champaignchris

Fields watched the Ravens offense and then asked, “May I please have a Mark Andrews?”

It’s only year 2, but he already has to be considered one of the biggest League-wide scouting whiffs in modern NBA history. 2nd rounders who exceed expectations tend to fall into one of three categories: 1. Undersized try-hard bigs - Draymond Green. 2. Small tweener guards - usually seniors from elite college programs - that shoot the lights out - Jalen Brunson. 3. Euros who were clearly under scouted - Jokic. Ayo doesn’t fit any of those categories. Generally guys of his size, skill set and college pedigree are either lottery picks or have some sort of fatal flaw to their game that keeps them off the NBA floor. I have to wonder if he was still suffering from concussion issues during the pre-draft workouts.

Is Abreu really going to be that expensive when Nelson Cruz got a single year guaranteed at $15 with a mutual second year option last year? Coming off the major power outage of a year he just had and given his age, I’d guess he’d be closer to Rizzo’s 2-year, $32.

I think this will the first of what will be several ass-whuppin’s in a row. I think 5-12 is an optimistic season record.

I have to admit that I'm unfamiliar with Illinois having a bye and wishing that they had a game to play. Usually at this time of year, I'm thankful for a bye because I won't be tempted to waste 3 1/2 hours watching a desolate football program get its brains mashed in by a mid-tier Big 10 team. 5 games left and a bowl and the only result going forward that won't be considered a resounding success would be to lose out. They beat NW and lose all the rest of their games plus the bowl, and this season still exceeds expectations with the most wins in a season in over a decade. As it is, the most likely scenario going forward looks like taking 2 of 3 from @Nebraska, MSU and Purdue, losing soundly to Meat-Chicken, and then beating the worst NW team since the 80s. Finish 9-3, probably lose out to Purdue on the tiebreakers for the West division champ. Go to the Duke's Mayo Bowl in Charlotte to play someone like Syracuse, with a solid chance of winning the bowl game and finishing somewhere around #12 in the AP.

Plus, you'll need to factor in a likely 11-1 Illinois team that would have victories over Michigan and Ohio State. Loss to Indiana = automatic elimination It would be so Illinois to have a botched touchdown call keep them out of the CFP. Won’t happen, but blown calls in Illinois games directly led to instant replay being added to both college football (Michigan 2000) and college basketball (Miami 2013).

DeVito will be starting today for Illinois.

These are not mutually exclusive positions.

The non-Mooney WRs on this team are worthless. Just awful.

You think so? He seemed a little wild and gave up a really hard hit double by Freeman. He hit that right after I posted. Still, it was 99 mph right at the top of the zone. Freddie Freeman is one of about 20 humans in history who could have turned that into a double.

Whatever was wrong with Josh Hader looks fixed.

It appears Vegas agrees, as the #24 Illini are 4 point home dogs to unranked Minnesota next week (and I agree with this assessment, I think Minnesota is the one legit team in the BTW this season). I'll be curious to see if that changes if DeVito is cleared to play. The backup is hot garbage. I have no idea whether DeVito will play or not. But I suspect there will be no word one way or the other right up to game time. Huge game for the Big Ten West. The winner will be the favorite for the division going forward. Illinois in particular will be favored in every remaining game except Michigan. I have to keep things in perspective and remember expectations going into the season. Anything beyond a sixth win and a bowl birth is gravy. More than anything, what Illinois really needs is to stack several bowl seasons together, 4 in 5, 5 in 6 and go back to being a consistently relevant football program for the first time in 30 years.

The ideal remainder of the season would look a whole bunch like this game. The best scenario is the Bears going into the off-season knowing Fields is the guy and having a top 5 pick to start building a team around him. Yesterday was quite easily Fields’ best game as a Bear. He was also quite easily the best player in a Bears uniform.

They’ll be heavily favored in their next 3. Have a great chance of being 8-1 with a win over ranked Kansas St. They’ll be ranked then.

That was the year they started off 6-0 before finishing the regular season 0-6. They still got to a bowl and beat the 6-7 UCLA team that had gotten into the PAC championship game only because USC was ineligible that year and then needed a special exemption from the NCAA to play in a bowl game with a losing record. As for how bad Illinois has been, the true tale of the tape is the won-loss record. Over the previous 10 seasons, Illinois is 69th out of the 70 current or soon to be P5 schools in winning percentage, ahead of only Kansas. Over the previous 30 seasons, Illinois is 66th/70, in front of only Duke, Vandy, Kansas and Indiana. Another way to look at it is the head-to-head records since 1992 against the Big 10 schools Illinois should historically be competitive with - Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Purdue and Michigan St: NW 11-19 PU 8-16 WIS 6-20-1 IOWA 6-17 MINN 9-16 MSU 4-12 There is no historic or demographic reason for Illinois to have been dominated by each of these schools over the last 30 years. Illinois had a all-time winning record against all of these schools prior to 1992. The difference is that each of these schools made at least one great coaching hire in that time while Illinois repeatedly made bad ones. 1992, by the way, in addition to be a nice round 30 years ago, is also the point where John Mackovic left as football HC and AD. So, there was a clear change in administration at that time that coincides with Illinois’ downturn.

The other thing about Bielema is that the last few Illini HCs had trouble filling out staffs. Bielema apparently had his staff largely ready to go from day one, which was a big part of why he was hired. Illinois - to AD Whitman’s credit - didn’t skimp on paying the assistants what it took to get them on campus. That seems to be Whitman’s modus operandi in all sports - hire head coaches with proven success and then open the checkbook to get the assistants the coach wants. It’s certainly worked out in men’s basketball.

Not sure we have the horses to compete with Michigan yet. I will say this Wisconsin win felt different. Felt like a program turning point. There was no fluke to that win. Illinois absolutely imposed their will on Wisconsin the way Wisconsin has on Illinois all these years. That defensive line is for real. That'll keep you in B1G games pretty often. I don't know if the offense can continue to be as efficient as they were Saturday, but it's better than I expected. Bielema is a turd but the guy can apparently recruit and coach in the midwest. The things I’m hearing in Champaign is that he really changed his off field life after having kids. Certainly, publicly, he’s said all the right things and been a great public face for the school. He also talks a lot about his experiences coaching in the NFL after Arkansas, particularly under Belichick, and how that’s broadened his coaching horizons. It’s weird as an Illinois fan because even going back to our good coaches like White and Mackovic, none have ever been so obviously loved by the national media as Bielema is. The ESPN guys just absolutely love him. I’ve never seen the program get the kind of national goodwill that it’s getting right now.

So like they were under Ron Zook They were 34-51 (18-38) with one regular season winning record under Zook. Right. They were awful under Zook. Just a little less awful than under the subsequent coaches.

I’m quite sure he’s thinking about developing a QB. Just not the one currently on his roster.

Not sure we have the horses to compete with Michigan yet. I will say this Wisconsin win felt different. Felt like a program turning point. There was no fluke to that win. Illinois absolutely imposed their will on Wisconsin the way Wisconsin has on Illinois all these years.

Win out! 10th vs 13th pick in the draft or whatever? Who cares! This is fun.

Adrian Sampson… Something there or the Frank Schwindel of pitchers? It’s tough to put too much faith in what he’s doing when the Cubs themselves DFA’d him earlier in the season while Leiter and Swarmer were getting lit up as starters. But at some point, you are what your stats say you are and he has a 3.12 ERA over 130 innings and two seasons as a Cub. From a guy with a 5.40 ERA in Korea in 2020.

I have a hard time seeing any scenario (other than injury) where he isn’t the 2023 Opening Day starter at 2B, 3B or CF. The Cubs’ off-season job is to acquire enough talent to turn Morel into the 7th or 8th best every day player on the team instead of the 4th or 5th.

I could see Jerry going with someone like AJ Pierzynski Hell, they’ll probably bring Ozzie Guillen back.

If he were 10 years younger, he’d actually be a pretty good choice for that team. If the Nats move on from Martinez, I could see that.