Spring Practice!!!

[Total Red]

SPRING CAMP REPORT 4: First Scrimmage In The Books - Illinois State University Athletics

Greeted by warm and sunny skies for the first time in a while, the Illinois State football took to the turf at Hancock Stadium on Saturday morning for its first

goredbirds.com

 

[Total Red]

SPRING CAMP REPORT 4: First Scrimmage In The Books - Illinois State University Athletics

Greeted by warm and sunny skies for the first time in a while, the Illinois State football took to the turf at Hancock Stadium on Saturday morning for its first

goredbirds.com

Donovan was very active yesterday. The slot receiver position is well-manned with Kasper/Carr/Donovan. We still need someone to step up and stand out as the WR opposite Sobkowicz.
TE is loaded with passable options but I'm not seeing anyone at the Cam Grandy level. I think they've finally decided that Presson is a TE and not a FB. Good choice, he could be the man. Presson might not catch as many balls as Grandy, but he could be even better at YACs.

 

[fourthandshort]

Donovan was very active yesterday. The slot receiver position is well-manned with Kasper/Carr/Donovan. We still need someone to step up and stand out as the WR opposite Sobkowicz.
TE is loaded with passable options but I'm not seeing anyone at the Cam Grandy level. I think they've finally decided that Presson is a TE and not a FB. Good choice, he could be the man. Presson might not catch as many balls as Grandy, but he could be even better at YACs.

thanks for the report out .. you see any kick or punt returners Spack will trust to actually return the ball this fall ?

We were dead last in MVFC in both .. in fact, on KRs, we were last in attemtps, total yards, and yards/return. On PRs, interestingly we were actually 5th in attempts, but dead last in yards per return and 2nd to last in total PR yards.

 

[fourthandshort]

Ok, so while looking up the return yards, I couldn't help but notice following. And while we all are aware we went with hurry up offense far more than Spack has ever done in past .. not even close actually ... I found these 2 stats rather intriguing in their disparity. I'd like to see a little more balance between doing hurry up/keep their defense on their heels and traditional huddle/burn some clock .. just to ensure our defense isn't on the field as much. That said .. this is clearly progress and a positive overall .. just think a little less, would help the defense.

Dead last in time of possession, but ..... wait for it ....

Time of Possession​

Time of Possession

Index	Team	G	TIME	AVG/G
1	Youngstown State	13	456:17	35:05
2	North Dakota State	15	494:56	32:59
3	South Dakota State	15	473:38	31:34
4	North Dakota	12	367:44	30:38
5	Indiana State	11	332:35	30:14
6	Western Illinois	11	326:48	29:42
7	Northern Iowa	11	322:42	29:20
8	South Dakota	13	380:21	29:15
9	Southern Illinois	13	374:36	28:48
10	Murray State	11	315:01	28:38
11	Missouri State	11	308:34	28:03
12	Illinois State	11	304:08	27:38

FYI, we are #1 in first downs per game in MVFC by a lot. And we were also like top 3 or 4 in FCS .. they post total 1st downs, not per game like below, so not easy to find that ranking ... which is really stupid.

First Downs​

First Downs

Index	Team	G	RUSH	PASS	PEN	TOTAL	AVG/G
1	Illinois State	11	109	133	26	268	24.4
2	South Dakota State	15	169	147	12	328	21.9
3	Northern Iowa	11	75	140	22	237	21.5
4	North Dakota State	15	166	134	20	320	21.3
5	Youngstown State	13	113	137	21	271	20.8
6	North Dakota	12	115	114	18	247	20.6
7	Missouri State	11	62	147	13	222	20.2
8	Southern Illinois	13	78	132	25	235	18.1
9	South Dakota	13	97	113	19	229	17.6
10	Indiana State	11	85	73	20	178	16.2
11	Murray State	11	73	84	16	173	15.7
12	Western Illinois	11	42	98	29	169	15.4

 

[Total Red]

thanks for the report out .. you see any kick or punt returners Spack will trust to actually return the ball this fall ?

I'm not expecting the risk-averse approach of fair catching or avoiding punts to change. I'm just glad that we started to rush opposing punters some of the time.

 

[Birdswin]

Why do they practice in the morning? I find this very surprising.

 

[fourthandshort]

Why do they practice in the morning? I find this very surprising.

To avoid the heat and sun ??????

 

[Birddog]

To avoid the heat and sun ??????

Class schedules? Other teams using the bubble in the afternoon?

 

[fourthandshort]

Class schedules? Other teams using the bubble in the afternoon?

yep, I was trying to be funny ..

 

[StLRedbird]

Ok, so while looking up the return yards, I couldn't help but notice following. And while we all are aware we went with hurry up offense far more than Spack has ever done in past .. not even close actually ... I found these 2 stats rather intriguing in their disparity. I'd like to see a little more balance between doing hurry up/keep their defense on their heels and traditional huddle/burn some clock .. just to ensure our defense isn't on the field as much. That said .. this is clearly progress and a positive overall .. just think a little less, would help the defense.

Dead last in time of possession, but ..... wait for it ....

Time of Possession​

Time of Possession

Index	Team	G	TIME	AVG/G
1	Youngstown State	13	456:17	35:05
2	North Dakota State	15	494:56	32:59
3	South Dakota State	15	473:38	31:34
4	North Dakota	12	367:44	30:38
5	Indiana State	11	332:35	30:14
6	Western Illinois	11	326:48	29:42
7	Northern Iowa	11	322:42	29:20
8	South Dakota	13	380:21	29:15
9	Southern Illinois	13	374:36	28:48
10	Murray State	11	315:01	28:38
11	Missouri State	11	308:34	28:03
12	Illinois State	11	304:08	27:38

FYI, we are #1 in first downs per game in MVFC by a lot. And we were also like top 3 or 4 in FCS .. they post total 1st downs, not per game like below, so not easy to find that ranking ... which is really stupid.

First Downs​

First Downs

Index	Team	G	RUSH	PASS	PEN	TOTAL	AVG/G
1	Illinois State	11	109	133	26	268	24.4
2	South Dakota State	15	169	147	12	328	21.9
3	Northern Iowa	11	75	140	22	237	21.5
4	North Dakota State	15	166	134	20	320	21.3
5	Youngstown State	13	113	137	21	271	20.8
6	North Dakota	12	115	114	18	247	20.6
7	Missouri State	11	62	147	13	222	20.2
8	Southern Illinois	13	78	132	25	235	18.1
9	South Dakota	13	97	113	19	229	17.6
10	Indiana State	11	85	73	20	178	16.2
11	Murray State	11	73	84	16	173	15.7
12	Western Illinois	11	42	98	29	169	15.4

There is a lot to unpack here. If you'd told me we had 2.5 more first downs every game than SDSU, I'd have thought you got to far into the crack pipe. But lead the conference going away?

I think the explanation is in a failure to finish drives. We moved the ball, but too many drives stalled and didn't result in points. This is still much better than I would have thought.

 

[Birddog]

yep, I was trying to be funny ..

And some - maybe most - days I’m not so bright.

 

[fourthandshort]

And some - maybe most - days I’m not so bright.

Yep, I call those "weekdays".

 

[fourthandshort]

There is a lot to unpack here. If you'd told me we had 2.5 more first downs every game than SDSU, I'd have thought you got to far into the crack pipe. But lead the conference going away?

I think the explanation is in a failure to finish drives. We moved the ball, but too many drives stalled and didn't result in points. This is still much better than I would have thought.

Partly true .. we did finish 3rd in scoring, though inarguably also played the 12th ranked SOS .. no FBS, no NDSU, and a very weak OOC. But we faired as well as anyone else did against SDSU, the best team and best defense .. even though our defense was nowhere near ready for that game.

 

[fourthandshort]

So check out our 3rd and 4th conversion rates

3rd Down Conversions .. 4th in %, but just a smidge below NDSU in 2nd.​

​

But when you add our 4th down conversions to our 3rd downs, we jump from 47 to 59% on total "drive conversions" and tied for lead with SDSU and surpass NDSU who would be 58% combining 3rd + 4th down conversion rates. I think our issue was more to do with our defense not getting off field enough against better offenses like SDSU and YSU, before we eventually settled into more consistency on defense. That and a totally anemic return game. So statistically speaking, our defense and special teams did very little to help our field position .. our offense carried us on that front too. But again, we played 4 or 5 weak teams out of 11 games, and our SOS ranked 12th/last in MVFC and 41st in FCS.​

Index	Team	G	CONV	ATT	PCT
1	South Dakota State	15	84	157	53.5
2	North Dakota State	15	86	176	48.9
3	North Dakota	12	63	132	47.7
4	Illinois State	11	74	156	47.4
5	South Dakota	13	57	129	44.2
6	Missouri State	11	59	135	43.7
7	Northern Iowa	11	55	130	42.3
8	Youngstown State	13	71	169	42.0
9	Southern Illinois	13	59	169	34.9
10	Murray State	11	46	137	33.6
11	Western Illinois	11	55	164	33.5
12	Indiana State	11	48	145	33.1

4th Down Conversions .. 3rd in % and 1st in 4th downs/game​

Index	Team	G	CONV	ATT	PCT
1	South Dakota State	15	9	11	81.8
2	Missouri State	11	15	20	75.0
3	Illinois State	11	18	25	72.0
4	Youngstown State	13	13	20	65.0
5	North Dakota	12	13	20	65.0
6	North Dakota State	15	16	25	64.0
7	South Dakota	13	7	11	63.6
8	Southern Illinois	13	21	33	63.6
9	Northern Iowa	11	4	8	50.0
10	Murray State	11	8	19	42.1
11	Indiana State	11	8	23	34.8
12	Western Illinois	11	10	33	30.3

 

[Total Red]

Guedet, Glatz like their new addresses with Illinois State football

Guedet is a Washington native, while Glatz is from Morton.

pantagraph.com

 

[fourthandshort]

missed this quote first time around buried in pantagraph article: Rubley, Loyd bring passing game chemistry to Illinois State

Please give above a click .. but below is small excerpt .. nice to hear, maybe we're not just sipping the koolaid on our new OC. the post Annexstad era is here and now ... let's find out what we got !!!

And really love seeing all the videos and pics from inside the bubble. I can imagine there must be a lot of excited players finally doing offseason on a real football surface.

The 6-foot-3, 217-pound Rubley has enjoyed working with ISU offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Tony Petersen.
"He's the best quarterbacks coach I've had," Rubley said. "He expects a lot of us, but I love that. He expects perfection, how it should be. That's the standard. He's been great to work with."

 

[BJJ guy]

missed this quote first time around buried in pantagraph article: Rubley, Loyd bring passing game chemistry to Illinois State

Please give above a click .. but below is small excerpt .. nice to hear, maybe we're not just sipping the koolaid on our new OC. the post Annexstad era is here and now ... let's find out what we got !!!

And really love seeing all the videos and pics from inside the bubble. I can imagine there must be a lot of excited players finally doing offseason on a real football surface.

The 6-foot-3, 217-pound Rubley has enjoyed working with ISU offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Tony Petersen.
"He's the best quarterbacks coach I've had," Rubley said. "He expects a lot of us, but I love that. He expects perfection, how it should be. That's the standard. He's been great to work with."

Here's another use for the bubble by the players. Looks like he has a whole series of these.

 

[StLRedbird]

So check out our 3rd and 4th conversion rates

3rd Down Conversions .. 4th in %, but just a smidge below NDSU in 2nd.​

​

But when you add our 4th down conversions to our 3rd downs, we jump from 47 to 59% on total "drive conversions" and tied for lead with SDSU and surpass NDSU who would be 58% combining 3rd + 4th down conversion rates. I think our issue was more to do with our defense not getting off field enough against better offenses like SDSU and YSU, before we eventually settled into more consistency on defense. That and a totally anemic return game. So statistically speaking, our defense and special teams did very little to help our field position .. our offense carried us on that front too. But again, we played 4 or 5 weak teams out of 11 games, and our SOS ranked 12th/last in MVFC and 41st in FCS.​

Index	Team	G	CONV	ATT	PCT
1	South Dakota State	15	84	157	53.5
2	North Dakota State	15	86	176	48.9
3	North Dakota	12	63	132	47.7
4	Illinois State	11	74	156	47.4
5	South Dakota	13	57	129	44.2
6	Missouri State	11	59	135	43.7
7	Northern Iowa	11	55	130	42.3
8	Youngstown State	13	71	169	42.0
9	Southern Illinois	13	59	169	34.9
10	Murray State	11	46	137	33.6
11	Western Illinois	11	55	164	33.5
12	Indiana State	11	48	145	33.1

4th Down Conversions .. 3rd in % and 1st in 4th downs/game​

Index	Team	G	CONV	ATT	PCT
1	South Dakota State	15	9	11	81.8
2	Missouri State	11	15	20	75.0
3	Illinois State	11	18	25	72.0
4	Youngstown State	13	13	20	65.0
5	North Dakota	12	13	20	65.0
6	North Dakota State	15	16	25	64.0
7	South Dakota	13	7	11	63.6
8	Southern Illinois	13	21	33	63.6
9	Northern Iowa	11	4	8	50.0
10	Murray State	11	8	19	42.1
11	Indiana State	11	8	23	34.8
12	Western Illinois	11	10	33	30.3

So our third and fourth down efficiency was good - which I take as more evidence that we just didn't finish drives. This table captures the mental math I was doing in response to your original observations. What this says, I think, is that our offensive efficiency with regards to converting first downs into points was low - we're down with the bottom feeders and UNI, a team that truly was risk-averse on offense.

School	1st Downs/Game	Points/Game	Points/First Down
1. No Dakota St	21.3	38.1	1.79
2. So Dakota St	21.9	37.3	1.70
3.Youngstown St	20.8	32.0	1.53
4. No Dakota	20.6	31.4	1.52
5. Missouri St	20.2	29.8	1.47
6. So Illinois	18.1	25.5	1.41
7. So Dakota	17.6	24.0	1.36
8. Illinois St	24.4	32.8	1.34
9. No Iowa	21.5	26.2	1.21
10. Murray St	15.7	16.6	1.06
11. Indiana St	16.2	13.5	.83
12. W Illinois	15.4	12.5	.81

 

[fourthandshort]

So our third and fourth down efficiency was good - which I take as more evidence that we just didn't finish drives. This table captures the mental math I was doing in response to your original observations. What this says, I think, is that our offensive efficiency with regards to converting first downs into points was low - we're down with the bottom feeders and UNI, a team that truly was risk-averse on offense.

School	1st Downs/Game	Points/Game	Points/First Down
1. No Dakota St	21.3	38.1	1.79
2. So Dakota St	21.9	37.3	1.70
3.Youngstown St	20.8	32.0	1.53
4. No Dakota	20.6	31.4	1.52
5. Missouri St	20.2	29.8	1.47
6. So Illinois	18.1	25.5	1.41
7. So Dakota	17.6	24.0	1.36
8. Illinois St	24.4	32.8	1.34
9. No Iowa	21.5	26.2	1.21
10. Murray St	15.7	16.6	1.06
11. Indiana St	16.2	13.5	.83
12. W Illinois	15.4	12.5	.81

good stuff .. I'd love to see some stats (not a hint, hard to do) on average starting field position, and then average length of drives. Between our anemic return game and defensive struggles against stronger offenses .. there were a lot of times our defense couldn't get off the field, though it started to improve eventually, and even within some games by second half. So I would guess it might look comparable to above.

Just looked at kicking & punting ... those were all last or near last, except for touchbacks, we were first. Man, our special teams were all near bottom last year ... 2nd in gross KO, but drop all the way to 11th in Net KO. Then last in Gross Punt and 10th in Net Punt. Apart from touchbacks, our entire special teams performance was the worst in MVFC ... all phases. Wow !!!

In the end, you have to finish drives, like you said. But our offense only got a little help from our defense and got zero help from special teams.

I have complete faith Spack will have the defense back to where it usually is. But I really hope Spack is trying to do something about our special teams .. we're getting nothing there.

 

[StLRedbird]

good stuff .. I'd love to see some stats (not a hint, hard to do) on average starting field position, and then average length of drives. Between our anemic return game and defensive struggles against stronger offenses .. there were a lot of times our defense couldn't get off the field, though it started to improve eventually, and even within some games by second half. So I would guess it might look comparable to above.

Just looked at kicking & punting ... those were all last or near last, except for touchbacks, we were first. Man, our special teams were all near bottom last year ... 2nd in gross KO, but drop all the way to 11th in Net KO. Then last in Gross Punt and 10th in Net Punt. Apart from touchbacks, our entire special teams performance was the worst in MVFC ... all phases. Wow !!!

In the end, you have to finish drives, like you said. But our offense only got a little help from our defense and got zero help from special teams.

I have complete faith Spack will have the defense back to where it usually is. But I really hope Spack is trying to do something about our special teams .. we're getting nothing there.

I doubt we'll see Spack's approach to special teams change. Kinda like asking a tiger to change his stripes. Seems like he's concluded that the chance taken trying to return a ball isn't worth the chance of something bad happening. Like you said, getting the data to support how smart that is - or not - is hard to come by.

Our D gave up 18.9 first downs/game last year. We played one elite team - SDSU - and gave up 25. Just looked at the box score and forgot how badly our D Line was outplayed in that game - 374 yds rushing,. 19 of their first downs were via the rush.

Last season, we just didn't have the juice to get over the hump. Close, but about 8 pts short of a complete enchilada. Our experience and depth next year will improve at most, nearly all positions. Last year we opened the conf season at home against SDSU and got exposed. The EIU loss put us behind the 8 ball - I continue to dislike that we invest the only flexible non-con game we've got every year into playing those guys Zenger didn't make many bad decisions, but...

This years home conf opener is against NDSU. I want a W against those guys so bad I can taste it.