For the Fans

Send me your predictions for week 2!

Posted by: Tom Young

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 7:16 AM

First of all, this isn’t a true simulation of Saturday’s game.  The problem is NCAA 10 doesn’t have FCS teams.  That means Illinois State isn’t in the game.  Instead the game has teams titled 'FCS Midwest' and 'FCS South' and uses these teams when a Florida plays a Charleston Southern.  I figured I would use the FCS Midwest team against the Illini, but apparently you can’t use these teams in exhibition play.  My next option was to place the Illini against the worst team in the game and have that be the Illini against Illinois State.  So ladies and gentleman, I bring you’re my simulation Illinois vs. Utah State!

 

NCAA on Xbox 360

 

ILLINIOIS 31        *ILLINOIS ST. 3

 

* - Utah St. = Illinois St.

 

This game was only 10-0 at the half, so Illinois wasn’t all that dominant.  When the second half started, they pulled away and never looked back.  QB Juice Williams was decent, going 10-21 for 210 yards and 2 TD’s with no interceptions. QB Eddie McGee came in and completed a pass…to the other team.  This was the only turnover of the game.

 

Illinois ran the ball well RB Daniel Dufrene ran 14 times for 71 yards and a TD, while RB Jason Ford ran eight times for 72 yards, including a 52 yard TD run.  Ford also had a TD reception.  WR Jeff Cumberland had the other TD reception.

 

 

My Prediction

 

ILLINOIS 42        ILLINOIS ST. 21

 

This game is going to be closer than we want it to be, with the reason being defense.  Unfortunately, what we saw last week against Missouri was the same thing we saw last year, and the same thing we will see the rest of the year unless some changes are made.  With a weaker opponent, here’s a great opportunity to try some things out, like bump coverage, man coverage, blitzes, etc.  Hopefully the coaches take advantage of this opportunity to figure some things out, or that September 26^th game at Ohio State will be disgusting.

 

Offensively, I believe we will see the run a lot, and we will move easily because of that.  In Illinois State’s loss at Eastern Illinois last week 31-6, they gave up 217 yards on 41 attempts (5.3 a carry).  I can see Illinois rushing for more yardage than that (that is if they run).  I want to see a 65-35 run to pass ratio.  If we become a run first team, our offense will get back on track and look like it should have last week. 

 

With Illinois’ loss, almost all of us predicted wrong.  Here’s the way things look after week one. Last weeks score was 37-9 Missouri, so Missouri was +28 on the real game spread.

 

Name                                                 Correct            Incorrect       Spread difference

combatmedic44 (MU 28-24)                  1                      0                             24 pts

Jshaw (ILL 31-24)                                 0                      1                             35 pts

Tom Young (ILL 42-35)                        0                      1                             35 pts

chrispatton33 (ILL 34-26)                      0                      1                             36 pts

Jweeks (ILL 35-14)                               0                      1                             49 pts

NCAA 10 (ILL 38-17)                          0                      1                             49 pts

 

As you can tell, nobody was close on the real game spread. 

 

Send me your predictions this week for the ILL-ISU game.  I enjoyed reading all the things you had to say before and after last week’s game.  I don’t call it the ‘For the Fans’ blog for nothing!

 

I-L-L…

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