Great Sleepwalk Win!*
- Thread starter MrCat95
- Start date
Yeah... pretty helpful that the Illini aren't any good. Plenty to clean up during bowl practices.
Even beat the spread (at home).
Any BIG win is a good one, especially when it gets NU bowl eligible in the process.
This season, to an extent, went down the crapper after those first two games. The loss to WMU wasn't horrible, although it obviously should have been a win, but there was no reason to lose against FCS Illinois State. Losing those two made it a mediocre 6-6 season instead of an 8-4 good one. At least the team did rally to make a bowl and come up with a winning BIG record.
At the end of the day, I don't think it had that much of an impact. Sure it sucks to lose, but we're still bowling...not that much of difference in potential locations. Getting the extra month of preparation is critical for next year's preparation/development.
Well, it's nice to be in a bowl, but I'd still rather be going in at 8-4 than 6-6. Let's hope the coaching staff and players break out of the gate better next season.
Down yet another O lineman, and the losing our center during the game, I will certainly take a 21 pt win.
Not sure how you can say that losing the first two games didn't have any impact. Those two losses changed the tone of the entire season right from the start, instead of coming out of the beginning of the season hot with a positive mental attitude everything was a struggle.
If they go into Nebraska 3-0 that game might have had a different result.
I don't ever underestimate how important the mental side of sports can be when you have fairly closely matched teams of good athletes.
Losing to ISU makes the season's result bad, even if they had won the other 11.
Oh stop yourself! Washington State lost to Eastern Washington this year, Mississippi State lost to an FCS team, Iowa lost to North Dakota State. It happens, but the team fought back to get to a bowl. Now I just hope we get a decent matchup and win. ISU loss was very painful, but it could have been much worse if it had caused the whole season to tank. Credit to this team and the coaches for not letting that happen.
Down what OL? I'd put money that Olsen was benched. He was fully dressed on the sideline.
5-4 in the conference is where we should hope this program to be in a down year, I think. Those two losses put a damper on things. Most thought WMU would be a good opponent, but Illinois State wasn't a good FCS team and that loss is inexcusable.
A bowl win in New York would be lovely.
Yeah, but his backup at center played well, I believe, in a situation where I have seen many turnovers when the center was switched, Have to rewatch, though, since I don't know how many plays he played precisely.
Evanston: FYI Illinois State went 6-5 and was selected as an at-large bid to the FCS Play-offs. They lost today to finish 6-6. Still.there was no excuse to lose this game. I know we all put it on the Offense but they finally scored and the defense let the Shitbirds march down the field, kick a FG and beat us.
Yep, late to the party here but this sounds about right. We certainly didn't play great, we can thank our RBs for this one. Today was the day for the outside zone and counter plays, they seemed to be pretty successful in jamming the middle but the patience and vision of both JJ and Moten was excellent. OL didn't do well in pass protection but run blocking was pretty good. Defense was pretty sloppy at times and the soft coverage in the secondary was frustrating, but we made enough big plays that it was still pretty comfortable.
The Rose Bowl team blew a huge lead in the fourth quarter in losing to Miami, Ohio. I think that was still a pretty decent season.
Considering the shifting around in the OL this year, I think they've had a respectable season. JJ now has about 4,000 yards in three seasons. He's a good back, but you don't get that kind of yardage without at least a little blocking up front. As for the secondary, we've basically played the year without the top corners. All I heard the announcers talking about as Michigan State was losing to Penn State Saturday was the number of injuries the Spartans have had — and they have had a bunch. But I watched a Northwestern game earlier this year that was well into the third quarter before the fact that we were missing Harris, a B1G second-teamer at corner last year, was even brought up.
Then, why don't we just say our record is 8-4, and forget having to excuse 6-6? It's no different than saying you are 49.
South Alabama (who beat Mississippi State) is NOT a good FCS team. It is comparable to Illinois State in FCS. **** happens.
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Come on. Now you are comparing ILL.St. to Miami of Ohio, who incidentally had a future NFL QB under center that afternoon. Please.
A big oops on that one. In fact, Ricketts was Miami's BACKUP QB I believe for that game who got very hot in the second half. Strange things can happen on a football field. Many '95 players credit that loss for firing them up for the rest of the season. Maybe ISU debacle helped do the same for this team
And last year's extra practices were critical to the great start they got this season?
Maybe they were the key in getting Carr to an All-American level after 23 career catches going into the year.
I'm not really excited about the bowl game, but I am glad they're getting the extra practices. It's got to be better than not getting them.
1) No, I am not comparing Illinois State to Miami, Ohio. The Illinois State loss was worse. 2} The Rose Bowl team had a much better season than this year's team and had a 28-9 lead in the Miami game. It was a huge, deflating loss. Barnett has said something to the effect that he had "here we go again" thoughts after the loss following the previous week's upset of Notre Dame. We all know what happened after. Did the loss to an inferior opponent against which NU had held a huge lead ruin the season? Obviously not, which is my point. A loss to Illinois State would not have ruined the season if we'd won the other 11 games, or even 9 or 10 of the other games.
For those posters who want perfection from their team, I might suggest purchasing Disney's "Angels in the End Zone" and putting it on autoplay on the home DVR.
Sorry that I got my Miami (O) QB's mixed up but comparing that Miami team or any Miami team a ISU squad is ludicrous.