So let's talk about a few observations from today.
First, as many of you may remember, I think Fitzy is a pretty good coach. But he's not working with a ton at NW this season. However, Stanford and the massively overrated David Shaw roll in with their craptastic "power football," and they can't do a thing with a veteran offense because it's so easy to scheme against. I've been waiting for Stanford to come back to Earth as Harbaugh's charges left, and it started happening last year. If a coach is great at evaluating OL talent and turning those kids into beasts, power football works. That's just hard, really hard. Stanford is done as a force (and this doesn't even delve into the fact that a lot of their success was merely having the best QB in the last decade play several years there).
Second, I believe Cubit is already making a real difference for IL. We were just so much more AGGRESSIVE in the first half today. Kent State sucks (I loved IL -14.5), but beating them 38-0 at half is still legit. This is what I've been calling for since joining these boards (and before). BE AGGRESSIVE. Yeah, you'll get burned, but you will burn more passive teams more than they burn you.
I don't think we'll learn much next week, either. WIU averaged about 3.5 yards per play against EIU. They completed about 50% of 35 passes. That's not good, and it was at home against a far worse team. Won easily because of special teams and TOs. But the stats say that WIU is going to struggle to get first downs in Champaign next week. Probably have a better D than KSU, though.
First, as many of you may remember, I think Fitzy is a pretty good coach. But he's not working with a ton at NW this season. However, Stanford and the massively overrated David Shaw roll in with their craptastic "power football," and they can't do a thing with a veteran offense because it's so easy to scheme against. I've been waiting for Stanford to come back to Earth as Harbaugh's charges left, and it started happening last year. If a coach is great at evaluating OL talent and turning those kids into beasts, power football works. That's just hard, really hard. Stanford is done as a force (and this doesn't even delve into the fact that a lot of their success was merely having the best QB in the last decade play several years there).
Second, I believe Cubit is already making a real difference for IL. We were just so much more AGGRESSIVE in the first half today. Kent State sucks (I loved IL -14.5), but beating them 38-0 at half is still legit. This is what I've been calling for since joining these boards (and before). BE AGGRESSIVE. Yeah, you'll get burned, but you will burn more passive teams more than they burn you.
I don't think we'll learn much next week, either. WIU averaged about 3.5 yards per play against EIU. They completed about 50% of 35 passes. That's not good, and it was at home against a far worse team. Won easily because of special teams and TOs. But the stats say that WIU is going to struggle to get first downs in Champaign next week. Probably have a better D than KSU, though.
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