Game Thread: Northwestern vs. No. 22 Illinois
- Thread starter mshelton33
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"You're a clown...blah blah blah...you know nothing about football..blah blah..."
I really love two throws to the end zone on 3rd then 4th and 1.
Straight drop with four wide on fourth. Argh.
It’s easy to coach from the couch, but, geez, there needs to be a lot of self-evaluation after this season.
Maybe Skip needs to return for another fall.
Straight drop with four wide on fourth. Argh.
It’s easy to coach from the couch, but, geez, there needs to be a lot of self-evaluation after this season.
Maybe Skip needs to return for another fall.
3rd and less than 2 let's throw two incompletions just for the helluva it.
I would not trust Lujan to walk my dog.
Lausch best attribute is his legs and how many times did Lujan use them in the 2nd half. Once. Just let him stand in the pocket.
Genius.
Genius.
The arm strength is mediocre but good enough. The bigger problem is the inconsistent accuracy and reads. The last two throws on that last drive were poor reads. On 3rd down, the CB sank and the short out was wide open but he threw to Henning on the deep corner route which was doubled. I think he pre determined he wanted to throw it to Henning which is what happens when your WR Depth chart is putrid. On the 4th down throw, the DB played off coverage and the TE correctly broke off his route and was open but Lausch threw it to the corner route which the DB was in perfect position to defend.
After this season, I can imagine Henning having a coffee with a friend, shaking his head about how many times Lausch failed to get him the ball when he was open, or he had to put his body on the line to make a spectacular play on a routine route. He should’ve had another 3 or 4 catches and 50+ yards today.
Yep. Launch HAS some good attributes…and instead they’re determined to ignore them and turn the guy into a dropback qb. He’s not! He’s meant for a run heavy offense where he’s another running weapon who can surprise with a pass.
He’s got the touch and accuracy of a guy who was a high-level baseball prospect and was on the baseball scouting circuit and never considered himself a football prospect until November of his senior year. He misses sooo many throws.
So much to like about him, but he’s just isn’t consistent enough.
This Big thing is a tremendous joke. This game really escalates a lot of questions about the coaching staff.
I'm sure there's time for either quarterback to develop but I hope we go to the portal cuz if we want to have a competitive team next year
While our QB performance and play calling are certainly worthy of criticism I think our offensive line struggles and the loss of Bryce Kirtz early in the game were major contributors to the red zone failures today. This could have been a much closer game.
No doubt that the coaching staff has not done him any favors and the surrounding cast was short in terms of talent and depth. Having said that, Lausch had a roller coaster season which for the most part is to be expected for an inexperienced first time starter. Lausch reminds me a lot of Mike Kafka. Very good athlete, baseball player who made the switch to football late, limited experience playing QB coming into NU, sat on the bench for several seasons before getting his chance and uneven results during that first year playing. If Lausch can make the same kind of jump that Kafka made in his first offseason as the incumbent starter, I think we'll all be pretty happy about our QB play next season. Of course, Kafka had the benefit of a very good QB coach in Mick McCall prepping him in the offseason. We'll see if Lujan can prepare Lausch this offseason as well as McCall prepared Kafka.
He can be a contributor next season. Winning Big Ten Programs need guys like Wagner to emerge and become contributors.
The season is over and this staff has quite a bit of work to do.
On the defensive side of the ball I didn't think I would have to say this but we need help on the D - Line. I don't know if the guys got tired or were demoralized but they got pushed off the ball big time these last few games. Ohio State is one thing Illinois is another. Our linebackers and secondary should alright.
Offense we know we need help on the O- Line and WR. However, if we at least don't look at a QB I think that would be a dereliction of responsibility by the coaching staff. Anyone out there confident going into next year with Lausch or Boe. Who knows I hope both take gigantic leaps in their development but the staff must give this team the best chance to win next year.
So we shall see how successful NU is in the NIL market as the article Lou and Matt had a few days ago. We can hope and keep the faith. GO CATS.
On the defensive side of the ball I didn't think I would have to say this but we need help on the D - Line. I don't know if the guys got tired or were demoralized but they got pushed off the ball big time these last few games. Ohio State is one thing Illinois is another. Our linebackers and secondary should alright.
Offense we know we need help on the O- Line and WR. However, if we at least don't look at a QB I think that would be a dereliction of responsibility by the coaching staff. Anyone out there confident going into next year with Lausch or Boe. Who knows I hope both take gigantic leaps in their development but the staff must give this team the best chance to win next year.
So we shall see how successful NU is in the NIL market as the article Lou and Matt had a few days ago. We can hope and keep the faith. GO CATS.
Because there is no one out there willing to come to NU that is a sure fire better option than continuing to develop Lausch and Boe. Count me in with those who say that the demise of Fitz's tenure at NU started when we were no longer able to recruit and develop our own QB talent. The only way for NU to once again become a consistently competitive and winning program in the Big Ten is to permanently get off the transfer QB roller coaster.
Exactly, we need to develop our QBs. No decent QB is going to come here if he knows he will be yanked for a portal guy, thus it will be a never ending cycle of getting mediocre 3 star QBs. We really need to focus on improving the offensive line quality. The o line is everything. The thing is, I am not sure we have the staff to actually get this done.
The OL is the most important and in my opinion the easiest area to see a quick and dramatic improvement if you have the right OL coach. We need to get back to the days when we had 5 road graders up front.
Obviously our offensive line needs to be a priority, and replacing our wideouts.
Maybe we need one more transfer quarterback for next year and then develop O'Brien moving forward.
No, you sound like a junkie who says he needs one more hit before quitting cold turkey. Stop the transfer QB addiction now. We need to focus on developing Lausch and Boe this offseason. The talent is there.
Agree 100% we need to get off the transfer portal QB cycle. I really hope Lausch or Boe will be the guy otherwise we will have to wait for O' Brien in '26 and I don't think he will light it up his freshman season. And who knows what will happen to the coaching staff in the interim.
Immediate fix is the O- line. We would show vast improvement when we fix that. Road graders doesn't sound like that is our OL coaches MO.
While I don't disagree, this coaching staff decided to gamble on the transfer portal coming into this season. Why are you so certain that this coaching staff wouldn't do it again?
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