Illinois

Don't have time to do a full write up and the game with NW is tomorrow anyway so here's some random observations

NW D:

• Active front seven, not very large.  
• Lots of blitzes
• They like 3 man fronts on passing downs, looked like some 3-3-5 with delayed blitzing (I hope they do that against us, Denard and Vincent will eat that up all day)
• Lots of coverage breakdowns
• Not a lot of elite speed anwhere except the one CB
• One of their safeties got dinged up, wasn't all that great before the injury
• Good tackling from their front seven, pretty decent against the run

NW O:

• Losing Trumpy is a big loss for them, was a big part of their offense
• #9 is essentially and H-back with a little more speed, lines up at WR and all over the place
• Persa throws a nice fade, but the WR's are really dominating
• Persa looks a little down on acceleration, injury might still be bothering him
• #11 Ebert is their main receiver
• QB Coulter at 100% looks better than Persa at 80%.  
• Offense is basically same as RichRod's

ILL D:

• #99 Buchanan is a player to be concerned with
• B1G worthy front seven

ILL O:

• Not very impressed with their left tackle
• Sheelhaus (sp? who cares) is more of a touch passer, not great zip on his balls. But he's got good ball handling skills, good playfakes.
• Sheelhaus is better rolling to his right than his left
• He also throws a nice corner route against the zone
• #8 Jenkins is their main receiver, deep corners and deep crossing routes
• #80, tall receiver, good hands
• Never go for 2 early in a highscoring game (unless you're a team like oregon that always goes for two)

As long as passing Denard is on target and we get a good game from our CB's, we should beat NW by a few TD's.

If you were at or watching the Michigan game yesterday, you probably missed this. I just watched the first half and I'm impressed with Northwestern's defense. Illinois obviously saw what Army did to them with the option decided to attack with that but NU has shut it down. Their secondary looks vulnerable to the deep ball but that's clearly not a strength of our passing game. It will be interesting to see what kind of a game Borges calls.

Even before re-injuring himself, Persa doesn't look like he's full speed. He's able to manage the game, hand off, and his arm is fine but he doesn't have the mobility he had before his achilles exploded. He looks gimpy and rusty.

EDIT: Persa looks much better in the 2nd half before the injury.

Ouch:

Flip it to BTN to watch the 67-65 3OT affair from last year.  It's a good time killer until the Tigers game starts.

Probably the high water mark of the Rich Rodriguez era as well as the last shining moment of Tate's Michigan career.

The game also features current Lions RB Mikael Leshoure.

Also, for you Wings fans out there, Game 1 of this past year's playoff series against the yotes is on NHL network.

We just went up 67-59, Illinois about to make their last stand...I'm going to miss that goofy little bugger Tate Forcier...

MGoBoard, I require your assistance.  During the Illinois game, this happened:

Vinopal falls down for no obvious reason there. Somebody made a video explaining why that happened- specifically a cat poked its head out from the Illinois sideline and sniped Vinopal. I was trying to find that video yesterday to show someone but was completely unable to find it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about and where it is?

I've looked through all of my RSS feeds without success and scoured the board.  Perhaps I'm using the wrong search terms.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.  Once the video is found, this thread can be locked since it will have served its purpose.

92 snaps, 33 first downs, 676 yards, 67 points and only 25:39 TOP. Seriously WTF RR you evil magician.