Illinois
‘Routine for him’: Illinois’ receivers showed up when it mattered most
![‘Routine for him’: Illinois’ receivers showed up when it mattered most ‘Routine for him’: Illinois’ receivers showed up when it mattered most](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bn-giBO18VSEm74M2gkDZsmpWpg=/0x0:4702x2462/fit-in/1200x630/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25609704/ILLKU_15.jpg)
Goooood afternoon, Illini fans. If you’re reading this on Sunday, it’s the one-year anniversary of the Illini’s loss to Kansas in Lawrence. It’s also the one-day anniversary (not sure if that’s a thing) of the win over No. 19 Kansas in Champaign. There were plenty of positives to take away from the game, including but not limited, to our receiving game.
“Holy cow, did you see that catch?”
That’s a question you could’ve asked a handful of times during Illinois’ 23-17 upset win over the Kansas Jayhawks, but for the most part, you said it while pointing at the players wearing 13 or 4.
While even the more pessimistic Illini fans might point to the team’s slow start and argue that a better first quarter may have made things easier, we’d like to argue it wouldn’t have made the game as fun as it was.
The Illini exited the gates playing great defense, with a Xavier Scott interception and a turnover on downs keeping the game close despite a Zakhari Franklin fumble in Illinois territory.
Just when Illini fans started hoping for Luke Altmyer to start slinging it, he did. With around two and a half minutes left in the second quarter, it looked like Barry Lunney Jr. made the call to start slinging it to a target the OC is very familiar with.
Franklin, who knew Lunney from his days at UTSA, made this catch look easy.
“It was third down. I saw Luke scrambling, and I just wanted to stay in bounds. Keep my feet in and make the catch,” Franklin said, reminiscing on the catch. He’s a man of few words, and when asked what the key to making a grab like that, he said: “Concentration. Focus.”
On the play following the catch, Franklin was called for an offsides, turning 1st and 10 on the 28 to a 1st and 15 on the 33. The drive would end with David Olano sinking a 50-yard field goal into some wind.
“Flush it. Mistakes are gonna happen, so [I] just play the next play,” Franklin said on the mindset following the earlier fumble and the penalty. He says that’s been his mindset when handling in-game mistakes, something that’s developed as he’s matured. He’s a journeyed veteran and is currently college football’s active career leader in receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns. When asked when that ability to simply ‘flush it’ came to him, he said: “Man, I don’t even know man. It just happened over time.”
While Illini fans may be quick to label Franklin to be as good as advertised, Bielema says there’s much more left to come from him.
“I think he’s only going to begin to get better,” he said. Franklin was a late addition to this recruiting class, committing in June. “He’s understanding how we do things here, and [he’s] put himself in a position to not only help us this year but also for the future.”
Following a quiet third quarter that saw Kansas reclaim its lead, Altmyer’s arm got back to slinging, leading the charge on an eight-play, eighty-yard drive looking to reclaim the lead.
A big 37 yards. The hesitation, acceleration and separation before the catch were perfectly orchestrated by the veteran.
Directly following that pass, Illini fans wouldn’t be blamed for having a feeling of déjà vu: a chunk of that big gain was taken away by a seven-yard sack.
The passing game was on line and in the heads of the Kansas defense. That success through the air opened the door for Luke Altmyer on the ground. He’d scramble for 18 yards to convert the 2nd-and-17 and threw another dot to Bryant two plays later.
TCR staff photographer Brad Repplinger got a great shot of Bryant’s stretch for the pylon, too:
“He does it every day in practice man, it’s just like routine for him,” fellow wideout Franklin said on Bryant’s pass-catching ability after the game.
The following play would be a one-yard punch-in for running back Kadin Feagin, giving Illinois its first lead since going up 13-10.
A 15-play, 42-yard and nearly seven-minute drive burned plenty of clock and gave Illinois a 23-17 lead, which featured true freshman running back Ca’Lil Valentine. The back, who Bielema says is as “quick as a hiccup”, finished with eight rushes and 25 yards, including two crucial first downs to set up Olano from 43 yards out.
After that, the game boiled down to letting the defense do what the defense had been doing for the past three quarters.
Illinois might not have had a ton of yards through the air (just 192) or any receiving touchdowns, but Altmyer, Franklin and Bryant made the passing game look good when it mattered most.
Illinois is off to its first 2-0 start since 2019. Next week, they’ll be chasing their first 3-0 start since 2011. If they can do that and grab one or two road victories, Kansas might not be the last sellout of the season.
“I look forward to playing in [front of] some more sellout crowds here,” Franklin said.
Saturday will be a September Homecoming at home against the Central Michigan Chippewas. Kickoff from Memorial Stadium be at 11 a.m., and the game can be seen on Peacock.
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Illinois
Four Downs and Bracket: Northern Illinois is beauty, Texas the beast and Shedeur Sanders should opt out
![Four Downs and Bracket: Northern Illinois is beauty, Texas the beast and Shedeur Sanders should opt out Four Downs and Bracket: Northern Illinois is beauty, Texas the beast and Shedeur Sanders should opt out](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/authoring/authoring-images/2024/09/08/USAT/75128837007-usatsi-24180438.jpg?auto=webp&crop=3325,1871,x232,y346&format=pjpg&width=1200)
Davis Warren: ‘Standard hasn’t changed’ after Michigan loss to Texas
Michigan Wolverines quarterback Davis Warren said the reigning national championship team’s “standard hasn’t changed” after losing 31-12 to Texas.
First Down
This is the danger of overreaction, of penciling in favorites and roaming blissfully unaware through the minefield that is the college football regular season.
A week ago, Notre Dame had a clear path to the College Football Playoff. Now there’s wild uncertainty under the Golden Dome after a 16-14 loss to Northern Illinois.
A week ago, Irish quarterback Riley Leonard gutted out a big win at Texas A&M, fighting a defense full of elite athletes and going head-to-head with Mike Elko, his former coach at Duke. Fast forward to an unusually chilly September Saturday afternoon in South Bend, Indiana, with little ol’ Northern Illinois staring back from the other side of the ball.
Leonard threw two interceptions, averaged one lousy yard per carry and the Irish looked like a team in disarray — a week after strutting like a playoff team.
When will we ever learn?
This is the beauty of college football, and its perfectly imperfect fall Saturdays. Sometimes it’s not so much about bluechips and big NIL deals as it is want. Who wants it more?
A roster full of blue chip recruits with strapping, rising 30-something coach Marcus Freeman building what seems like a national power, or a bunch of MAC castoffs with tough love coach Thomas Hammock, who looks more like John Candy than John Heisman.
He was blubbering on the field at Notre Dame Stadium as the sun set over Touchdown Jesus, yet speaking so poignantly about players doing the right things, and listening and taking coaching. Football is more than NIL deals, he said.
You better believe it is. More times than not, it’s about who wants it more.
Like gutty and gritty Northern Illinois quarterback Ethan Hampton, who threw for 198 yards and had a few key runs ― including converting a key fourth-down run on the game-winning drive. Prior to this season, he had nine career passing touchdowns against eight interceptions.
Or running back Antario Brown, who was 13 when his mother was shot and killed outside their apartment in Savannah. After rushing for nearly 1,300 yards last season, he could’ve left NIU for a Power Four team and earned a sweet NIL deal.
But he stayed with the school who first recruited him, much like he did when leaving high school despite an offer from South Carolina.
HIGHS AND LOWS: Michigan mess and Texas triumph lead Week 2 winners and losers
Or Hammock, a star running back at NIU in the early 2000s who bounced around in college football and the NFL coaching running backs, before his alma mater asked him to come home in 2019. And then back him over and over despite some rough spots, including a three-win season in 2022.
So yeah, he was weeping in the biggest moment of his coaching career. So were his players as they dove into the stands to celebrate with the few hundreds who made the 150-mile drive east to witness history.
This is college football. Not daily pontificating or weekly overreactions or looking down a three-month road and declaring no one is beating Notre Dame. Until Northern Illinois does.
And picks up a cool guarantee game check worth $1.4 million in the process, thank you.
Second Down
Of all the critically bad decisions to chance for college football administrators, there are defining moves that somehow continue to be made through emotion.
Hiring a head coach shouldn’t be a heart over head proposition, but here we are, and the strange scenario continues to play out when it shouldn’t. From beloved assistant coach to head coach — to overwhelmed by the moment.
All because emotion clouded judgment in the hiring process, and the ”players’ coach” or “the importance of transition” or “you know what you’re getting” meant more than finding the right coach.
Speaking of a clouded process, it may be time to give Michigan coach Sherrone Moore an early invite to the waiting room of bad decisions.
Because after Michigan’s 19-point home loss to Texas (it wasn’t that close), Moore looks a lot like Bobby Williams at Michigan State. Or Randy Shannon and Manny Diaz at Miami, Ron Prince at Kansas State and Matt Luke at Ole Miss.
And that’s just a handful of assistant coaches who got their first power conference head coaching job when elevated at their respective schools — and were then engulfed by it all. They were “players’ coaches” who were hired in the heat of the moment and amid the fanfare of player support, after the previous coach either took another job, retired or was fired.
Williams followed Nick Saban (left for LSU), Shannon followed national championship coach Larry Coker (fired), Diaz followed Mark Richt (retired), Prince followed Bill Snyder (retired) and Luke followed Hugh Freeze (fired).
Only Diaz, now coaching Duke, got a second chance as a Power Five conference head coach.
Now here we are with Moore, who won four games as an interim coach last year during Michigan’s national championship season while former coach Jim Harbaugh was suspended. But that was with a loaded team, built over the years by Harbaugh and built specifically to peak during the 2023 season.
Moore took over, and had to find a quarterback (he didn’t land one from the transfer portal despite the deep group of candidates), and replace the entire offensive line and wide receiving corps.
After an uninspiring season opening win over Fresno State, the Wolverines looked outcoached and outclassed against Texas. Michigan had 284 yards — 78 on the last drive of the game against Texas backups — converted only 3-of-12 third downs and had three turnovers.
Moore looked shellshocked from the first drive of the game, when a questionable holding call negated a Texas touchdown. The Longhorns then missed a short field goal.
Then it got worse for Moore and Michigan, which had four win streaks snapped with the loss: 16 consecutive wins overall, 23 consecutive home wins, 28 consecutive wins in August and September, and 23 consecutive non-conference home wins.
The Wolverines were an operational mess on both sides of the ball. Quarterback Davis Warren was shaky in his second start, and the play calling was uninspiring.
The run game — the anchor of Harbaugh’s Michigan teams — rushed for 80 yards on 23 carries, and has produced 228 yards in two games. The defense wasn’t much better, giving up nearly 400 yards before the Longhorns shut it down in the fourth quarter to salt away the win.
“I liked our poise and I liked our composure,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said after the game.
A team, and a coach, that wasn’t distracted in a critical moment.
Third Down
Here we go again. Another one-possession game, another loss for Arkansas.
And another excuse to turn up the heat on embattled Hogs coach Sam Pittman.
Just in case you’ve forgotten what the last two years of Arkansas football looked like, turn on the DVR and watch Arkansas give away a big road win Saturday at No.16 Oklahoma State. The Hogs led by 14 at halftime and eight in the fourth quarter, yet couldn’t get out of Boone Pickens Stadium with an important non-conference win.
This one ended in the second overtime with Arkansas failing to convert on fourth-and-1 from the OSU 6. It also ended as the 15th one-possession loss under Pittman since 2000. Fifteen.
More: Biggest nonconference games of 2024 College Football Playoff race
They’ve ended in every conceivable way: from Saturday’s loss of a yard when the Hogs needed only one, to holding Mississippi State to 205 total yards and losing 7-3 when Pittman admitted he “didn’t know what to do” when faced with the decision of kicking a long field goal or punt.
Then there was the missed game-winning field goal against Texas A&M when the kick hit the top of the upright. Yes, the top. In a stretch last season that included three losses by one possession against Brigham Young, LSU and Ole Miss, Arkansas had a combined 35 penalties.
The latest unsettling loss to Oklahoma State, a game the Hogs had control of deep into the second half, shines more concern on the one-possession losses. it also underscores losses for Arkansas in nine of its last 10 games against power conference teams — the only win in overtime at Florida.
“I’ve had success,” Pittman told me in July. “I’m not concerned about ‘Oh, he’s a failure.’ Hell no, I’m not a failure. And I’m not going to do something different because I’m worried about a job.”
Fourth Down
it’s time for Shedeur Sanders to hear some harsh truth. And it has to come from his coach, and father, Deion Sanders.
It’s time to opt out. Of the season.
I’m half joking, but imagine being Colorado star quarterback Shedeur Sanders, an elite NFL draft prospect and possibly a Top five overall pick, knowing the beatdown is coming, week after week, while playing behind a horrific offensive line.
Why stand tall and absorb those hits and take that physical pounding for what looks like a three- or four-win team? What exactly is the sense of this exercise?
The Colorado offensive line gave up 56 sacks last season ― that’s right, 56 ― and after two games against North Dakota State and Nebraska, this year’s group looks worse. Why in the world would Deion (the coach or the dad) throw his son behind this mess of an offensive line, knowing it could lead to the only thing that could prevent his son from being one of the first players selected in the draft?
OK, so opting out of the season is too harsh. Let’s start with opting out of games when you’re down four touchdowns.
The Bracket
First round byes:
(1) Georgia, (2) Ohio State, (3) Miami, (4) Oklahoma State
First round games:
(12) Liberty at (5) Texas
(11) Penn State at (6) Alabama
(10) Missouri at (7) Oregon
(9) Southern California at (8) Ole Miss
Illinois
Illinois rallies in the 4th quarter to beat No. 19 Kansas 23-17
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) — Kaden Feagin scored on a 1-yard run with 9:34 to go, David Alano added a 43-yard field goal with 58 seconds left and Illinois rallied to beat No. 19 Kansas 23-17 on Saturday night.
Illinois (2-0) beat a ranked nonconference opponent for the first time since topping then-No. 22 Arizona State on Sept. 17, 2011. The Illini also avenged a 34-23 loss last year at Kansas (1-1).
Feagin scored after Luke Altmyer found Pat Bryant for 37- and 28-yard completions on the eight-play, 80-yard drive.
Altmyer completed 16 of 25 passes for 192 yards. Zakhari Franklin had nine catches for 99 yards, and Bryant had three receptions for 70 yards.
Kansas’ Jalon Daniels was 18 of 32 for 141 yards with two touchdown passes and three interceptions.
Daniels scrambled and found a wide-open Lawrence Arnold in the end zone for 13-yard TD pass that give the Jayhawks a 17-13 lead with 4:57 to go in the third quarter.
Luke Grimm caught nine passes for 40 yards and a touchdown for the Jayhawks. Devin Neal ran for 101 yards on 14 carries.
The teams combined for 17 points in the final 3:05 of the second quarter.
Illinois led 13-10 at halftime thanks to Xavier Scott’s 28-yard return of an interception with 36 seconds left in the quarter. Scott read a screen pass attempt by Daniels and raced untouched into the end zone. It was Scott’s second interception of the game.
A 50-yard field goal by Alano with 2:27 to go in the quarter was set up by a spectacular one-handed, 42-yard catch by Franklin along the sideline with Kansas’ Damarius McGhee holding his other arm.
The Jayhawks went ahead 10-3 on a 3-yard TD pass from Daniels to Grimm in the back of the end zone with 3:05 remaining in the half.
THE TAKEAWAY
Illinois: The Illini proved they could go toe-to-toe and beat a ranked opponent, a good sign with games against No. 8 Penn State, No. 10 Michigan and No. 7 Oregon coming up in the next six weeks.
Kansas: Despite the loss, the Jayhawks showed they have a potent running attack led by Neal and and a sturdy defense. Illinois’ offense scored only one touchdown — albeit the winning TD — gained just 79 yards on the ground, and had only 14 first downs.
POLL IMPLICATIONS
Kansas made some major errors including a penalty that wiped out a touchdown, and the interceptions by Daniels that ruined drives and allowed Illinois to pull ahead late in the first half. The Jayhawks will most likely drop out of the Top 25.
UP NEXT
Illinois: Hosts Central Michigan on Saturday.
Kansas: Hosts UNLV on Friday night at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas.
___
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Illinois
Notre Dame OL Tosh Baker ruled out vs. Northern Illinois with shoulder injury
![Notre Dame OL Tosh Baker ruled out vs. Northern Illinois with shoulder injury Notre Dame OL Tosh Baker ruled out vs. Northern Illinois with shoulder injury](https://on3static.com/uploads/dev/assets/cms/2024/08/06122724/Tosh-Baker.jpg)
NOTRE DAME VS NORTHERN ILLINOIS PREVIEW | Final thoughts, observations and predictions
Notre Dame offensive lineman Tosh Baker has been ruled out for Saturday’s game against Northern Illinois, the program announced. He is dealing with a shoulder injury.
Baker is the only player on this week’s depth chart to miss the game. That means freshman Guerby Lambert could be the first offensive tackle off the bench for Notre Dame, as Blue and Gold’s Jack Soble noted.
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Baker was listed behind Anthonie Knapp at left tackle on the depth chart after last week’s season-opening victory against Texas A&M. They’re part of the plan to replace Charles Jagusah at the position after his season-ending injury suffered during training camp.
Notre Dame started the season strong with a big-time road win over Texas A&M. The Fighting Irish went into halftime tied with the Aggies 6-6. But Marcus Freeman’s group found its stride after the break, totaling 217 yards to eventually come away with the 23-13 victory.
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It was a signature win for Freeman, who’s starting his third season at the helm. In the eyes of Urban Meyer, the victory spoke to what he’s been building in South Bend and how he’s grown as a head coach since taking over after the 2021 season.
“That’s a different man right now than it was two or three years ago when he took over the job,” Meyer said on The Triple Option. “That was not fake. When you walk into A&M, there’s over 100,000 people there. That’s a real environment against a real team. You know where the players were looking at? … Him. You are the leader of the team. And he did not have that confident look that he has now.
“When you saw – I think they lost to Marshall or something like that several years ago. He’s got a real look. And you want to know something? They nutted up and they got it done in the fourth quarter. I can’t say enough about Marcus Freeman. That’s a real team – a very young team. Offensive line is very young.”
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