Random scouting notes on NW at ILL.

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.