WIU Game (10/19/2019)

[Virginia Redbird]

I don't follow WIU so I did not know that their high tempo fast-paced offense was just put in this week for the Redbird D. It seemed pretty effective. Of course, it was a surprise to the ISU coaching staff if it was just put in for this game but I wonder if the Birds can expect to see more of that type of offense in the weeks ahead.

https://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/football/no-illinois-state-football-cashes-in-on-turnovers-downs-western/article_8d5c1b7d-2c72-55bb-a11d-080e371e1fd7.html

I saw that comment in the Pantagraph too, but I also read this comment on the leathernecknation board before the game:

The necks need a big upset today. They are not getting beat bad just keep getting beat. They are a terrible second half team. They need to get off that hurry up offense it aint working. Take your time on every play and shorten the game. The short passing game is your best bet with offensive line woes. The qb needs to get rid of the ball in a hurry. The defense played good enough to win against indiana state. Good luck today and go necks.

So I guess the hurry-up was not put in for this game, conflicting reports! They got out of Macomb with a win and head back to Hancock for a couple of games which should be tough ones. If they can get wins against ISUb and UNI they go on the road for a big game against the Jackbunnies. Good chance they don't win that game but they end the season at home to MSU and on the road to Bo's cold weather birds. Both the last two games appear to be very winnable games. The Birds need to take care of business the next two games at home and they are set up really well for the end of the season run. Easier said than done of course...but doable! Even with the Jackbunnies...SIU showed YSU yesterday you better come to play every game in the MVFC.

 

[fourthandshort]

Their hurry up caught us entirely by surprise and according to announcers, it is not the norm. Give WIU credit for a great game plan. But blame our coaches and players for not adjusting after Q1. We've seen this before and done fine. Yesterday, we were a step behind or on our heels except for maybe a quarter of entire game. We won because of their TOs and we did make a few big plays. But we got outplayed for most of the game... live and learn hopefully.

Oh ... and THROW THE DAMN BALL MORE !!!!! Why do we get so conservative when things aren't going well. It usually just makes field smaller. Davis looked good at start of game but only threw 7 passes in 1st half while OUR GAME STRUGGLED at times.

That said, Proctor had a very nice game ... was good to see him bust out. Robinson doesn't look 100% ... just doesn't look his dominant self.

I'll take 5-2 with 2 winnable games coming up. SIU sure surprised everyone beating a tough YSU. We knew they were decent but that makes our SIU win look much better.

We won ... Onward and upward .... but let's throw the ball more !!!

 

[TIMMY]

Didn't get to see the game. 5-2.
2 consecutive road wins. Fun is winning and winning is fun.

 

[RBFANTOO]

We should beat these guys by 40. Unfortunately we failed to show up again. The play calling is so predictable and it certainly doesn’t help Davis, but it might be time to give someone else a shot. We need some sort of spark.
It never fails to amaze me how bad we can look against bad teams. That falls on the coaching staff.

I agree with all of this!!!!

 

[MadBird]

Watched most of the first half on "TV", and listened to the second half on internet radio. Couple thoughts:

We won on the road vs a "traditional" rival, that has had our number pretty frequently over the last few years. So, I'm happy with the win. Should we have pounded them into oblivion? Maybe. But Montana St. only beat them 23-14 at Macomb earlier. They were ranked #10 at the time. Tennessee Tech and Colorado St. each put up 38 against them.

I said earlier in the season that Proctor might be the best "change of pace" RB we've had in quite a while - meaning not just a "backup" but the guy who comes in to provide some speed and so forth in place of a more powerful RB. Showed good yesterday.

I'm tending to chalk up the WIU stats advantage to a "bend but don't break" deal for the Birds. Yeah, WIU moved the ball and held the ball, but you know, we got TO's, we stopped them when we had too, etc. And, you know, we had a TD drive that took up all of 43 seconds, a TD drive that took just under 3 minutes and 16 yards. Now the Birds had quite a few drives that were not sustained, for sure. But my point is, we turned over the ball, had some short drives and that gave WIU the ball back.

2 TE's caught passes. Only one each, but you know, that's progress.

#1 ranked and best FCS team of all time - - Bison beat Mo. State at Fargo yesterday 22-0. Including a TD with just under 6 minutes left in the game - so it was 14-0 till nearly the end. Should they have pounded them into oblivion? True the stats are much more one-sided than our game, but the point is, not everybody blows out the opposition every time.

All that said, gotta keep getting better. still some big games left.

 

[fourthandshort]

We should beat these guys by 40. Unfortunately we failed to show up again. The play calling is so predictable and it certainly doesn’t help Davis, but it might be time to give someone else a shot. We need some sort of spark.
It never fails to amaze me how bad we can look against bad teams. That falls on the coaching staff.

I agree with all of this!!!!

noone else is beating them by 40, so don't agree there. But yes, we definitely underperformed against a weak opponent. Scoreboard may have said 28-14, but we were outplayed most of the game. If not for winning turnover battle 5 to 1, including 74 return yards on our 2 picks, we have a tight ball game on road going into Q4.

On the other hand, like SIU, they came out with nothing to lose and played like it. We just were not prepared for the hurry up at all and never quite adjusted other than a few big plays. They played smart and completely away from our strengths. We need to learn from this game given we are leading FCS in sacks and smart teams will game plan for this .. especially after watching us struggle with WIU hurry up.

That said, hurry up could have back fired on them if we ever got our sh-t together. because it does not chew up any clock, unless you are moving chains like they did. Again, we need to learn from how well they game planned for us.

 

[fourthandshort]

Drive Summary for their offense, our defense:

- first 9 drives:

-- 4 of 9 ended in turnover, 2 were unforced PR fumbles, 1 was unforced handoff fumble, 1 was nice defense (pick after they drove inside our 5)
-- 1 of 9 ended in missed FG
-- 4 of 9 were punts
-- on their 7 drives (excl 2 PR fumbles) they had 45 plays for 152 yards, for 3.38 yards per play ... not as bad as I presumed while watching.

- last 4 drives (late Q3, and all of Q4)

-- 2 of 9 resulted in TDs (80 and 73 yard drives), 1 was picked, 1 was turned over on downs
-- on their 4 drives, they had 42 plays for 199 yards .. this was as bad as I thought while watching.

So after seeing this, we did an ok job of containing their hurry up offense for 2.5 qtrs despite not getting to QB. We just let them stay in game and their confidence grew as game progressed.

Offensively, we had no drives until drive 7 mid Q2 (10 plays 75 yards, Proctor picked things up), and another 75 yards drive last in Q3. After those 2 drives, our next best drives were in order: 27, 16, 14 ... then 7 more drives of less than 10 yards, excluding the knee we took right before half. Not good.

Defensively, we need to learn from this. Anyone with questionable OL will try to replicate this game plan against us. EIU, NAU, SIU all failed to contain our pass rush ... WIU figured it out. We finished with 3 sacks and just 1 or 2 QBH ... that;s why we play the games I guess. Kudos to WIU ... they came to play.

 

[Birdswin]

The offense is by far the most disappointing aspect. We make it very easy for the opposing teams defense - one or two receiver sets out of the "I" formation is fairly simple. Even when we pass - only two or three receivers out and NOTHING underneath or in the flat.

That is the question I wish someone in the media - Pantagraph or WJBC - would ask Coach Spack.

 

[Virginia Redbird]

I know the Birds lost the statistics battle with the exception of the scoreboard but I was surprised to see ISU won the time of possession. ISU 31:16 to WIU 28:44. It sure did not seem like the Birds had the ball more than WIU. I go this off GoRedbirds.com. Funny game it was!

 

[fourthandshort]

I know the Birds lost the statistics battle with the exception of the scoreboard but I was surprised to see ISU won the time of possession. ISU 31:16 to WIU 28:44. It sure did not seem like the Birds had the ball more than WIU. I go this off GoRedbirds.com. Funny game it was!

WIU did have the ball way more than us ... 86 plays to 58 plays.

WIU was in hurry up/no huddle and threw a lot ... they had 86 total plays, 51 passes, 35 rushes ... ran 40% of the time, and got a play off every 20 seconds

ISU was very deliberate and threw very little ... we had just 58 plays, 16 passes, 42 rushes ... ran 72% of the time, and got a play off every 32 seconds.

Basically, the opposition defense knows were going to run alot and we're sure to give them plenty of rest between plays.

A tad predictable .... just saying.

 

[ISUBU]

I know the Birds lost the statistics battle with the exception of the scoreboard but I was surprised to see ISU won the time of possession. ISU 31:16 to WIU 28:44. It sure did not seem like the Birds had the ball more than WIU. I go this off GoRedbirds.com. Funny game it was!

WIU did have the ball way more than us ... 86 plays to 58 plays.

WIU was in hurry up/no huddle and threw a lot ... they had 86 total plays, 51 passes, 35 rushes ... ran 40% of the time, and got a play off every 20 seconds

ISU was very deliberate and threw very little ... we had just 58 plays, 16 passes, 42 rushes ... ran 72% of the time, and got a play off every 32 seconds.

Basically, the opposition defense knows were going to run alot and we're sure to give them plenty of rest between plays.

A tad predictable .... just saying.

The "feel" at the game was that the Birds were in decent control pretty much throughout. I would have enjoyed a blowout, and the Birds never seemed to get in that killing blow. WIU's offense looked very simple with a few different options from the same basic play. Even then they were going too fast for themselves, as they seemed to have too many men in motion, not enough on the line, false starts, etc. It was almost like WIU was pulling out all the tricks in this game.

 

[Sanantoniobird]

We should beat these guys by 40. Unfortunately we failed to show up again. The play calling is so predictable and it certainly doesn’t help Davis, but it might be time to give someone else a shot. We need some sort of spark.
It never fails to amaze me how bad we can look against bad teams. That falls on the coaching staff.

I agree with all of this!!!!

We won an MVFC game on the road by two TDs (Hard to come by as of late). We never lost the lead, we got 5 TOs, and we are still playing for a playoff spot.
Give WIU some credit, they have been in nearly every game they’ve played. Do you think they were excited to play the #10 ‘Birds?
5-2 folks, going into week 8. I think we are doing pretty well considering we’ve lost 3 pretty significant cogs, JR seemingly banged up, and our backup RB picking up the pieces. No one talking about his 6 yds per carry? There actually were some positives in this game [emoji849]

 

[fourthandshort]

I was one who cited comments by the WIU crew that broadcasted the game, they had said they don;' normally run a hurry up.

So I just checked their play counts and minutes:

08-29-19 at North Alabama L 17-26 ... 64 plays, 28 secs per play
09-07-19 at Colorado State L 13-38 65 plays, 27 secs per play
09-14-19 #10 MONTANA STATE L 14-23 ... 67 plays, 28 secs per play
09-21-19 TENNESSEE TECH L 24-38 ... 70 plays, 27 secs per play
10-05-19 MISSOURI STATE L O 31-37 ... 74 plays, 22 secs per play
10-12-19 at Indiana State L 10-20 ... 64 plays, 23 secs per play
10-19-19 #10 ILLINOIS STATE L 14-28 ... 86 plays, 20 secs per play

So answer is yes and no ... yes, they had been doing more hurry up in the 2 games just prior to ours, at about 22-23 sec per play,. But the first 4 games was consistently 27-28 secs per play.

7 to 8 seconds per play is a long time ... for example 8 seconds x 70 playes is 9 min 20 secs of game clock (if it is running) .... over 9 mins time of possession, compared to an average of 30 mins per game. Problem is, they were moving chains ... making time of posession less meaningful. But it also means, our defense was gettgin much rest between plays. And with an offense that doesn't consistent move chains ( we had just 2 nice drives), our defense didn't get much rst between series either.

I wonder if they noticed this change in oace by WIU or not .. particularly given they ranked around 120th in FCS in most sacks given up. I assume the accelerated pace surprised us some ... but maybe not. Either way, very smart offensive game plan by WIU. Good to learning experience for our defense ... and we still got the win.

 

[ChiRedbirdfan]

We should beat these guys by 40. Unfortunately we failed to show up again. The play calling is so predictable and it certainly doesn’t help Davis, but it might be time to give someone else a shot. We need some sort of spark.
It never fails to amaze me how bad we can look against bad teams. That falls on the coaching staff.

I agree with all of this!!!!

We won an MVFC game on the road by two TDs (Hard to come by as of late). We never lost the lead, we got 5 TOs, and we are still playing for a playoff spot.
Give WIU some credit, they have been in nearly every game they’ve played. Do you think they were excited to play the #10 ‘Birds?
5-2 folks, going into week 8. I think we are doing pretty well considering we’ve lost 3 pretty significant cogs, JR seemingly banged up, and our backup RB picking up the pieces. No one talking about his 6 yds per carry? There actually were some positives in this game [emoji849]

I hope the coaches and players are happy to be where they are but looking to improve significantly asap. Our 5 wins are from teams with a combined record of 10-26 including 4 of those being from a pioneer league team (Morehead). Davis still seems wobbly out there (accuracy still poor at times) and the offensive side is being propped up big time by the defense. Will this team rise up and play to their ranking or fall like a house of cards. I honestly can see either happening.

 

[StLRedbird]

I was one who cited comments by the WIU crew that broadcasted the game, they had said they don;' normally run a hurry up.

So I just checked their play counts and minutes:

08-29-19 at North Alabama L 17-26 ... 64 plays, 28 secs per play
09-07-19 at Colorado State L 13-38 65 plays, 27 secs per play
09-14-19 #10 MONTANA STATE L 14-23 ... 67 plays, 28 secs per play
09-21-19 TENNESSEE TECH L 24-38 ... 70 plays, 27 secs per play
10-05-19 MISSOURI STATE L O 31-37 ... 74 plays, 22 secs per play
10-12-19 at Indiana State L 10-20 ... 64 plays, 23 secs per play
10-19-19 #10 ILLINOIS STATE L 14-28 ... 86 plays, 20 secs per play

So answer is yes and no ... yes, they had been doing more hurry up in the 2 games just prior to ours, at about 22-23 sec per play,. But the first 4 games was consistently 27-28 secs per play.

7 to 8 seconds per play is a long time ... for example 8 seconds x 70 playes is 9 min 20 secs of game clock (if it is running) .... over 9 mins time of possession, compared to an average of 30 mins per game. Problem is, they were moving chains ... making time of posession less meaningful. But it also means, our defense was gettgin much rest between plays. And with an offense that doesn't consistent move chains ( we had just 2 nice drives), our defense didn't get much rst between series either.

I wonder if they noticed this change in oace by WIU or not .. particularly given they ranked around 120th in FCS in most sacks given up. I assume the accelerated pace surprised us some ... but maybe not. Either way, very smart offensive game plan by WIU. Good to learning experience for our defense ... and we still got the win.

Thanks for doing the legwork, fourth. Looks like they started playing hurry up against MOST. Also looks like they might be catching on to it, because we have a very stout defense. And they moved the ball better against us than MOST or ISUb.

 

[Reggie Redbird]

The offense is by far the most disappointing aspect. We make it very easy for the opposing teams defense - one or two receiver sets out of the "I" formation is fairly simple. Even when we pass - only two or three receivers out and NOTHING underneath or in the flat.

That is the question I wish someone in the media - Pantagraph or WJBC - would ask Coach Spack.

I did enjoy when Proctor caught a nice short pass and used his jets to take it a ways. We can have JR and Proctor out there and utilize short passes to Proctor to help move the ball along. I'm trying to think of the last QB we have had who could consistently hit those short passes. Matt Brown?

 

[Redbirdwarrior]

I'll say it: Brady Davis isn't... great. I think I've had enough sample size now to say he is probably about the same as Kolbe if not a little lesser than him.

I was just going back in time to see our QBs and I think we have been spoiled by some pretty excellent ones. Here is the last decade and a half.

Davis
Kolbe
Roberson
Brown
Drone

Roberson, Brown and Drone were all some level of "Could get paid for this" quality. Kolbe and Davis... not so much.

Game management seems to be the idea at the ISU QB position at the moment. Let your probably NFL RB run people over and score, let the defense eat opposing offensive lines and don't throw the ball to the other team.

We are ranked #7 in the country now, so that is saying something, but from the eye test, the kid throwing the ball looks very average out there.

 

[ST_Lawson]

Congrats on the win Redbirds. We gave it our best, and honestly, I was pleasantly surprised with how our offense did compared to how they have been so far this season. Wished we could have pulled off the upset against you guys, but it wasn't to be...not this year...and not with the mistakes that we made. Good luck the rest of the season and you know I'll swing back by and say hi when our matchup comes around next year. Barring important kids events, I should be in Normal on 10/24/2020 to say hi in person.

 

[JHBird]

I don't follow WIU so I did not know that their high tempo fast-paced offense was just put in this week for the Redbird D. It seemed pretty effective. Of course, it was a surprise to the ISU coaching staff if it was just put in for this game but I wonder if the Birds can expect to see more of that type of offense in the weeks ahead.

https://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/football/no-illinois-state-football-cashes-in-on-turnovers-downs-western/article_8d5c1b7d-2c72-55bb-a11d-080e371e1fd7.html

I saw that comment in the Pantagraph too, but I also read this comment on the leathernecknation board before the game:

The necks need a big upset today. They are not getting beat bad just keep getting beat. They are a terrible second half team. They need to get off that hurry up offense it aint working. Take your time on every play and shorten the game. The short passing game is your best bet with offensive line woes. The qb needs to get rid of the ball in a hurry. The defense played good enough to win against indiana state. Good luck today and go necks.

So I guess the hurry-up was not put in for this game, conflicting reports! They got out of Macomb with a win and head back to Hancock for a couple of games which should be tough ones. If they can get wins against ISUb and UNI they go on the road for a big game against the Jackbunnies. Good chance they don't win that game but they end the season at home to MSU and on the road to Bo's cold weather birds. Both the last two games appear to be very winnable games. The Birds need to take care of business the next two games at home and they are set up really well for the end of the season run. Easier said than done of course...but doable! Even with the Jackbunnies...SIU showed YSU yesterday you better come to play every game in the MVFC.

I was listening to WJBC and they thought the hurry up was put in just for us. So even they had it wrong I guess.

 

[RBFANTOO]

The offense is by far the most disappointing aspect. We make it very easy for the opposing teams defense - one or two receiver sets out of the "I" formation is fairly simple. Even when we pass - only two or three receivers out and NOTHING underneath or in the flat.

That is the question I wish someone in the media - Pantagraph or WJBC - would ask Coach Spack.

I did enjoy when Proctor caught a nice short pass and used his jets to take it a ways. We can have JR and Proctor out there and utilize short passes to Proctor to help move the ball along. I'm trying to think of the last QB we have had who could consistently hit those short passes. Matt Brown?

Interesting. I have always felt that Matt Brown was very underrated during his time as a Bird QB. He gave me a feeling of confidence that he would make plays and not make stupid mistakes. Very smart and got the most out of his athletic abilities.