Illinois 48, Northwestern 27: Postgame venting thread

I hate Wrigley. I hate all offensive plays in the same direction. I hate publicity stunts that just increase our humiliation. I hate that this team gets worse and worse. I hate that we might limp into the pizza bowl and get whipped by a little-conference team.

When you’re down 10 and haven’t been able to stop the other team at all is stupid. I’m sorry. I love Pat Fitzgerald and everything he’s done for this program. But that was stupid. Actually, it’s stupid no matter what. Run the QB sneak, get the first down… every single time. Doesn’t matter the situation.

One other thing of note: is anyone else afraid to picture what Wisconsin’s running game is going to do to us next week? I shudder at the thought.

That our line play has been so mediocre this year against Big Ten teams. It looks a lot worse than previous years, but Persa has sort of masked the problems by taking off and gaining distance on the ground.

Essentially, we seem to have regressed significantly in terms of being able to provide time in the pocket and challenge opposing rush efforts.

I don’t even know what to say about the defensive effort. We gave up 500+ yards on the ground. That’s just unfathomable.

Watkins did not lose this game

Demos was more than fine

Illini have better line athletes. Just wait until the W Badgers – oh brother

Zook and Fitz weren’t very friendly after the game

No more gimicks. Build a better Ryan Field environment

Some of our players showed, but Illinois wanted it more

I’m worried about Bowl slotting now!!!

We really did a better job defensively in the second quarter. IL didn’t score any touchdowns, and we were getting into the backfield a lot.

From an Xs and Os standpoint, does anyone understand what we were doing well then? How were we able to get through that line? And why did that stop happening? I know missed tackles were a huge factor, as they were in the PSU game.

How does Northwestern’s d-line improve? Obviously bigger/faster recruits is a key part, but sparing that, what specifically can we do to improve our D-line play?

I thought Watkins had an amazing throw that got caught at about the 3 yard line when it was 24-17 IL. He definitely has a stronger arm than Persa. This possibly is a very dumb idea, but what about using Evan as the QB at times next year, and Persa as an RB/Wingback on those plays? Just a thought.

Interesting insight. Thanks.

I was watching Game Day from the comfort of my bed this morning and saw the “Fire Demos” sign. For as much as I’ve dissed the guy on this blog, I’d never put a sign like that on television. Loretta8 was correct, that was a low class move.

My seats sucked at Wrigley, and I’m someone with a good amount of Wildcat points. My $150 seats were overpriced based upon the location and view of the field. Wrigley is a bad omen for the Cubs, and anyone who thought it was going to be something amazing for the Wildcats was only fooling themselves. I saw very few plays unfold and couldn’t tell what happened most of the time. My seats in Ryan Field are kick-ass and I have no blind spots to the field…….today I had mostly blind spots to the field.

Our defense looked horrible today. With Watkins getting his first start, the defense needed to shut down the Illini to keep us in the game, and as we all know that never happened. After the Penn State game, Fitz said the defense missed 27 tackles……I wonder how many there were today.

Starting the season, I knew our running game was weak but I never expected this level of inconsistency out of our defense.

Also, for a game where the tickets were supposed to be controlled by the Wildcats, I was amazed at how many Illini jerseys I saw inside the park. A lot of season ticket holders resold seats on Stubhub or to ticket brokers……..way too many Illini in that park today.

Perhaps it’s because I was pulled away and couldn’t watch the 4th, but I don’t feel that bad about today. The offense did ok under the circumstances, especially running the ball, averaging 6.8 yds/attempt. Turnovers are obviously bad. The defense was less good obviously.

I guess once I started thinking 6 win season, everything else seems like a gift.

Big picture I think this was a great day for Northwestern football. Having Gameday and all the exposure from Wrigley was a huge boost whose effects will be felt for some time.

I was at the game near the “scoring endzone” in row 1 (actually fourth row).

My thoughts: Wrigley is not a good football venue, but I am glad they did it once for exposure.

Defense: No tackling was a big problem. How did NU stop MSU rushing and not Illinois? Where is coach Hank on this? Part of it seemed to be emotion. I remember in the 2nd quarter on a 3rd and 3 or so we stopped em and the NU sideline had no reaction. It was a big play at the time. I find it odd that Fitz’ emotion doesn’t carry to the team. Where is the leader on NU’s defense? Was Wooton the emotional leader? Where is Davie, Williams or whomever to pick up that torch?

Offense: If you burn Colter’s redshirt, use him more… even in the second half. And regardless, use the hurry up offense more, it seemed like it was working.

Touch loss and I see no way we beat UW unless we play with emotion and tackle and get breaks.

    There was no doubt that the defense was ill prepared for the first quarter. The offensive line and fullbacks delivered ridiculous lateral blocks causing 20 foot holes in the defense. This allowed many early 30-40 yard rushes. Bob Davie made a totally out of character short sighted comment at the end of the game. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm) He said that the Wildcats were missing Persa, but that Persa didn’t play defense. NU’s time of possession was 18 minutes. Without Persa’s 3rd down magic, Illinois had the opportunity to run the ball 70 times. That’s correct 70 times. There were a few breakdowns later leading to big gains but any defense that stays out for over 40 minutes will get rolled. On the bright side, I thought we had spectacular secondary coverage. Mabin broke up quite a few passes, but unfortunately made quite a few touchdown saving run stops.
     We need some serious improvements on offense to stand a chance against the Badgers. If the Badgers offense stays on the field for 45 minutes, we are toast. Watkins did demonstrate that he had quite a powerful arm. His accuracy needs work. I am particularly upset that the fakeevanwatkins twitter feed has dried up after the game. Colter should get more snaps just to give the announcers an opportunity to talk about the wildcat formation.

that stupid “tied or leading at some point in the second half” streak finally ended.

Maybe I’m the minority, but despite the brutal/crappy loss where our defense and O line plays like they don’t care (or just can’t) and we are made painfully aware how much of an MVP Persa is, this was one of the more exciting NU athletic events I’ve ever been to.

I’ve been to the bowl games and that’s always a great time, but there was something very unique and almost magical about seeing ESPN in front of a purple-tinted Wrigley Field and seeing purple-clad fans all over Wrigleyville and then the banners with NU players hanging inside the stadium.

Sure the views weren’t great and the ridiculousness of playing toward only one end zone made this game problematic…thus making it unlikely this will ever happen again…but doesn’t that also make it that much cooler. This was a singular event in college football history and we got to witness (some of) it!

Lastly, and here’s what really matters. Northwestern came to Chicago and people noticed. I spent four years in college there pretty recently and even though I no longer live there, I go back relatively often. Here’s an anecdote for you guys:
Earlier this year, I came back for a wedding and went up to Wrigleyville to grab some beers with friends. I didn’t have time to go to Evanston, but I wanted to try and pick up some new NU gear…so I went to about 5 of the different (huge) sports gear stores all around Wrigley and kept asking if they had ANYTHING in purple…no go. I was baffled that a school mere minutes away from this American sports hub (and a member of the premier college football conference of the Midwest) somehow didn’t have anything to offer a sports fan at Wrigley…well, after this weekend, I am CONFIDENT I will be able to find an NU hat, at the very least, when I go back to Wrigley…why?

Because we finally made Chicago notice us.

That’s what it was always about. We can complain about the flaws of our team all we want, but as fans of NU football, we know there’s more than one challenge that we face in building an awesomely winning program and guess what? One of the basic things a team needs is people who care and as the die-hard fans of the team who will never walk away from the team, it’s our responsibility to understand that sacrifices have to be made in order to build our fanbase and, man, I saw more people care about NU this weekend than I have since I started following the team. Can any one deny that?

Let’s lay off the bitching and embrace what this game was. An imperfect, but hugely creative attempt and making NU relevant in one of the largest sports markets in America and I think, in that sense, we kicked ass. Now let’s see what we can do about not getting gashed by the Badgers.

GO CATS.

Yeah. Game result sucked. I actually think the Cats had a better chance to beat The Zookers at Ryan more than Wrigley – Either the MN loss or the venue woke up the Illini.

SCORE radio had people talking Monday morning about the possibility of future games played at Soldier Field – which makes more sense than Wrigley IMO.

Re: WI … I have a bad feeling about this – Bielama has to still be smarting after the WI loss to NU last year – and I don’t get the impression he forgets or forgives. He is after all, a Buckin’ Fadger.

Now if Fitz could somehow convince them to wear Black & Gold…