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By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst

April 6, 2022

CHAMPAIGN -- Following Bret Bielema’s debut season, fans of Illinois football clamored for new blood in charge of the offense.

And they got it.

However, lost in the excitement among the hiring of Barry Lunney Jr. to captain an Illinois offense that was dead last in the Big Ten Conference in passing and 112th (among 130 Football Bowl Subdivision teams) in total offense was the assumption the scheme definitely, absolutely, for sure had to change.

Hey, it’s not your fault you thought this. It’s a concept that has been brought to the forefront either directly or indirectly from several local media identities not named IlliniGuys.com.

With fear of being considered Captain Letdown of Illini fans want to hear, I have to question the logic in the hypothesis. Based on the intel I’m consistently being told throughout this spring season, Illinois will still be a team based on running the ball (which should come as no surprise considering the depth of talent in the tailback room) to set up a competent passing attack.

Is Illinois ever going to attempt to get close to the Ohio State or Purdue offense by attempting between 38-50 passes per game? No. And with the dearth of talent at wide receiver, why Bielema and Lunney want that? How entertaining would it be to watch Kofi Cockburn miss 80 percent or more of the three-point attempts he tried in games next season? Why try something that would be counterproductive to winning?

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst

April 5, 2022

CHAMPAIGN -- For the first time since the two-year period of 2006-07, Illinois has finished dead last in passing offense in the Big Ten Conference in the last two consecutive years.
Enter Barry Lunney Jr. as the new offensive boss this spring and the 47-year-old knows his first objective before the Illini offense arrives back for fall camp sessions.
“Well, we’ve got to get better in throwing and catching, that’s for sure,” Lunney said. “That’s paramount that we do.”
However, Lunney understands this process isn’t a one-day, snap-of-the-fingers operation to turn Illinois into a respectable pass offense compared to the other 13 programs in the Big Ten.
It’s unclear what data or evaluation points Lunney and the Illini offensive staff were able to get from the intersquad scrimmage on Saturday due to the amount of nagging injuries from its veteran wide receivers including Isaiah Williams, Casey Washington and Brian Hightower.
Lunney laid out how he plans to build back the Illini pass game and as simple as this sounds from the Illini offensive coordinator, it starts with being able to consistently complete passes against air - no defense at all.
“One on none. We have to be able to throw and catch in one (wide receiver) on none, right? After that it is one on one. Can we win on a throw and catch with a defensive back charging on the ball?” Lunney said. “Then it’s skeleton (7-on-7) where can we complete a pass without a pass rush? You have to have those building blocks in place before you can expect to go to team (drills) on 11-on-11 with the pass rush and the blitzes and be able to throw and catch.”
Lunney said he was very pleased how the Illini looked in individual drills and 7-on-7 in the pass game Monday in the first practice since the weekend scrimmage but “it didn’t show up in team as much” but he’s encouraged the Illini are slowly building confidence in a relatively new offensive language to learn with a lot of inexperience together at quarterback, wide receiver and tight end.
“I know as simple as this sounds but if we can get better daily on those one on none to keep the ball off the ground, one on one to keep the ball off the ground and 7-on-7 for completions, that’s how you build competency,” Lunney Jr. said. “Confidence in the throw game is everything. We’ve made some strides in that but over these last eight practices, we have to continue to build on all of that through the summer and then in fall camp.”
Lunney Jr. fully explained Monday what Bielema mentioned after Saturday that the coaching staff is trying to get new transfer quarterback Tommy DeVito to step up in the pocket for throws instead of roll wide, which can sometimes change the pocket and make protection issues less severe.
“Our defense and a lot of defenses drop eight in coverage and when that happens as a quarterback your escape patch looks enticing to scramble wide and buy yourself more time for throwing windows and angles to open up,” Lunney Jr. said. “You always going to be better off going up and under all the time. You want to step up because it gives you better fundamentals to make a proficient throw. That’s not just Tommy. That’s any quarterback. We got get better with that for all of our guys to preach to them that good things happen when you step up instead of rolling right or left. That’s just how you’re supposed to play the position.”

Watch Illini quarterback Artur Sitkowski, defensive coordinator Ryan Walters, […]

April 5, 2022

A year ago, it wasn't until mid-July before Illinois head coach Brad Underwood had his roster set and even then he was still searching for a third assistant coach as he rebuilt his staff.

It doesn't appear he'll have to wait as long in 2022.

IlliniGuys Insider Brad Sturdy continues to stay ahead of the game when it comes to the inside stuff surrounding the Illini basketball program.  Here are his latest notes posted in the message forums (for premium subscribers) Monday afternoon.

Illinois’ first spring scrimmage was dominated by young players and backups as Bielema held out several key players with nagging injuries.

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst

CHAMPAIGN -- Instead of just retelling what Illinois head coach Bret Bielema said happened during the team’s closed scrimmage to serve as the sixth spring practice inside Memorial Stadium Saturday, IlliniGuys.com decided to make some phone calls in order to get a sense of what actually happened on that day. I’m told they call that the difference between reporting and stenography and on this site, we like to do the former to give you, the loyal consumer, more access than what you might find elsewhere. 

The one major takeaway was this scrimmage wasn’t actually a scrimmage at all but should be described as first and second down work for both sides of the ball. The structure was designed for the newcomers, young players and players lower on the depth chart to have success. This is something Bielema did in the 2021 fall camp when the Illini “scrimmaged” twice before going into the season opener vs. Nebraska. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Bielema elected to have no part of Saturday’s session be open to the media so IlliniGuys.com was not able to personally verify any of the leaked information from the scrimmage or practice session. 

Here are some quick notes:

The first noteworthy item of Saturday’s action is the amount of inactive players who will be significantly counted on talent for the upcoming 2022 season.

By Kedric Prince - IlliniGuys.com Director of Recruiting 

April 4, 2022

(Cover photo courtesy Richard Luecke Hudl page)

Richard Luecke, a 6-foot-6, 325-pound offensive lineman from Rocky River, Ohio, made the visit to Champaign to check out the Fighting Illini as the Illinois coaching staff is now starting to get several outstanding recruits on campus.

IlliniGuys caught up with Luecke to see how his visit went at Illinois.

"I went to their practice, toured the campus and football facilities; it was awesome," Luecke said.

April 3, 2022

It's Final Four weekend!  That means a couple of things:

All the coaches are in New Orleans for the coaches convention.  Hundreds of head coaches, assistant coaches, wanna-be coaches positioning for that next gig.
Because they are all there, they are not on the road recruiting.  It's a dead period in recruiting, which means we don't expect anything to happen in the next few days.

However, IlliniGuys Insider Brad Sturdy offers his latest thoughts AND a prediction on who will be on the Illini roster in the near future.

This is premium content only.  Subscribe to IlliniGuys.com for the very latest Illini insider info and analysis.

(Cover photo courtesy W. Elijah Smith)

Well here we go again!  March Madness is here.  Time for me to not sleep and play with so many numbers and formulas that I make the late John Nash look like an arithmophobic.

Great to get a chance to do this after two years off. I had hoped to do it last year, but the numbers were off with everyone playing unbalanced schedules due to COVID interruptions. It would have been less Dirty Dozen and more Larry's Dozen and trust me - you don't want that!

For those who don't know, the Dirty Dozen is a formula I put together over several years of researching my White Jersey Theory (Part I is on this site already with Part II posting later this week). There was a lot of "stuff" I discovered over time and in 2009 decided to use it to fill out my bracket. I entered those picks in two separate office pools and won them both...the rest is history.

The Dirty Dozen is the 12 teams that will NOT win the NCAA championship. I've done this 11 times and it has never missed...

Kedric Prince - IlliniGuy Director of Recruiting

March 25, 2022

Mason Muragin, a 6-foot-4, 235-pound edge from Warren, Michigan, caught up with us to update his recruitment and his visit to Illinois this past week.

Kedric Prince - IlliniGuys Director of Recruiting

March 30, 2022

(Cover photo courtesy Duane Barker of midvalleysports.com)

Illinois assistant coach Chester Frazier started his campaign at Illinois on fire, landing two four-star guards in Sencire Harris, a 6-foot-3, 160-pound combo guard from Akron, Ohio, and Jayden Epps, a 6-foot-1, 170-pound point guard originally from Suffolk, Virginia.

By Larry Smith - IlliniGuys Staff Writer April 1, […]

By Kedric Prince – IlliniGuys.com Director of Recruiting

April 6, 2022

With the college basketball season coming to a close, it is time for the rest of the country to get better in hopes of winning a national title. Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman wanted all the other DI schools to know at the Final Four—do not waste your time talking to Illinois head coach Brad Underwood. His recent contract extension makes Underwood the sixth-highest paid in college basketball. And the veteran basketball knows that while freshmen are the future of any program, you have to get older and wiser if you want to win now. Let us take a close look at some of the players in the transfer portal who are Illinois targets.

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst

March 31, 2022

CHAMPAIGN -- For the fifth day of practice and third practice in full pads the Illinois players and coaches moved indoors (mostly because of the weather but also because they had some things with the tempo offense to get in place before Saturday’s scrimmage) inside the Smith Family Football Complex for the first time during this spring season.

I do feel like we’ve addressed practically every position group with these practice reports already so be prepared they’re likely to get shorter in the future. The one major takeaway today was Luke Ford, who is expected to be an every-down starter at the tight end position in the upcoming 2022 season, was not in a green, non-contact jersey today and seems fully cleared to participate in Saturday’s scrimmage session inside Memorial Stadium this weekend.

Here are some quick notes:

(From Illinois Sports Information Office) Champaign, ILL.– Illinois junior center Kofi […]

There are a handful of names among Illini Nation that draw instant respect when you say them.  Deon Thomas is near the top of that list.

The all-time leading scorer in Illini history - that may change a year from now - joined us recently on the syndicated IlliniGuys Sports Spectacular radio show.

Larry Smith: Deon, so great to have you join us!  Welcome to the Sports Spectacular.

Deon Thomas: Well, I know it's a pleasure to be here, man. I've been waiting to come on. So you know, I got to make sure I'm knocking out the park on my first try. Make sure you give me a second one, you know haha!

LS: We've got judges on the side to check it out haha!  One thing I wanted to talk with you about, it's a topic that's been discussed quite a bit on IlliniGuys.com - we're surprised that Brad Underwood did not get more Coach of the Year buzz. You take off one of your top two players for two months, you take your best player - a national player of the year candidate and All-American - for five games, and you still win a Big 10 title.  It's really nothing short of just incredible.

DT: I would agree with you 100% on that. And I'll tell you, I was going back and forth with someone on Twitter the other day because I posted a picture during the Michigan State game. And I said 'two of the best in the country to do it'. Someone sent me a message back, saying 'well, I see Tom Izzo, who was the second one you're talking about?' And I took offense to it. And I kind of went back at the person because to me, he does not get the level of respect that he deserves. I mean, over the last three years, he's won more games in the Big 10 than anyone. And that's including Tom Izzo, who's one of my favorite coaches. He should have been the Big 10 regular season as well as tournament champions last year, because we beat the crap out of Michigan on their floor without Ayo Dosunmu. And you fast forward to this year. And he has done nothing but create the same magic.