FanPost

Plan B

I believe was in a pregame thread that I expressed my hopes that Illinois would come into the PSU game with a plan on offense as well as a plan for what to do if Plan A quickly becomes a lost cause. I followed this up with the question of "have you ever really felt like the coaching staff did everything they could to try to win the game?"

This is exactly what they did in the PSU game. The vision for this offense heading into the game was the same vision we had for this offense back in August: have talented pocket passer Wes Lunt sling it around coming from all different types of receiver sets. In theory, if executed correctly, this would be a highly effective offense because the defense would have to either bring more pressure opening up quicker routes or sit back in coverage opening up the run game.

However, in the first quarter, this was ineffective due largely to the offensive line being outmatched. This had two effects: Lunt was under constant pressure, where he struggles; also, the run game found no room, so the offense became predictable. Unlike in games past, our coaching staff seemed to realize that this was unlikely to change over the course of the game, so Plan B was deployed and Reilly O'Toole entered the game.

This was a more effective offense in this particular game, and I was pleasantly astonished to see the coaching staff finally change up the whole offensive philosophy during the course of a winnable game. There remains much debate regarding two other games that seemed rather winnable; you may recall that Lunt's injury pressed Reilly into action against Purdue and that the offense ceased to produce after that. I'd place this squarely on the coaching staff. O'Toole was clearly more prepared to play against Minnesota and Penn State than he was against Purdue, and it doesn't seem like Cubit and co. prepared for a scenario where Lunt would leave the Purdue game.

In the Iowa game, the defense was worn down by the offense continuing to quickly three-and-out. Based on what we saw against Penn State, it would have made sense to yank Lunt in the third quarter with the game still well within reach. We'll never know what could have happened; here are, in my mind, two situations where our coaching staff was ill-equipped to win the games with the players we had available.

However, I do have a point in all this, and that is that as much as I've ripped this coaching staff, they just came off the best game they've ever coached, and if there's ever a time for them to figure things out, it's right now.

Let's go Illini

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