Finally! Someone has the sense to realize that Illinois last year, while not necessarily a fluke, was an aberration. They lose their best player on offense (by far) and their best player on defense (by far), but for some reason people still seem to think they’re going to be competing for 2nd place in the Big Ten. The problem last year was that teams like us and Wisconsin underestimated that team, allowing them to sneak right by us. That’s not going to happen again this year. I agree that at best they’ll be 8-4, there’s no way they beat OSU again and they’re going to have a tough time against us, Wisconsin, and Missouri.

We are going to crush Illinois this year, I am dead serious! I see this being an ‘05 like game where we are just pissed for one reason (UM loss prior to ‘05 Illinois game) or another (losing to Illinois in ‘07 with sheer stupidity on offense)...I don’t think the score will get out of hand as much but this won’t be pretty for Illinois Penn State, night for our first conference game.

Whether Daryll is the undisputed starter and Pat is on the bench, or Daryll and Pat are both playing I just see more intangibles on & off the field in both. Daryll has the personality and swagger, Pat has no fear and isn’t afraid to call players out when they aren’t getting it done. Both have mobility which was sorely lacking last year against Illinois, where would we have been in that game with some 10-15-25 yard scrambles throughout? It would have forced Lehman to defend sideline to sideline and likely would have opened lanes for the passing game as well as the runners.

Morelli missed so many throws in that game, whether he was late with the ball, throwing it to the other team/fumbling, being blind and not seeing wide open guys (DWill) or simply not not being accurate there were simply too many missed opportunities. Players like Gerald Cadogan, A.Q. Shipley, Derrick Williams, Jordan Norwood, Deon Butler, Maurice Evans, Josh Gaines, AJ Wallace, Anthony Scirrotto, Tony Davis & Lydell Sargaent are simply not going to allow that to happen again and they will capitalize.

I also think that the three WRs will be more comfortable and have better chemistry with Clark and/or Devlin then they did with Morelli. They seemed uptight, and many times you could see Butler while watching the game(s) on TV after a horrible throw shaking his head or mumbling under his breath. Now I respect Morelli and think he was/is a good kid but he never once capitalized on opportunities, I simply think we will this year with someone else at the helm. I don’t blame Morelli all that much, the RBs early on and the D all let us down in ‘07 but I have higher hopes for Clark/Devlin, Royster/Green/Carter/Beachum and I am very excited to have AJ Wallace starting at CB. I think our QBs & RBs will be more opportunistic and our OL/DL will just be sick.

I see Illinois going 8-4 possibly even 9-3 but they could do worse, I just think they will definitively lose to Penn State. FWIW I hope they can work some magic against Missouri and come away with a win because it would help the Big Ten perception and be better for us when we smash them but if not I see Missouri & Penn State as two games they are not likely to overcome.

The Illinois-Missouri game, while in the state of Missouri, is actually a neutral site game in St. Louis.

Illinois will be hurt more by losing Lehman than Mendenhall.

The only reason the ‘07 game was close is Juice was such an erratic passer, but we should beat them at home.

The Illini’s entire run offense (read: their ENTIRE offense) was predicated on the fact that Mendenhall provided a huge threat to defenses AS DID the juice. If you take away that run option threat, you take away a huge advantage that their offense had. Defenses can now key on Juice, whether he be running or passing. With our lines and Juice’s inefficient passing, there’s no reason we shouldn’t beat them at home at night.

People are going to point to how they beat OSU at the shoe so they’ve got a shot. That was last year. I think this preview is spot on: 7-5 with an alamo or champs sports bowl bid.

not to beat a dead horse, but that was the game I lost all faith in morelli. I was very optomistic about the season and believed in morelli. I kept making excuses whenever he did bad…until that game. I was so pissed (emotionally and from drinking). From then on I was calling for anyone else. If I remember correctly J Leman intercepted the ball near the goalline, while Quarless was WIDE-OPEN in the back of the endzone. Morelli just threw it short by a mile. Corect me if I’m wrong.

Anthony Morelli and his treatment in the PSU offense was an enigma to me. I watched for 5 years from 2000-2004 as Penn State tried to throw the ball as little as possible with no offensive line and no real tailbacks other than one year of Larry Johnson. I graduated and then 2005 opened up with Robinson at QB(the one thing I have to credit Jay Paterno for.. nobody wanted Robinson at QB, with our dearth of impact skill position players everybody wanted him as H-back/WR threat with Morelli at QB) Jay was the big proponent of leaving Mike at QB. I’d watched him and thought at his best up to that point he’d give me Rashard Casey nightmares.. I was wrong.

Morelli, what do you want me to say. I don’t blame the coaches. Paterno typically doesn’t throw his players under the bus, especially not his QB. Every time I hear a criticism of Morelli, there is a whisper that its Jay Paterno’s fault. Look, Morelli didn’t have it. You can go back and look at the tape, nobody needed to teach Dan Marino not to try and scramble as a QB because he’d fumble every time.. Yet I’d imagine Morelli’s down by contact and fumble percentage were somewhere around 33%. Nobody needed to teach him not to throw the ball out of the back of the end zone on 4th down in the red zone against Michigan State.

He didn’t have it.. He just didn’t. I played with QB’s like him in high school. They are care-takers.. they work within the system, and you try to win games by bypassing them. Why did they stick with him? He had NFL measurables and a cannon arm. He wouldn’t be the first QB to figure it out his senior year. Look at Jason Campbell.. He was basically a Reggie Ball doppelganger for his first 3 years at Auburn.. senior year, stopped throwing picks, learned how to attack off of play action and went undefeated.

The criticism of PSU over the last 2 years has been.. well what did they do against the good teams.. Well.. Morelli showed up once, and he wasn’t great, but he wasn’t inept either, and they kicked the shit out of Wisconsin. Other than that.. he basically didn’t make a single play the entire second half against Michigan State despite a total lack of pressure because we were able to run the ball down their throat. He was a total blackhole on 3rd down against Ohio State.. Sad because we were actual running the ball semi-successfully and all we needed were some play-action deep balls to get the offense churning. He lost the game against Michigan with his fumble inside our own 10.. leading to half the Wolverines points. And he lost the game against Illinois as shown above. The year before he threw two pick-6’s to make a one score game against OSU into a 28-6 defeat.

If Zack Mills is our QB last year we beat everybody but the Buckeyes.. there I said it. That’s all you have to know.

Morelli + trajectory = O RLY??? Morelli had a fast ball or a sick fast ball, that is what he had to work with. The play that followed Lehman’s pass breakup against Quarless in the endzone was just a horrific throw, if Morelli puts it up in the air there is no way that J. Lehman gets anywhere near it against a freak 6’5 athlete. Instead the ball is literally thrown right at J. Lehman’s head and maybe even a bit lower than that with Quarless well behind Lehman and WIDE OPEN.

He threw screen passes right into defenders chests, he threw out patterns right to the opposing teams CB, he threw screen passes 20 feet in the air that were not close to catchable. :( I honestly believe that the staff went all Spurrier on us, and was telling Morelli to throw to a spot rather than actually identify the WR and anticipate his route and/or let it go before the WR even came out of his break. This is the only explanation for Morelli tossing more TDs to Malcolm Jenkins than any of his own teammates. It is nothing more than an illusion and/or trick of the trade, so you can make an inept QB (overall) appear to be more of a total package. None of those Florida QBs Spurrier had have been anything at the next level.

The pass never had a chance, the pass reminded me of the ball that Illinois’s backup QB threw to give the Iowa game away…just pathetic. I didn’t pay attention to the outside routes or whether or not the consecutive plays were play action but they tried to get the ball to Quarless on the same pattern and had him both times but WE didn’t capitalize.

If you can, watch the Alamo Bowl again. We’re killing A&M on the ground and Morelli is getting all freaking day to stand in the pocket off of play action and there are guys (Bell, Williams) running wide open for 20 yard chunks and Morelli is heaving the ball downfield for INTs or ridiculously inaccurate out of the end-zone type passes. It is sickening…this is what worries me about Clark, I want to know whether or not he can make these 20 yard, 20 yard + throws on crossing routes and deep posts, etc…I just hope that he CAN SEE. I have faith that Pat can see WRs running wide open, especially when they are crossing right in front of your eyes…I think those are the types of throws that Pat Devlin can make 7-8 times out of 10, I hope Daryll can do this.

And if he can see, then I seriously doubt he is going to try and throw the deep ball when our talented WRs are running wide open. Morelli made our guys look like crap at times, just look at the Indiana game and how the staff had no faith in Morelli. They were throwing all kinds of short, gimmicky pass plays and Morelli was making Norwood do 360s just to catch the ball that was thrown behind him, and the play was literally repeated like 6 times with Morelli putting 1, possibly 2 of them in front of Norwood.