POSTGAME: Illinois Dominant in Victory Over Eastern Illinois in Season Opener | Illini Podcast

the Ali show you exactly what a big 10 team should look like against an FCS team locked on Ali let's go you are locked on a line ey your daily podcast on the Illinois fighting Al part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day welcome back to locked on Aline I thank you for making us your first listen every single day simple REM we're free and available wherever you get podcasts and on YouTube part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day my name is sunny Verma you can find me at align icast and you can find me at the sunny V on Twitter but more importantly this week I've started a Facebook page and an Instagram so go ahead and search locked on Ali love to hear your guys' feedback and it's a way for you guys to interact with me back and forth for those of you guys watching on YouTube I apologize as you can see I'm back in my former stomping grounds for the holiday weekend but apparently I forgot to pack the light and the camera with me so I apologize slightly for the quality downgrade over this weekend but I'll be back home well to my new home next week but also think of it this way this is a perfect excuse for you to find me on your favorite audio platform whether you listen to Apple podcast whether you listen to Spotify whatever it might be find us there hit that download button hit that subscribe button if you want to just stick with the audio version today's episode's brought to you by ultimate GM ultimate college football HC is a brand new mobile game that is completely free has no ads and is 100% playable offline use the promo code lock on CFB all caps inside the game store to receive a free boost to your program begin your coaching Legacy today that was fun guys 45 nothing is 45 nothing and quite honestly that 45 nothing Victory could have been 65 nothing 70 nothing it was a purely dominant Illinois win and sure a lot of people even on Twitter already are uh harping back at me saying hey it's Eastern Illinois let's not get too excited and relax I I'm not going to get too excited for this Victory but at the same time I'm going to let myself feel good if you guys recall last year after week one we had a down to the wire game against Toledo where we barely SED out a victory 30 to 28 and I know you guys all remember what that feeling was like at the end of that game we're all wondering oh boy what kind of season are we in for we don't have those type of Vibes today Eastern Illinois had a very good season last year they have some very good players on their team at the FCS level but they didn't belong on the same field as Illinois tonight I'm not gonna lie I was nervous right off the bat I think on our first drive we punted and then Eastern Illinois came back and was driving on us they got into the Red Zone and then Illinois was fortunate enough the defense who I'm going to talk about in a little bit was able to force the turn over we got the ball back and then from that point on it was all Al Lana 31 nothing I believe at halftime obviously as I mentioned 45 nothing was the final score early on in the game you can kind of see what the game plan was Luke Alm four touchdowns in that first half Luke Alm was doing his best John Paddock impression and it wasn't like he was even locked into just one wide receiver zakari Franklin Pat Bryant caught an amazing touchdown Malik elzy made a couple nice grabs including scoring a touchdown Tanner Arin his first catch led to a touchdown Luke alme basically played exactly the way I wanted him to play now granted a lot of these wide receivers were wide open and he's not going to get those same type of wide openen Windows next week when Kansas comes to Champagne but we knew that Illinois was going to win tonight so regardless of that fact I still wanted to see Luke play confidently make the right throws and that's what he did all five running backs got on the field today Brett belma made a mention of that you kayen Fagan got his first 100 yard rushing game of his career and he looked every bit as dominant as I've been saying all offseason long I genuinely think he's going to be one of the breakout stars of The Big 10 conference this year he's just I mean 6 foot4 250 pounds and it's not even that once he starts going he's a wrecking ball he literally looks like a Derrik Henry like he just he's getting faster and faster with each and every stride but what I want to talk about right now is the defense forcing four turnovers pitching a shut out that's what we wanted to see today we know the offense is going to be good my prediction was literally that the offense would be one of the top six best in the conference and I truly believe that you saw a glimpse of it today but it's the defense that I was worried about defense showed up defense played aggressive and I really like a quote I don't know the direct quote but Brett BMA essentially said after the game that the coaches on the defensive side they heard about the defense all summer long they know that they're under a mice G scope right now and you know what at least for one week they performed extremely well it's not about beating Eastern Illinois it's about ultimately gaining confidence into what might be the most important matchup of the season next week against Kanas Matthew Bailey you see why Matthew Bailey is so incredibly important to this team just meaningful play after impactful play on the defensive side uh one interesting note was Gabe Jacks did play with his hand to the ground on the defensive line for the most part and Brett did did say that he thinks uh that's going to be happening more and more moving forward I think the direct quote was something along the lines of him just being an excellent one-on-one player uh and so expect to see that a little bit more moving forward Tyler strain was out with an injury but Brett did talk about that he should be back in practice this upcoming weekend there should be no issues with the Kansas game but you know all in all again the defensive of the football showed up today uh honestly both sides of the football showed up today but it's the defensive side that we were super concerned about about the success of this upcoming football season and we can at least say after one week Aaron Henry can sleep easy hey locked on the line I fans I want to take a moment to give you a heads up on a brand new mobile game that I think you're going to love as much as I do ultimate college football HC is in this amazing game and simulation you get to step into the shoes of a head coach and lead your college football team to Glory can you imagine actually being the head coach of the Ali from recruiting players and hiring coaching staff to overseeing training camps and handling school scholarships you control every crucial detail of your program it's all in your hands will you be able to handle the pressure and here's what I really love about the game you're responsible for calling offensive plays during the games your strategy will not only determine the success of your football season but will shape the future and Legacy of your program ultimate college football AC is completely free has no ads and is 100% playable offline you can play on the go as you want and when you want to and of course we have a special offer for locked on align I fans use the promo code locked on CFB all caps inside the game store to receive a free boost to your program make sure to take advantage of this perk as it will get your team off to a strong start to download the game just visit ultimate-fx today now in this segment usually what I wanted to do was was kind of highlight the best players of the game and you know really highlight the player of the game and there's so many options especially in particular on the offensive side you had Luke almeer 19 for 24 for 213 yards and four touchdowns uh kayen Fagan again as I mentioned reached 10 yards plus for the first time in his career in 16 carries Aiden laughrey 10 carries for 79 yards and on the re receiving end Pat Bryant five for 63 and two touchdowns Malik Elie with two catches for 51 yards including a touchdown Which was I think probably Luke alm's best throw as a fighting a line I let me know your feedback on that too in the chat because I saw that and that's where my confidence level in Luke raised a little bit because again I think he's the key to being he's the key to having that offense reach the potential that I think it can reach but yeah I mean all these guys on the offensive side it was a it was very well balanced a lot of these guys got to play but there's one person who I just want to hand the game ball to and that's none of the guys I mentioned just now I think the star of this game was Barry Loney Jr his game planning his play calling was completely topnotch they talked about it during the broadcast Barry Lenny Jr in his third year now as the Ali offense offensive coordinator has essent he's he's settled in now he knows what he's doing he had a shaky start to his career in Champagne but last year we finished as one of the better offenses in the Big 10 and it looks like bringing a starting quarterback back having your offensive line kind of settled right off the bat having a great running back room having an outstanding wide receiver room Barry Lenny Jr has talent that he's working with and he's doing a fantastic job of working with them case in point 45 points we've talked about how the offensive side of football's going to be needing to carry and shoulder the load possibly this season uh to and I think at least after game one we've shown that we're capable of doing that yes I know it's Eastern Illinois that's not the point let me enjoy myself it's a half hour past midnight as I'm recording this so let me speak with hyperbole a little bit I think Barry Loney junor did a fantastic job and again we kind of spread it out through everybody I really don't think we gave away too much of our game plan the only now that I think about it the only complaint I have about this game and I want to hear you guys' feedback too I tweeted about this a couple times at a line I cast some of these starters played well into the fourth quarter I didn't understand that the the worst case scenario was for us to be thir up 38 nothing and one of these guys to get hurt Luke get hurt Luke was limping in that first quarter and I'm not gonna lie my heart skipped a beat or two imagine if something happened to Kaden or one of the offensive linemen go down we'd be in big trouble then I wish Brett would have taken some of these guys out but you know he talked about in the press conference someone asked him a question and he simply said that because of these gamebreaking plays like Illinois just didn't have that many snaps he wanted to get the offensive starters some time on the field as many snaps as he can to get comfortable because again they've got a big matchup next week you want them to be warmed up which is fine but it's fine because it worked out had someone gotten hurt we'd be in trouble but all in all coaching I mean there's no way anyone can give anything but an a grade to the offensive coach the defensive coordinator and the head coach this was just a very finely tuned performance by not just the players but the coaching staff as well the announced crowd at Memorial Stadium tonight was over 43,000 people and hopefully we can have just about that many if not more people for the game against Kansas next week and if you're looking for tickets of course you got to use the game time app game time has a new feature called Game Time pick that makes getting tickets for your favorite Live Events even easier game time pick filters out the fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets take the guesswork out of buying tickets with Game Time download the game time app create an account and use code locked on colge for $20 off your first purchase and that'll just about wrap it up for this quick postcast version of locked on on line thank you for putting up with this lack of light in the room and hopefully the audio is okay for this particular episode again I'm going to try to go live before and after each and every game I couldn't go live before because I was traveling I was coming back to Chicago for the holiday weekend but I'm glad I got settle in I got to watch the game nice 45 nothing Beatdown this is exactly the type of start to the season that I wanted to see right now there's nothing really I'm uneasy about when it comes to to the team uh there's questions I have you know Terence Brooks didn't really play till the fourth quarter I think like what was that all about I I thought he was solidified as one of the starters on the team I don't know if it was injury or what it was but I'll kind of go a little bit more digging into that but that's all I have for you today uh please on your way out hit that like button hit that subscribe button it's the easiest way for you guys to support the channel and it cost you guys nothing absolutely nothing hit that like button hit that subscribe button it's 45 minutes after midnight uh leave us a five star review if you're listening to this on the podcast send us to five of your favorite Ali friends and let them know that we exist again I'm going to be trying to provide you Ali content daily every single day and I'm the only one out there doing that and I'm going to continue to do that because you guys keep showing me support that's all I have for you tonight we'll catch up over the weekend uh I'll again I'll look over game tape a little bit more and have a little more flushed out thoughts this is more of a rapid reaction episode I hope you all enjoy get some sleep I love you guys