Idaho is better than expected...

[DANC]

It is notable that Wazzu and Idaho is a fairly serious rivalry for those schools, probably one of very few that exists between a FBS and FCS school. They played basically every year before Idaho dropped down, and both sides seemed pretty excited online for it to come back. Idaho probably had a lot of fire behind them for that game.

Aren't they just 8 miles apart?

 

[daddyhoosier]

The comments here are all fair. Indiana will see the same level of talent from the Vandals as they did last year.

The significant difference will be from our new staff. Coach Eck has this team believing they can win. The previous coaching staff always played to "not lose." Idaho was up by five touchdowns against CSU in our last bowl and ended the game only winning by two. If the Petrino teams would have ended games at halftime, those teams would have had multiple winning seasons. Good coaches were able to make halftime adjustments against our old coach and the second half of every game showed this.

Idaho isn't winning this game. But, I say we cover: 40-21 Indiana win.

Thanks for the input. I'm not sure I see you guys getting 21 on us though. But I do hope you guys get better this year.

 

[turney333]

I would bet Illinois scouted Bell's past play-calls and that was one of his favorites.

Yeah, they were more than expecting that play.

Truthfully, I think it was more about poor/slow recognition by Swinton/Matthews who were the intended blockers than Illinois expecting the play.

-Shivers gets set in motion
-The Illinois CB lined up against Swinton on the outside sees Shivers and starts running towards the backfield. I think there is a high safety who is then likely intended to cover Swinton.
Both Swinton and Matthews are looking at the ball waiting for the snap while the CB has built up a full head of steam.
-When the ball is snapped, Swinton sees the CB, but doesn't have a great angle to block. Matthews initially just looks straight ahead at his cover man, and doesn't see the CB coming in until too late. Swinton starts moving towards the CB, but pulls up maybe expecting Matthews to have seen the CB. Swinton probably wouldn't have been able to get a full block, but maybe could have gotten enough contact to prevent Shivers from getting blown up.
-If Matthews would have seen the CB, he would have had a fairly easy block and Shivers probably gets 10+ yards out of the play as there was no one else in the vicinity.

Also, I think there was a bit too long of a delay between Shivers going in motion and the snap as Shivers had to really slow up and wait for the pass. If the pass gets to him a sooner, Shivers might have been able to avoid a direct hit and maybe could have gotten back to the line of scrimmage. Bazelak also maybe could/should have seen the CB coming in and decided not to throw