So much for the vaunted Braggin’ Rights streak.  Probably should’ve known better than to gloat before the game…

Talking to my brother and other fellow fans after the game, the consensus goes something like this:  The Illini aren’t very good.  They lack toughness, rebounding, and continuously get beat off the dribble.  They rely too much on jump-shooting on offense and lack poise.  At this point, it’s a dog-fight to reach the NCAA tournament, and I don’t really see it happening.  Adjust your expectations on this team: they have a long way to go.

Merry Christmas!

Your Pentagram thoughts on the game:

• Illinois in no way played well enough to win and Mizzou did.  That said, the refs were horrible, and a series of bad calls midway through the second half helped prevent the Illini from breaking the 6-7 point margin.  The other problem during that stretch, Illinois could not grab a damned rebound.  Where have you gone, Roger Powell, Victor Chukwudebe, Robert Bennett, even Earvin Small?  Without Chester Frazier bulldogging loose balls, this may be the worst rebounding Illinois team I’ve seen.
• On defense, we seemed to have the uncanny knack of getting beat off the dribble at practically every position.  This is a big problem.  Then we overcompensate by collapsing and leaving guys open for 3s.  Repeatedly.  Here’s a novel thought:  if your man hits a few outside shots, how about you stick with him and make someone else beat you.  Another novel thought – more zone defense, Coach.  It may actually give this team a chance.  Blah-blah-blah Purdue man-to-man giving into the players blah.  I don’t care.  Do what you have to do to win.
• On offense, it would be nice to throw it inside once in awhile.  Sure Tisdale misses dunks and Davis was MIA,  but at least you draw some fouls and open up some driving lanes.  This ongoing criticism of the Weber-motion offense remains:  too reliant on the jump-shot.  Don’t think it’s likely to change (just like I doubt we see more zone defense).
• Why didn’t Keller play more in the 2nd half?  Mike Davis looked overwhelmed and unhappy those mean Mizzou guys kept running into him and pushing him around.  Keller has some toughness and energy and couldn’t have been worse.  For that matter, if we keep getting man-handled, find away to get your bigger bodies (Semrau and Simpson) on the floor.
• Looking at the schedule, you can see somewhere between 9-11 more regular season wins barring a major collapse.  This assumes Bruce can address some of the toughness/intensity problems we’ve seen the past two games.  11 wins gets you to 19-12 heading into the Big 10 Tournament, which probably isn’t good enough for the NCAAs unless you go on a run and make the championship game that final weekend.  This team has a lot of work to do.

It’s a simple bit of calculus:  Beemsville presence at the annual Braggin’ Rights basketball game in St. Louis = Illini victory over Mizzou*.   We’ve attended nine straight games at the Kiel/Savvis center and tonight will make number 10.  Here’s hoping the Orange & Blue can run the table on the decade of the aughts.  It’s become a beloved holiday tradition:  a little last minute shopping at Union Station, a nice meal at Landry’s, and another win for the good guys.  I know, I know, I’m inviting the mega-jinx here, but despite the current team’s uneven road performances, we should be able to handle the Tiggers.  If there was a year for them to break the streak it was last year, when they had a much better team in terms of sheer talent.

Keys to the game:

• McCamey needs to be on the floor.  Shouldn’t matter if he scores 5 points or 25, as long as he’s there to breakdown the Mizzou pressure and run the team, we should be good.  Last year his string of three-pointers in the first half built the Illini lead and put the game out of reach.
• One of the Mike’s needs a big game. Mizzou has lost their front-court bruisers from a year ago and either Tisdale or Davis should benefit from the lack or experience and probably open looks in the transition game.
• A freshman needs to step up. Don’t care if it’s DJ, Brandon, or Griff – one of them needs to have a good double-figure scoring night and show some moxie.  So far they’ve been pretty bad away from Champaign.

Let’s get another one and start the holidays right.  Go Illini!

*Sadly, the converse of this equation seems to be in effect for the Arch Rivalry Football game.

About six weeks or so after letting us all know head football coach Ron Zook was staying but “changes would be made”, U of I alum and Athletic Director Ron Guenther emerged from the wilderness last week with two shiny new coordinators in tow.  Paul Petrino, formerly of Arkansas and various other places his brother Bobby has coached of late is the new Offensive Coordinator, and Vic Koenning, most recently at Kansas State, will serve as Defensive Coordinator.  Both new assistants will make big money (among the most in the Big 10) and presumably take a larger share of the decisions and strategy on themselves as part of the new football way espoused by Guenther.

And what is this new method?  Call it the Paterno method or the Bowden method.  You simply let your top assistants run their units and call most of the shots while representing the program.  The Zooker is a great recruiter and a players’ coach and he represents the University well.  But the results haven’t been there, mostly due to a lack of discipline (stupid penalties and mistakes), lack of fundamentals, and inability to make tactical adjustments.  In other words he ain’t the best gameday coach.

This time last year, yours truly was calling for both new offensive and defensive coordinators and here’s why.  In addition to the three complaints listed above, we observed through the Big 10 Network’s pseudo-reality show The Journey, which followed Illini football through the season, a bunch of assistants on Zook’s staff who had energy and enthusiasm but didn’t appear as the brightest  bulbs on the tree.  In particular, I refer to the two-headed defensive coordinator nightmare known as Disch and Mallory.  They were all like Zook: rah-rah emotion guys.  And as it turns out, the departed Mike L0cksley was the one schemer on the staff.  It’s a simple bit of college football algebra:  you need schemers on the team to go along with the as rah-rah guys.  You need students of the game who can adapt and adjust.  And when you’re at Illinois, where you play several games a year in which the other team has better talent, this becomes even more pivotal.  See how it works in places like Cincinnati, or Boise State, or even Iowa.  That’s called good coaching.

Having listened to interviews of both Petrino and Koenning, I think we’re finally on the right track.  Petrino truly sounds like an evil genius in training, and he wants to implement more pro-style offensive sets and focus on getting the ball to the best weapons.  Too bad we didn’t try that before Rejus Benn left…  The only question with him is how quickly he can get the system in place and make it work.  Petrino has head coach ambitions, so he needed to get away from his brother and prove his own mettle.  He’s also brought along two new assistants as position coaches and this should be a good thing for the Illini.

Koenning had less to say, but he did promise to emphasize tackling and ball-pursuit.  He also said his approach was to emphasize a few areas of improvement rather than everything, because if you don’t focus on a few improvements nothing gets better.  He’s an experienced guy who is known for creative blitzing, which will come as a welcome change from the pure vanilla bend-until-you-break approach of the Disch-Mallory era.

Both these guys have two-year deals, which implies Zook has two more years (not just one) to turn it around.  It’s an interesting approach by Guenther, who stated he didn’t want to start-over by scuttling the entire staff.  Ronnie G. has taken a lot of heat for this decision, but for a school like Illinois, which does not financially prostrate itself before the altar of college athletics, or have the long-standing tradition to fall back on, or have a crazy rich alum willing to personally break the bank for a new head coach, it’s probably the best approach.  Only time will tell.

I am not a Guenther basher and happen to think he’s been a very good AD following a long period of indifference.  Like the venerable one, Loren Tate, I don’t think you can discount the new building construction, operating in the black, and the mostly good hires over which he’s presided.  Mark Tupper has a similar take on the situation.  And implicit in Guenther’s statement is one key fact that gives me some optimism:  Zook acknowledges the need to change and has said he’s willing to enact said change.  So I’m hoping Petrino and Koenning can help him deliver.  College Football is a rough-yet-elitist arena, but the Illini should and could be a perennial bowl team that can challenge for the Big 10 in it’s best years.  That’s what we’re hoping for.

Coach Weber once again got the drop on a former fellow Boilermaker with a 79-68 win over Kevin Stallings and Vanderbilt in  Champaign.  The Illini continue to look impressive on offense – especially against teams without overly physical guards.  When you shoot 60% from the field you’re going to win.  Of course the coaching staff remains concerned about what happens when you don’t shoot all that well and you can’t man up defensively(see Utah second half, Bradley, Clemson first half).  Still, give me a team that can score and needs to improve their defense…

Five points in the pentagram.

• McCamey again controlled the game, setting the tone early with hot-shooting and continuing to provide floor leadership.  If not for a bad stretch in the second half in which he tried to put Vandy away by pressing for transition hoops (leading to several bad passes and turnovers), his line would’ve looked better.  Still wish he finished better at the rim.
• Mike Davis was quiet on offense, but still played a solid game by rebounding, moving around and passing on offense, and yes, playing defense.  Think about that for a moment.  In the past you could pretty much count on very little from Mike D if he wasn’t scoring.  This game shows some maturity and more proof that Weber’s ethos has begun to sink in with some of the juniors.
• The bench was pivotal. Very nice games by Keller and Jordan, and Billy Cole continues to scrap and battle ala Lucas Johnson.  Cole will get hot one of these nights and hit some shots.  Semrau logged a few minutes and banged around in there as well.   It would be nice to get Legion involved, and I’d still like to see more of Griffey and Stan Simpson (my brother says he can dominate stretches of practice).  That said, a good nine-man rotation is viable.
• The Freshmen guards continue to learn on the job and provide moments of exhilaration and frustration.  Brandon Paul with some nice drives and jumpers but still looks pretty clueless on Defense.  Richardson with great shot selection but looks surprisingly shaky handling the ball.  And yet if at least one of them is on with his shooting, our backcourt look so much better than in recent years…
• The second half was very Big Ten-ish, with Vandy fouling hard and often in an attempt to disrupt the Illini offensive rhythm.  I didn’t really like the clock-management style we went to, but I can understand it after the rash of turnovers and poor decisions (which could’ve let Vandy back in it if not for some bad shooting by them).  Teams will try to hack us down when we’re shooting that well, and some will succeed.  When that happens will Illinois have enough savvy to dump it inside, drive, and play tough defense on the other end?  Time will tell.

Some otherwise loyal Illini fans were kicking their dog, throwing the remote, and/or flipping on the PlayStation or movie or whatever after that first half.  I know this because I got the texts from some of them.  And I was very, very close myself, but I wanted to see if anyone would respond in the second half as well as whether McCamey would continue to get the shaft from the officials.  What I and the rest of the truly loyal saw was the all-time comeback victory for Illinois basketball, 76-74 over #18 Clemson.  At Clemson.  With terrible officiating (at least in the first half).

Many are familiar with the old cliche, ‘attitude adjustment’ – and this is precisely what happened after the half.  The Illini “looked like whipped dogs”, as color radio-man Jerry Hester put it, but that all changed when Demetri McCamey settled the team down against the Clemson pressure and guys started to hit some shots.  Of course Clemson also put it in cruise control and played poorly during that stretch, but the last five minutes were back-and-forth and the Illini found a way to make plays.  The win, along with the Badgers’ upset of Duke propelled the Big 10 to victory in the incessantly annoying ACC/Big 10.  Take that, east-coast biased hoops media.

Five points to your all-time comeback pentagram…

• McCamey is certainly the team MVP at this point in the season.  Others may score more, but his ballhandling and game management are absolutely vital to this team – especially against high-pressure defense.  Jeff Jordan is good in spurts, but he kept picking the dribble up at half-court.  DJ seems to have the skillset but not yet the savvy for the point.  When McCamey was on the floor in the second half, you could see his teammates relax and play ball.  And for this game, in which he didn’t shoot well and got zero respect from the officials, DMac kept playing, didn’t get down, and found ways to lift the team.  Very encouraging.
• More zone, please. The Tigers were blowing by on penetration and the refs were calling a lot of ticky-tacks.  Then we mixed in some 2-3 for stretches during the rally.  Not only did it screw up Clemson’s rhythm, the Illini maintained their intensity (a couple of steals by Paul and DJ in the passing lanes) and even managed to rebound.  If they can play zone like that, Weber should continue to employ it in spots.
• Freshmen start to realize what it takes at this level.  After a bad Vegas weekend, Paul and DJ combined for 34 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists – mostly in the second half.  Brandon Paul’s dunk and block will be replayed endlessly during promos for the rest of the year, and DJ’s shot selection continues to impress.  Both of the freshmen drove and drew fouls during the second half, which has to continue as well.  And their defense was much better.
• Mike Davis owns Clemson. 28 points last year, 22 and 9 rebounds this year, many of them key boards and clutch shots.  He played with the kind of intensity and yes, borderline physicality  the Illini will need from him – especially during the Big 10 season.  He and Tisdale kept fighting down low and continue to show signs of the requisite toughness you need from your front line.
• Team-defining win for these guys. This is a game this group will point back to in March when it’s tourney time, and any time the team finds itself down.  It will be a rallying point, much the way the comeback victory over LSU (I think we were down 18) was a talisman for the Flying Illini.  College basketball is a game of runs and emotions as much as x’s and o’s, and this victory will mean more than just another W for the Illini.

Illini fans had a rough holiday weekend.  First we had the football team’s loss to Cincinnati, a game in which our quarterback missed open receivers left-and-right, the defense looked completely at a loss, which allowed Illinois to prove how not good they are against a top ten team on national television.  The Bearcats, by the way, play the spread offense the correct way – the way Illinois should – but to run it that way you need an accurate passer and willingness to throw.

Then it was the basketball team’s turn to disappoint.  Bruce Weber’s boys got the chance to play a pair of non-cupcakes away from home in Las Vegas and promptly lost both games.  First they let a 32-16 halftime lead slip away against Utah, a game I didn’t watch due to the internet-only TV coverage, but from all reports sounded like the Illini went passive in the second half, trying to work the clock and maintain the lead, which allowed the Utes to adjust, come back, and win on a last second shot in which Illinois forgot to send anyone back on defense.

Against in-state school Bradley, Illinois was simply outworked and outfought.   This was game the team from Peoria seemed to want more (hence storming the floor like it was an NCAA tourney game at the end).  The Braves built an 8-point lead, which Illinois chipped away at in the second half to move ahead by five with about three minutes to go.  After that, Bradley scored nine of the next 11 points, the Orange & Blue, managed a pair of free throws, and that’s how you choke away a second loss in two games.

A number of troubling trends:  the Illini continue to leave good shooters open on the penetration; someone needs to recognize the fact that a contested layup is sometimes better to allow than an open three.  The team relied too much on its own jumpshooting, which went cold against Utah and was spotty against Bradley’s tough D.  Hopefully Brandon Paul and DJ Richardson continue to develop their confidence and learn to recognize when they should drive.  McCamey seems better at this but still seems prone to flinging up tough off-balance shots when he should be going hard to the rim.  Rebounding was troublesome.  Utah outboarded Illinois, and while Bradley did not, they seemed to get the all the clutch rebounds at the end of the game.  Weber shortened his bench this tournament – something I’ll take issue with.  I would’ve had Billy Cole in more against Bradley; something tells me he would not have been outfought down the stretch.

At any rate, these two games were a pair in which Illinois had superior talent but could not get the result.  So what happens tomorrow night in Clemson when the Illini face a team with just as many scorers and athletes?  Here’s to hoping Weber and company get the gameplan right and the boys respond well to some adversity.

The Fighting Illini 09-10 Basketball season tips off tonight against SIU-Edwardsville.  Coach Weber has four freshman to incorporate, three of which have already proven they will play (and Joseph Bertrand might be in that mix too if not for a knee injury), and his top three returning scorers in McCamey, Davis, and Tisdale.  Illinois has three more talented players coming in next year, and Weber deserves a lot of credit for his recent recruiting success.

But if the football team has taught us anything, it’s to be wary of the local hype surrounding the Illini.  Don’t get carried away with lofty prognostications.  That said, we’re optimistic about this year’s hoops team.  They will be fun to watch with young athletic players and depth on the bench.  The days of low-scoring milk-the-shotclock-and-hope offense should be behind us, and we won’t see many more games in the 40s and 50s (let alone that nightmare Penn State game in the 30s).

Last year’s team overachieved its way to a 24-10 record behind the grit of Chester Frazier and the scoring of the now-junior class.  So what do we see for this year?  Five points in the pentagram…

• Who will stop the other guy? I’ve listened to the two exhibition games and the postgame chat with Coach has included the same lament: who’s going to guard?  Last year you could put Frazier on any non-post player and he would hold them down, frustrate them, and give the Illini a chance.  It was part of the gameplan.  This year, young DJ Richardson show signs of the stopper mentality, but you can’t expect him to be your lockdown guy.  Mike and Mike are both theoretically a year older, stronger, and wiser, so they should be better post defenders.  They’d better be…  Coach has toyed with the idea of a zone but has publicly stated he sees it as “giving in to the guys”, which doesn’t seem that helpful.  If you need to play zone to steal some minutes and protect your best players, figure out a way to do that.  And a little full-court pressure would add a wrinkle and take advantage of the depth.  But thinking about matching up with Evan Turner, Robbie Hummel, and Kalin Lucas – not fun…
• Will we have a star this year? Weber’s teams have traditionally featured balanced scoring with about four guys averaging in low double-figures.  It’s a hallmark of his motion offense.  Will someone emerge this year as a primary threat?  The most likely candidates are Mike Davis and Demetri McCamey.  Davis could average 16-20 with a concerted effort to get him the ball and if he can grab a few more put-backs.  Judging from the exhibition games though, you wonder how the competition among the guards will affect his field goal attempts.  McCamey has the skills and talent to lead this team and dominate games – we’ve seen this since he was a freshman.  It might be best for the team if he averaged 15 a game but was the designated guy for tough shots and possessions.  From all the preseason news, it sounds like D-Mac has matured greatly and is ready to be that leader.
• Rotation expansion – Since the Final Four team, Coach has been reluctant to play more than seven guys in his rotation.  We criticized him on this last year (it’s one reason why the team always seems so worn down in late February), and we will really stick him on it this year if it happens.  Depth should be a strength of this team, and nine or ten guys should expect to play.  If the Illini go up-tempo, press, and play to offensive strengths, an expanded rotation is a must.  Who fills out that rotation might change and vary until January.
• Variation on offense – Another trend in recent years has been the stagnation of the vaunted motion offense late in the year.  I’ve complained about this often.  By the second pass in the Big 10, everyone knows where we like to pick and cut, and they shut us down.  The only time this hasn’t happened was when you had a true maestro in Deron Williams running the show.  So how does Weber rectify this?  Running some set plays, teaching the offense differently, changing his approach?  I’m really hoping we’ll see some signs of this.  You get really tired of hearing him lament, ‘they have to go cut and go screen someone’, as if his hands are tired.  Change your strategy, Coach, and don’t make excuses for the freshman.  You finally have guys who can dribble-drive and almost everyone can hit open jumpers.  If the offense bogs down late this year, it’s on the coaches.
• How to spell success? Last year’s Illini exceeded expectations in the win column, but pretty much did as expected in March (they lost four of their last five).  Coach did a great job getting 24 wins and finishing in the upper half of the conference.  This year the Big 10 is the toughest deepest conference in the nation – it’s as good as it’s been in a decade.  To finish in the upper half, maybe with a shot at the title in the last two weeks should be the goal.  To do that, you’ll need to hold service at home and steal a few road games.  Your conference champion could very well have as many as five or six losses.  So if the team avoids major injuries and other meltdowns, they should be shooting for a chance to win the Big 10 tournament and make the Sweet 16.  We also want to extend the streak over Mizzou, avoid any non-conference losses in Champaign, and show well against Gonzaga in Chicago.  Whatever happens, it should be fun to see some new variations on the themes of the past few years, and with more talent on the floor and more on the way next year, we’re really looking forward to it.

A beautiful fall weekend, the likes of which we rarely see in November, meant a lot of time outside for the kids and a lot of leaves being bagged by the grown-ups.  There was also time for football, soccer, partying, and even some basketball.  But mostly it was the leaves.  With three big old trees in the yard, you just take it in stride…

53 Bags

Illinois’ offense looked competent and borderline good for the second straight week, scoring 35 points against the Gophers.  We’ve said all along the O&B would need 30+ points a game to win; too bad they waited until the season was halfway over to wake up.  Of course the competition has been less stringent after that brutal September, but how much do we attribute to more manageable foes, how much to the Offensive Coordinator finally getting it together, and how much to having a quarterback who can actually pick up blitzers and hit open receivers?  And we note that Minnesota made adjustments at halftime (and the Zooker did not) and nearly caught up after that terrible blocked punt, but Charest hit McGee on a crucial third down and Illinois got that final touchdown.  To their credit, the Illini never gave up on the season and still have the Illinois rivarly with Northwestern and a winnable home game against Fresno State.  Win those two and we’ll forgive some of the earlier crap…

The Chicago Fire booked their place in the Eastern Conference Final by scoring two Saturday night against an overmatched New England team.  They needed two to win and got both, the second coming courtesy of a heads-up play by Patrick Nyarko and a cool veteran finish by the ageless Blanco.  Watching on TV, I wished I would’ve been there.  It looked like an awesome atmosphere at Toyota Park, with all the banners, songs, flares, etc.  Now the Fire will face a surprising Real Salt Lake team in Chicago, a game they should be able to handle.  We’d like to go, but with all the recent travel watching at home is probably the wise choice.  The Fire will face the winnter of Houston and L.A. from the West with a win this weekend.  We’ve been saying an L.A.-Chicago MLS Cup Final – no reason to change the tune now.

Of course we were in Findlay Saturday night for the annual after-Halloween costume party at the Legion, which is why we couldn’t head for Chi-town.  Probably 75-85 folks there, with the vast majority decked out in a respectable array of costumes.  Good turnout, good fun, and worth the trip to the old homestead.  We noted several Roaring 20’s Flapper-girls, and a handful of 80’s themed outfits.  A crew dressed as the Simpons won the contest, and as usual, the scavenger hunt was rigged.  This was it for the mermaid-and-shark costume combo (sadly, especially for the mermaid portion), but the wife is already plotting for next year’s fun…

Sunday included recovery, a lot more leaves, and Illini pre-season hoops.  While finishing up the leaf-bagging for the front yard, we listened to Illinois v. Quincy University.  While we’re heartened by DJ Richardson’s 23 points and fellow freshman Brandon Paul’s early bounce and finishing, it’s somewhat of concern that the two Mikes combined for only eight field goal attempts and eleven rebounds.  Still, shot selection and ball management can be taught (especially by Coach Weber) but explosivness and off-the-dribble skills not so much.  We’ll go out on a limb and say that these Illini will not be held to less than 50 points like last year’s version on multiple nights, but with a tougher non-conference schedule and a a powerful-looking Big 10,  they may not get as many wins either.

Mike D in the House

A quick look at the official website schedule tells us we only have 12 days until the first televised Fighting Illini Basketball exhibition game.  Two weeks after that we have the season opener against SIU-Edwardsville.  For Illini fans, hoops can’t get here soon enough.  We can officially turn our attention to the four heralded freshmen and the talented junior trio of Mike, Mike, and D-Mac.

The Illini are a top 20 kind of team but may not start the season in the polls as it has become fashionable to stock a lot of mid-majors there (a trend Beemsville wholly endorses BTW).  But win against the cupcakes and come into December with one or fewer losses, and the Orange & Blue will get some attention.  If the freshmen can produce and no major injuries befall us, the Illini should contend for the Big 10 – and the conference will be as tough as it’s been in many years.  For a detailed scrimmage report from earlier this year, check out the Rube’s analysis.  More preseason coverage of Coach Weber’s team will be forthcoming.  Turning briefly to…

…the football team: the less said/written the better.  They are not only victims of their own ineptitude, but of expectations and their own slick marketing team.  We were all led to believe the Zooker had these guys poised for a top tier conference season and a definite bowl game.  It’s not like the end of the Turner years, when everyone knew we barely had enough talent to win in I-AA.  This was going to be Juice’s swan-song, a fearsome offensive juggernaut with multiple weapons and HA HA HA OH GOD THE COMEDY…

If Illinois should manage to run the table (and you know what we mean) the Zooker is gone.  Even if he manages to win one or two more games, he should be gone.  But do we really want Ron Guenther making another football coach hire?  Anybody else wondering if Tim Brewster’s Illinois Loyalty is true Orange and Blue?

Catch it!  What’s that?  A stable of offensive weapons the likes of which have not been seen in Champaign in many-a-moon?  What?  A new offensive coordinator known for scoring points and rolling up yardage?  Who?   A pair of dark-horse Heisman candidates – wait, HAHAHAHAHAHA.  HA-HA.

We caught the Illini fever.  The boy had about 100 degrees at gametime, a holdover from the little girl’s earlier illness, but like any right-thinking alumni parents, we went to the game anyway, expecting a cure for what ailed us.  We coughed up too much dough in hopes of finally seeing the Orange & Blue beat the Tiggers at the dome.  Instead we bore witness to one of the illest Illinois performances in recent memory. 

To quote the Zooker (and in keeping with the theme): “I feel sick for these guys.  I feel sick for them. I feel sick for the Illini Nation. It’s up to us to make sure we get that fixed.“

We’re all feeling the sickness today.  It’s a good thing beloved President Obama is going to fix healthcare and provide free cures for everyone!  But seriously, did Juice throw the ball down the field even once?  No?  And just what was that strange-looking permutation of the spread?  You run the spread to score points, not play ball control (as the coaches claimed was our objective).  You want to play ball control, line up like Wisconsin or Iowa and run between the tackles.  Otherwise, well …  Nevermind.  It’s not even worth it.

Suffice to say you will not see anymore Illini football blogging on Beemsville until there’s something worth commenting upon.  Because we’re sick of it already.