Paul Klee, basketball beat writer for the News Gazette, has written up a bullet-pointy season preview. For starters, let me praise Klee’s usage of tempo-neutral statistics in his evaluation of last year’s team defense. John Gasaway left Big Ten coverage in good hands. The high level of play we’ve gotten from the Illini football team this year; plus the excitement of how skilled, strong, and deep the basketball team is looking will carry me through to Spring Training with no problem. Add in the fact that people in Champaign are watching hockey now that the Blackhawks hoisted the cup last season and this winter looks pretty damned tolerable.
Archive for the ‘illini football’ Category
2010-2011 Illinois Basketball Preview
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010Illinois @ Penn State
Friday, October 8th, 2010I’m a fan of Loren Tate’s, but his preview of the Illinois at Penn State game this weekend leaves a bit to be desired. For example:
RECEIVERS/TIGHT ENDS
Edge to Penn State
Four Nittany Lions have at least 13 catches this season, led by Derek Moye’s 19. Illinois has just two players over 13. Part of the problem for Illinois has been an ankle injury suffered by Eddie McGee that has limited him to two catches. Neither team has used the tight end much in the early part of the season. Illini freshman Evan Wilson is capable of a big game.
It doesn’t make any sense to compare counting stats when Penn State has played 5 games and Illinois has played 4. Derek Moye has 19 catches in 5 games, Jarred Fayson has 16 in 4 games. His point’s correct—the Nittany Lions have done a better job moving the ball through the air than Illinois, but the argument is unconvincing.
My prediction: Illinois 20, Penn State 16.
Paul Petrino Hired
Monday, December 14th, 2009The Illini decided recently to keep Ron Zook at the helm and bring in new coordinators and some other position coaches. The first coordinator hire is done with Paul Petrino coming on board as the Offensive Coordinator. He fits the criteria I was looking for: some experience with the NFL, some recruiting chops, and a general idea of how to work a tight end into the offense. Paul was a WR coach with the Falcons. Mark Tupper says, “Petrino has been a good recruiter with experience in Florida.” His Arkansas team is graduating perhaps the best receiving TE in the class in D.J. Williams. I look forward to seeing if he can get the ball to Hubie Graham and London Davis a little better than Schulz’ offense did for Michael Hoomanawanui in his injury-marred but still disappointing senior year.
I’ll add that I’m not a fan of the idea of hiring a Special Teams coach. Our special teams have been terrible for years and I think we might be better off using that coaching spot elsewhere and letting the two coordinators figure out their own responsibilities and personnel assignments for special teams.
Updated: The word on the street (or at least on WDWS and the Topeka Capital-Journal is that Kansas State’s Vic Koenning will be hired as the defensive coordinator. If true, that’s exciting news. Kansas State had some very good special teams last year without a designated ST coach, by the way.
Quick Note on Saturday’s Illini Game
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008Mark Tupper points out some problems with the Illini defense in this column. I admit, we left the game when it got to 47-7 in the fourth quarter to watch the end at a bar. One defender that impressed me a great deal was Dave Lindquist who, to my eye, did an excellent job stuffing the inside running game and also in pursuit of runners around the ends.
On the defensive side of the ball, he was my player of the game.
A Loss, but an Impressive Game
Monday, September 1st, 2008If Juice throws as well all season as he did in many of the drives on Saturday, the Illini are going to have some fun this Fall. (The two late underneath INT’s should hopefully not happen again.)
The new Illini HQ website is pretty impressive. They’ve even got their equivalent of the Future Redbirds’ DFR, recapping the prep commits weekend games each Monday. I’ll be at next Saturday’s game, watching the beatdown of Eastern in person. Looking forward to seeing the newly renovated stadium from the inside.
FYI
Friday, August 15th, 2008Starting last midnight, the Big Ten Network is available on Comcast, channel 66 in Champaign-Urbana. There will be a 90-minute show tonight with footage and interviews from Camp Rantoul.
In other TV notes, a show called Camp Lazlo on cartoon network just had an entire episode on ass pennies.
More classic sketch comedy video goodness: Like my daddy said… “Never trust a man what’s a MADE-A-GAS!!!” How ’bout another space brew, Gleep Glop?
And likely, fifteen seconds of tonight’s TV news will be devoted to the revelation that the bigfoot thing was, in fact, a lame hoax.
Way to Go, Comcast, Ya Jerks!
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008My cable provider, Comcast, is on the verge of picking up the Big Ten Network, which will allow me to watch all sorts of Illini basketball, football, volleyball, etc., at home instead of needing to go to satellite-equipped bars (two of which are in my top three bars in town, anyways). That’s outstanding.
I understood both sides of the stand-off. The BTN didn’t want their channel shunted off to an extra sports-tier package where it wouldn’t be seen by most of the fans and Comcast didn’t want to pay through the nose for the programming. The prolonged negotiations dropped the price Comcast is paying almost in half which would certainly be passed on to the customer—and then some. The thinking around here was that no deal would get done after the football season came and went—that Comcast had weathered the storm and the BTN would fold. That would’ve been a lousy outcome. The network’s going to be a great success now that it’ll actually be seen.
Of course, at about the same time, I find out that my cable internet provider, Comcast, is considering going to a monthly 250GB cap on bandwidth usage with big charges for going over. If the big ISPs do this, I could see a serious chilling effect on content providers, with webpages scaling back on the multimedia delivered on their pages, not to mention what it could do to distance education and such that I work on professionally. They’d need to provide some kind of method for customers to check how much bandwidth they’ve used so far each month. I’d guess they’d implement that with some kind of shoddy spyware. If it were my job, I’d just put a section on their billing website where you could check and offer a desktop tool to monitor a secure feed from it or something.
Fortunately, most of my work from home involves nothing more than a plain-text ssh connection. I doubt I use 250GB… That’d probably mostly effect people with lots of roommates sharing a connection more than anything else. I could see the next generation of consumer routers implement caching.
End of a Great Career; Start of a New One
Thursday, January 10th, 2008Rashard Mendenhall officially declares for the NFL draft. I expect he’ll be the first or second runningback taken. The man’s a beast.
National Championship Game
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008What does it mean to me?
If OSU wins, the B10 will have gone .500 in Bowl games and that’s an improvement. I’d also like to see the Buckeyes have a strong showing after getting their asses handed to them last year—much like the Illini did this year. It’d be encouraging to see what last year’s experience taught their 38 returning players and hope the same lessons fall on the returning Illini for 2008.
Breaktime Thoughts
Monday, December 3rd, 2007Proud to see the Rose Bowl committee saw fit to invite Illinois to the Rose Bowl where they’ll face USC.
Some new songs I’ll be nailing on Wednesday night:
I ended up at a bar with karaoke last night and did my Louis Armstrong impression to “What a Wonderful World.” Got a really good response.
Illini @ tOSU
Saturday, November 10th, 2007With about ten minutes left in this game half, the Illini are keeping pace with the number 1 team in the country. I’m very proud of how well the Illini are playing. The offensive attack is balanced and the defenders are playing a physical game. Ecstatic to see Juice continue to build on the excellent passing game he showed last weekend at Minnesota.
Michigan already fell to Wisconsin today. We could end up tied for second in the Big Ten for a win here, with tOSU playing Michigan next weekend.
After converting the 4th and 1 at 2:14 remaining: Rashard Mendenhall is a BEAST!!! I love seeing that guy run out of the backfield instead of the option. He’s a smart, patient back.
Holy crap: Huge touchdown reception to Gamble puts the Illini up 21-14 with seventeen seconds remaining. A great play, crossing routes picked up all the defenders and Gamble was wide open. Hopefully Zook anticipates the adjustments OSU makes.
Great Week
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007This week has been nothing short of spectacular, eh? On Tuesday, some friends and I were interviewed by the Daily Illini for a story on Alto Vineyards. They didn’t use any of my statements, though, all of them obscene jokes about not wearing pants. That second picture is my hand, pouring a glass full to the brim of Traminette.
And last night, I caved in and bought myself a Nintendo Wii, along with a bunch of games, the best of which is Wario Ware: Smooth Moves. An amazingly fun game.
And tonight, I’ll be seeing Nick’s show.
And I just finished making my D-Fence sign. Not for Saturday’s game vs. Michigan, but for when my colleagues do their public dissertation defenses. I figure it’ll be great for one of us to sit in the back row with that up in the air until we get kicked out. Show some love and support, ya know?
5-2
Monday, October 15th, 2007Had my written prelim exam on Thursday and ended up pulling an all-nighter working on it. By the time I was done writing, I was too tired and loopy to tell whether I was making sense anymore. Foolish me. I did write basically a 15-page research paper overnight, though. Whether any of it makes sense isn’t for me to say at this point. I’ve got a little over a week to put together my presentation for the oral component of the prelim, then I’m off to the races, assuming I’m not screwing this up.
Saturday I woke up long enough to watch the Illini lose to Iowa. We should have won that game, but it’s not so upsetting that we didn’t. Kind of a pisser to be the bookends of Iowa’s 8-game Big Ten losing streak, though. I feel bad for Eddie McGee. He showed poise after his 83-yard TD pass was called back and I was certain that he’d get the ball in the end zone before the clock ran out. Thought he was managing the game well until that incredibly bad pass to the Iowa linebacker. It would have been a great win to march down the field and put the game away at the end. Wasn’t to be.
Mendenhall needs to get the ball more often, to hell with the option if it’s not working, which it clearly wasn’t the entire first half. I completely agree with Mark Tupper that it’d be great to see the line hold a pocket open and put these talented receivers to better use. The most frustrating thing was that McGee had great protection on the fatal interception play—plenty of time to let the receivers get into their routes and see where the defense left men underprotected. It’s a young offense, but still a pretty good one, even if they only managed to put up six points this weekend.
In basketball news, Bruce Weber and his assistants received three major verbal commitments for the class of 2009 last week. That’s exciting news and I’m hearing good things about the team from my neighbor who goes to watch some of the players work out on their own time. Basketball Prospectus has officially launched—a link is added to the sidebar. Their introductory motivation for their tempo-neutralized statistics is presented here. I’m excited to see what those two very bright fellows have to offer this winter. They’ve definitely enhanced my appreciation for college basketball over the last several years.
In hockey news, the Illini team remains undefeated with a sweep of Penn State over the weekend. The Blues are outscoring their opponents 15-8 through four games with a 3-1 record. Erik Johnson’s already made a big impression on the blue line. I’m a little disappointed that Jeff Woywitka didn’t make the team. I saw him play in a pre-season game in the 2005-06 season and liked what he was doing on the ice.
ILL-INI
Saturday, October 6th, 2007This is one heck of a game.
The defensive line and linebackers have done a good job containing the run offense and these defensive backs are doing a good job disrupting the Wisconsin passing game, with Vontae Davis just picking off a deep pass.
Hopefully Benn’s shoulder isn’t hurt to badly. Looks like he got his arm yanked. He didn’t look to be in enough pain for it to be a dislocation.
Rashard Mendenhall is beastly.
The crowd’s into it—I can hear them well from my front yard.
Got to score on this drive and extend the lead to two scores.
Crap, Juice just went down hurt. Landed hard on his hip, it looks like. The trainers popped him up, he shook it out. He’s OK. He’s having a great game, both rushing and passing.
*****
5:28 remaining: Eddie McGee scampers in for a touchdown, PAT gives the Illini a 12 point advantage.
5:16 remaining: On the kickoff, the ball came loose. Looks like a fumble on the replay. Zook can’t throw the flag on this one, though. That would have been devastating for Wisconsin. They’ve had two big calls go their way in this game now. Illinois is back in a big way. Wish I had the Big Ten Network. They’re playing the NW-MSU game that’s knotted at 41 aside. That game’s a shootout.
1:31 remaining: Ayeeyah! 90 seconds to go and the Badgers scored a touchdown after a long drive. Down by five after they make the PAT. Illinois special teams killed us last year. We need them to come up big here. Wisconsin will probably onside kick. If the Illini recover, the game may be over. Wisconsin has all their timeouts left.
Excellent! Wideout/centerfielder Kyle Hudson makes an easy catch of the onside kick and immediately lays down on the field, protecting the ball. Rashard Mendenhall needs to get more than 3 yards per carry for the next three downs. So far, so good. He almost picked up four on the first play of the possession.
3rd and 5, 1:15 remaining: Mendenhall needs to run. McGee should try a trick cadence to see if we can draw a Wisconsin foul. … Instead, a McGee bootleg route. Fourth and 1, and you have to give the ball to Rashard.
Wow. A botched snap on a QB sneak. The line surged deep enough for someone to fall on the ball for first down yardage. Amazing. The Illini just knocked off the #5 team in the country, breaking their 14-game win streak, and need one more win for bowl eligibility. Great game. Congratulations to the team.
Wow.
Friday, October 5th, 2007The guys at Bet US are setting a 2.5 spread in favor of Illinois for tomorrow’s game between the Illini and the fifth best team in the country, the Wisconsin Badgers.
If J. Leman can plug holes in the D-line and Juice, Benn, and Horton can spread out the Badger defense, we’ll beat that spread easy.
The band was out firing up the student body on the South quad a few minutes ago. All I could think of was this…
I’d forgotten all about this sketch, so a good thing.
Olio
Sunday, September 30th, 2007I wrote this comment at the tail end of a rather bitter post at VeB regarding the Cubs going to the playoffs while the Cards hit the links:
Last October, I was watching game 7 of the NLCS at a bar that was 90% Cub fans—all rooting fanatically for the Mets. After Wagonmaker froze Beltran, there was a split second of pained silence (aside from my celebration) before a chant went up: Lets Go Tigers! *clap* *clap* *clap*clap*clap*I’d never be so lame as to root for whatever team is playing the Cubs, but as a fan of the Cards, I find it very hard to root for them to win—not for any hatred-fueled rivalry, but for what it would mean going forward.
The Cubs have a small window to win the World Series before all these backloaded contracts they recently signed turn into pumpkins. If they can ride these new horses to a world series, the faithful in the friendly confines would be grateful enough to give Cub management a free pass for whatever they want to do, and if they’re wise, they’d rid themselves of those contracts to some dumb GM who pays more attention to the playoffs than to the likely future performance of players with large contracts and restock their farm system with a supply of top prospects to tap into for years to come.
This would be a very bad thing for the Cardinals, since it would give a division rival in a big market huge payroll flexibility and a stream of talent coming up for years to come just when they were on the brink of being handcuffed through the first half-decade of the second century of their World Series drought.
The Cubs are very hot right now and have a good front three in their rotation, but it’s hard to believe that the worst division in baseball could produce two WS champions in consecutive years.
I’m not rooting against ‘em, but most definitely not rooting for ‘em either.
It was a difficult season, come to a close today in fine fashion on a five game winning streak. Rest up, birds. Be ready to have some real fun again next year.
****
Wasn’t feeling great last night, so I used the evening to read Bing West’s The Village. This morning, I read through this webpage maintained by marines who fought in Combined Action Platoons. Included are West’s Marine Corps Gazette article, Fast Rifles, and scans of his pamphlet Small Unit Action in Vietnam. Incredible stories. I couldn’t stop reading the book until it was finished. Every review mentions that West’s style of writing is emotionally detached and without pretense. It’s a palpable effect—you learn of these amazing men and come to admire and respect them only to have their deaths at Viet Cong hands reported with unceremonious brevity.
It’s a good thing to take from the book—and impossible to miss—these men deserve respect and gratitude for their work. Not just those men in the book, too. At the CAP Veteranas website, there’s an anecdote of digging three VC out of a tunnel and finding them in possession of boxes of clothing donated by Berkeley students. Shameful.
****
I’ve made significant academic progress (finally) over the past few weeks. I wrote my proposal and the first draft was accepted. I’ve scheduled my written Prelim for two weeks from now and the oral defense in a little over three weeks. I’m swamped with non-academic work this week—I’ll be working 8am-7pm the next two days for two very important clients and it only gets slightly better the rest of the week. I’m going to get working on my research project in whatever downtime I have, though. I’m hoping to put myself into a position where I can go into my oral prelim with some proof-of-concept work in my back pocket to address whatever issues my committee identifies as areas of concern.
I’ll be working late in the lab tonight getting things ready for the week, so I don’t expect to sleep much the next three nights.
****
On a monthly good-news note, a new episode of Cautionary Tales of Swords will be out sometime tomorrow. Hopefully it comes back for a fifth episode. Because I laugh hard at it.
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In non-Cardinal sporting news, the Lambs got their butts handed to them by the Cowboys today in a game I didn’t watch. Fortunately, the Illini beat #21 AP-ranked Penn State (19 in the Coach’s poll) and a promising young Blues team starts the new season on Thursday. In this week’s polls, the University of Illinois football team received 59 votes from the AP, which I guess lands us at #28 in their rankings. Put up a good showing (or even, dare to dream, defeat) #5 Wisconsin this Saturday and we’ll start getting some national recognition. To have a team built on talented freshmen and sophomores having that kind of success would do wonders for Zook’s already exceptional recruiting efforts.
****
Barbarism in Burma: this blog is a good place to start.
Illini News
Monday, July 23rd, 2007Some friends and I decided to get season tickets for the 2007 Illinois home games next year. I had season tickets the first few years I was here, but didn’t have anyone to go with and missed a few games in 2002 or 2003, so I stopped getting them. This should be a pretty exciting season with the phenomenal draft class that Zook brought in.
Here are some pictures from the Spring Game from a few months ago. Can’t wait to see Benn running routes.
Speaking of freshman Illini athletes, how memorable of a first weekend at college did Quentin Watkins have? I think I would have just gone back to bed.