Illini - Mizzou post mortem, a sign of good or bad things to come?

There plenty of different ways we can interpret the Illini's loss to Missouri on Saturday. On the one hand we could say that the Illini, at least for one half, looked poised and took Mizzou off guard with a remarkably balanced offensive and defensive effort. On the other hand, it could simply be an entirely new way for the Illini to lose to their supposed "Arch Rivals."

Dwell on what good you can, I suppose. Despite his three interceptions, Scheelhaase looked  like he has a real future in college football. He only passed for 81 yards, but he ended up running for 76, and considering he had never seen real live college football action before, I will take that as a net positive. In the first half, the "good half" for the Illini racked up about 200 yards of total offense something that we can at least look to later as proof that the offense has the ability to be successful.

Mikel LeShoure went over a hundred yards, which allows me to still be hopeful that this could be his break out year much like Mendenhall in 2007. He found creases and holes and looked to be running with as much confidence as ever. Important to note now though his how the carries broke down for the running backs; twenty for LeShoure, four for Ford and one for Pollard. "Feed the studs" sounds a bit hokey, but I would very much like to see this trend continued, too many times under Schultz last year did we spread carries out unnecessarily, from about midway through last year on, it was clear who the best back was, and the carries should reflect that.

Paul Petrino so far is looking very good in my book, because he was able to surprise and exploit the Missouri defense to the point where even if the Illini weren't looking spectacular in their plays, they were still able to move the ball. What worries me is something that may be beyond his or any of the coaches control: the reliability of the offensive line.

A friend of mine told me that he was unsure of how good Scheelhaase really is, because of how many balls he seemed to under throw, and questioned his arm strength (given all the interceptions.) I would have to point out though, how many times Scheelhaase was either running for his life in the back field on those plays or having the throw the ball off of his back foot while still in his three step drop, both of which will make for under thrown balls. The reason? The offensive line's inability to stop Missouri on blitzes or even just their front four. Too many times did a Tiger DE make his way into the backfield looking like he was completely untouched. The halftime adjustments probably weren't too complex for Pinkel: go after the line and exploit the guards apparent problems with pass blocking.

I hope that there are changes that can be made are made soon, like within the next two weeks, because no matter the game plan, and no matter Nathan's abilities as a QB, you can't play winning football if you can't block.

Defensively, the game was similarly good/bad. Holding the Tigers to only three points in the first half has to be seen as a positive, no matter who they were missing from their starting lineup. I like Koenning's  coaching from what I have seen thus far. The tackling seems much more crisp and much more fundamentally sound. The players who have had significant experience seem to be playing as well as they ever have. Ian Thomas is continuing his development from last year and could be the star of this defense before too much longer. Corey Liuget and Nate Bussey had some huge hits that make me hopeful for the overall defense as the season goes on.

It is too bad though, that with as good as most of the defense looked, the secondary was picked apart in the second half. Justin Green and Jack Ramsey weren't in the best position from the very start, as each had to switch positions only about a week beforehand. With as well as the rest of the unit played under Koenning's coaching, I would have very much liked to see it with the proper players installed.

The Illini showed at the very least a glimmer of hope at what could be a better than expected season, but unless the secondary holds up better and the offensive line can improve its pass blocking, the Big Ten portion of our schedule will still be very difficult.