Nebraska football fans suffered mightily last season, but the football gods seem to be rewarding their indefatigable faith this season. Yes, Husker fans had their heart ripped out on numerous occasions last season, but they still went to a bowl game and finished with a record that can be classified as mediocre.
Try being a PART OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL IN THE CHICAGO REGION!!!!!
Nebraska football fans experienced the first part of their Land of Lincoln double header (and hence the edifying of the awfulness here) last weekend with a resounding win at Northwestern.
Now they come home to face Illinois, and it’s too bad for them that they don’t also have Northern Illinois and Notre Dame on the schedule. Let’s break it down for you how bad all four of “Chicago’s local teams” are doing right now and how far off they are from meeting expectations.
Notre Dame– preseason top 10 in some power rankings, currently 1-3, lost to the only team that Northwestern has been able to beat.
Northwestern– coming off a 10 win season, they had their first four at home. At the end of September they’re 1-3 and again posses one of the worst scoring offenses in the nation.
Illini football– The Lovie Smith hire brought excitement and relevancy to the program that we haven’t seen since the Rose Bowl year of 2007. Week two saw the first sellout in half a decade. They’re winless against the FBS.
Northern Illinois– Have reached their conference title game the past six years. Now 0-4, with a loss to a lowly FCS opponent, and a QB1 out for the season.
That’s 3-12 combined. In other words, no Nebraska football supporters, you don’t really know pain.
TV: Saturday at 2:30 p.m., with a live telecast on ESPN2.
SPREAD: Nebraska -21
Radio: Here’s my segment on 1620 The Zone, KOZN Omaha previewing this game
https://soundcloud.com/liquid-shane-o/sep-27-seg-10-paul-banks-illini-expert-owner-of-sportsbankdotnet
Nebraska Preview:
Obviously, the national anthem protests staged by the Nebraska football players at Northwestern last week is a major story line in this one. Illini football Coach Lovie Smith encourages his players to voice their opinion on social issues. Here’s a link to more on that.
Quarterback Tommy Armstrong continues cementing his position as the school’s greatest statistical quarterback ever. He’s re-writing the University of Nebraska offensive record book. He threw for 246 yards Saturday night in a 24-13 win at Northwestern, increasing his career total to 7,622 yards. Entering the game, he had already broken the previous record of 7,258 yards held by Taylor Martinez.
He also added 132 yards rushing tonight, giving his 378 of total offense for the evening. He’s now just 1,023 yards of total offense away from breaking the school record currently, also held by Martinez (10,233). Expect Tommy Armstrong to reach those marks by late October, early November.
Here’s a link to more on that.
Defensively, Nebraska has scored 42 points this season off of 10 takeaways, and their nine interceptions rank fourth in the nation.
Nebraska football coach Mike Riley on the 2016 Illini football team:
“Their defensive front is the best one that we will face so far. We had trouble with their defensive end, No. 91, last year. They have two defensive ends that are good, they have defensive tackles who are good. So their front will be tough. They play a four-man front. There will be a lot of man-to-man coverage, and mix in a little bit of three deep. In passing situations they play cover-two.”
On players not standing for the national anthem:
“Michael Rose-Ivey approached me about it the night before, and we had a discussion about it. He asked if he could speak to the team about it, which he did at the walk-through the day of the game. He very eloquently expressed his position and why he was going to do that. So I thought it was all well done, the preparation of it.”
Illini Football Preview:
At no previous point during his Illini football career has quarterback Wes Lunt looked as “off” as he’s looked in 2016.
The home loss to North Carolina may have been the poorest game of his collegiate career. The following week against Western Michigan, the only time he led the offense to the end zone, against a very mediocre MAC defense, was via a goofy gadget play.
While Lunt is a great kid off the field, with big plans for life after football, he’s just not performing up to expectations.
Of course, Lunt is far from the only serious issue with 2016 Illini football, and he’s still a helluva lot better than most the signal callers we’ve seen in Champaign these past three decades.
Yes, we chronicled all of them from 1980 to the present over at this link. Yes, we chronicled every Illini passer from Dave Wilson to Wes Lunt in complete, brutally honest detail.
All summer, one of the biggest Illini football talking points was “the defensive line is strength of the team by far.”
A quarter of the way through the season, it’s true, but very misleading. The Illini have elite defensive ends but mediocre at best defensive tackles. Also, the Illinois DL is phenomenal and getting into opponents backfields, but they’re terrible at defending the run.
Senior DE Carroll Phillips is averaging 3.0 TFLs per game to lead the nation and B1G. Phillips is averaging 1.33 sacks per game to lead the B1G and rank fifth in the nation. Illinois is tied for NCAA lead in sacks per game (4.33) with Miami (FL) and Boise St.
Illini football ranks third in the nation and second in the Big Ten in TFLs per game (10.7). Graduate transfer Gimel President is averaging 1.7 TFLs per game to rank third in the B1G and 15th in the nation.
And that #91 Riley is talking about is Dawuane Smoot; who is a first round NFL Draft talent. Phillips is too. Take a look at our latest NFL mock draft; we have both going in the early 30s come April. With such great NFL minds as Lovie Smith, Hardy Nickerson and Mike Phair coaching ’em up, Smoot and Phillips will only see their draft stock rise higher.
However, the Illini are giving up 158 yards per game on the ground, which ranks ninth in the Big Ten and 78th nationally. Enter Tommy Armstrong and company…bad things could happen.
You may be asking yourself “if Illinois has two first round draft picks on the team, why have they looked so bad this season?”
That’s not anything new in the Illini football program. Simeon Rice and Kevin Hardy went #2 and #3 overall in the 1996 NFL Draft. Their team finished 5-5-1 their senior year. Ron Zook went 14-12 over a two year span with a team that produced both a first and a second round pick in the next year’s drafts.
Getting away from football, it’s very important you hear the message of Lovie Smith about expressing your social conscious. Chicago Bulls star Dwyane Wade voiced similar sentiments a couple hours later, about two and a half miles up the road.
Prediction: Nebraska 45, Illini football 21
The Huskers out-rushed the Cats 310-137 and out-gained them 556-388 last week. That was on the road against a good defense. Now they’re at home against a very poor run defense. Yes, Illinois had an extra week to prepare for this, but there’s only so much you can scheme and plan for; the talent disparity is just far too wide.
This Illini football team must play ball control this week, and be that “off the bus running” side that we’re used to seeing from Lovie Smith, to try and keep pace in this one and have even a puncher’s chance.
Unfortunately, Illinois ranks 11th in the Big Ten with 157.3 rushing yards per game. Their offensive line has been banged up a lot this season, and even when at full strength, it’s far from stellar. Both run and pass blocking has been lacking this season and I don’t see that changing come Saturday.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.