big East Championship, but I guess everyone would rather keep saying VK was the best (even though I’m not sure what we are comparing him to).
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So, if we truly need to obsess over turnovers, then one piece of that puzzle is in place on defense. We have the DC (Banks) that lead the unit that created the most defensive turnovers in the country last year, which helped his team win games.
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I see mention everywhere, all day about how great the #7 Defense in the country was under VK and how VK did such a great job last year but by your own “declaration”, turnover margin should be obsessed over, yet you failed to mention Banks accomphishmets last year with regards to defensive turnovers. So if by your declaration that we should obsess over TO margin, should VK have really been the defensive piece of the puzzle over the DC whose results were the 3rd highest in the country?!
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So in saying all of this, I mentioned defensive turnover because all day everyday all is read about his how great we were defensively last year, yet we still lost. Many say they believe that we would be doing so much better if VK were here and again I scratch my head. Cincinnati, like Illinois, was not great offensively and as I mention, very close in offensive turnovers with Cincinnati having 22 and Illinois having 28. However, Cincinnati walked away with alot more accomplished than Illinois, and I believe it was because they had a defense that could score and turn the ball back over to the offense.
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Again, if your declaration is correct and turnover margin is so so important, then we’ve got part of it covered by having the man (Banks) that lead the unit that lead the country last year. Right?

I think you’ve all nailed it. Turnovers on offense come down to discipline, which comes from coaching and familiarity with an offense. I really wonder what Scheelhaase would look like if he wouldn’t have had to learn 3 different offenses in his 4 years here…

On defense, forcing turnovers has a lot to do with effort. Haven’t seen much of that since the Western Michigan game. I gotta think a lot of that is them not “buying into” Banks’ system.

Loved that Ranger worked nimbly bimbly into a post. Impressive sir.

Ranger,
I have a hard time believing the drop from 22 to 95 was based purely on losing Mikel and decreased OL play. The point remains that you can’t point to the improvement with the new coaches in 2010 but completely ignore the drop the next year and/or just place all the blame on the offense.
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In terms of recruiting, wouldn’t you consider Nate the next top spread QB commit we had? The last time before this one that we ran the spread was Nate’s RS year. He was in a pro-style offense and still put up decent numbers in an offense that didn’t really fit him.
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The spread is a talent equalizer, not ampliphier. You don’t only get spread players from the south. Beckman has plenty of ties to Ohio where Urban Meyer is recruiting for his spread. Michigan runs a spread and is getting players from the midwest as well. Sure we won’t be able to recruit at their level but the point remains that they can’t take EVERY good player from the midwest. Plus, Billy Gonzales and Chris Beatty have spent plenty of time in the south and east respectively.
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It’s not just about where you do or don’t have connections. There are plenty of players in the areas these coaches are comfortable with that can run a spread offense.
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Finally, this is what I find hilarious. The hypocrisy of people. All we heard about was how we never spent enough time or had enough success in recruiting our own state. Now, we have a coach who understands that you need to get the top players from your own state (and is doing a pretty good job of it his first year) and people like you are saying “well we’ll never find enough to run the systems we want, we need to go out of state!!” Give me a break.

Wasn’t Nate recruited out of Kansas City?
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I think what ranger was saying was that it’s been 7 years since Illinois produced the QB we need.
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Luckily, Nate has filled that gap and although he is having some hiccups he isn’t that bad. He is probably suffering from learning 3 different systems these past 4 years.

I don’t care what state produces our QB as long as he plays well and Nate has done that considering the systems you mentioned and the lack of talent around him.
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KC is still part of the midwest no?

“That has to be the worst average finish in all of football. I doubt anyone comes close.”

I whipped this up: http://pastehtml.com/view/cgd321lv5.html

Good news, bad news… we’re 5th worst! 2 of the teams below us are playing their first year in FBS. The other two are Idaho and New Mexico State. Yeah…