@Illinois

[gotime909]

Sam Leavitt is lighting up a ranked team on the road tonight. It's too bad we couldn't have kept him or Houser with the program. Both are playing great in their new places. Its insane that last years staff thought Noah Kim was better than both of them.

 

[Spartanmack]

Like it or not, Chiles is obviously the best option we have. There’s no point in benching him for Tommy what's his name who is on his last year of eligibility, undersized and less athletic. He completed 58% of his passes for 256 yards and 2 TDs against Illinois. He also had half our rushing yards at 40 and that includes being sacked 5 times - by Illinois. So on paper, that's a solid game but yes, the eye test tells a bit of a different story. He definitely made some mistakes and they were mistakes he's continued to make all year - stays in the pocket too long, holds the ball too long, needs to know when to roll out, when to tuck and run when the throw isn't there right away, etc, etc. He probably could have avoided 2 of those sacks last weekend.

But this team sucks top to bottom and there's no way he's even close to our biggest problem. Should we be looking for a new QB, yes both in HS and portal recruiting, but I don't see how you're gonna get anyone to take a serious look at this program when they're looking at getting sacked 5 times by Illinois and having ZERO run support. The run game is non-existent. We need an offensive line than can get an average of at least 150yds/game on the ground, 175 would be top 50 so 150 isn't a huge ask but we're at 114, probably much lower in B1G play. If we can establish a run game and Chiles is still missing reads and throws when we have another option on the sideline, then I'll be more inclined to complain about him.

Glad I passed on over 5 games for the season. I'd still be feeling OK with 4.5 but we should probably have 6 already.