Championship Subdivision Football | FCS Football | Stadiums | Blogs | Forums

ISU football notes: Saluki QB escapes 'zero blitz'

By Randy Reinhardt | rreinhardt@pantagraph.com pantagraph.com | Posted: Sunday, October 3, 2010 7:00 pm



NORMAL — Illinois State had been saving its “zero blitz” for the ideal time.

Early in the fourth quarter with Southern Illinois facing a third-and-7 from the Redbird 40-yard line seemed to be it Saturday at Hancock Stadium.

“We had three guys come unblocked and couldn’t sack him,” ISU coach Brock Spack said of Saluki quarterback Chris Dieker. “I don’t know what to tell you. It was a perfect call by (defensive coordinator) Phil (Elmassian).”

Somehow Dieker eluded the Redbird rush and scrambled to his left. He didn’t stop until a 33-yard gain reached the ISU 7.

“That broke our back,” said Spack. “I thought that was the game right there. They would have had to punt the ball, and it would have been a really interesting game.”


Tackling trouble: Southern averaged 5.3 yards on 64 rushes and ran 79 plays from scrimmage to just 50 for ISU. The Salukis held a startling margin of 39:57 to 20:03 in time of possession.

“We had guys unblocked several times. We had the running game bottled up at the point of attack and couldn’t get them on the ground,” Spack lamented. “I haven’t been around a defensive staff that works as hard as we do as far as tackling.

“It’s inexcusable. Either players do it or we’ll find new players. We missed entirely too many tackles to win a game like this.”

Dust in the wind: With the Redbirds facing a 17-7 halftime deficit after a late second quarter Matt Brown interception and Southern set to receive the second half kickoff, Spack chose to take the 23 mph wind in the third quarter and not the fourth.

“It was a really bad decision by our quarterback to throw the ball,” said Spack. “I was trying to get the momentum back and hopefully hang on the second half. I wanted to give our offense a chance.”

Link to full artical:

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/colleg ... 002e0.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Coaching staff bears absolutely no blame whatsoever for that giant turd laid on the Hancock carpet..............

Yeah, sure thing there Coach.

Talk like that will sure motivate the kids to want to play for you.

He's right. They're adults. They can take it....you can teach until the cows come home....execution on the field is where it's at.

AZGrizFan wrote:He's right. They're adults. They can take it....you can teach until the cows come home....execution on the field is where it's at.

The problem on D is the scheme, not the guys running it.

Even the radio guys are calling for a new idea on D

The cover-2/Tampa-2/2-deep zone is old news and offenses have learned how to attack it

Even when run "right" it doesn't work any more

When was this interview done? With how he talked I'd assume right after the game, hence the vitriol. Or he's just poor with words and doesn't know how to say what he wants to say without being a dick about it. When players get interviewed, they'll take the blame or share the credit, they normally won't say "Yeah the Coach was awful" or "Yeah I was so awesome that's why we won." You'd figure the coach would say the same to media. He can save the anger for the locker room and not the public.

siuham wrote:When was this interview done? With how he talked I'd assume right after the game, hence the vitriol. Or he's just poor with words and doesn't know how to say what he wants to say without being a dick about it. When players get interviewed, they'll take the blame or share the credit, they normally won't say "Yeah the Coach was awful" or "Yeah I was so awesome that's why we won." You'd figure the coach would say the same to media. He can save the anger for the locker room and not the public.

Sunday Morning

This is just how he is, un fortunately

Not good to throw your players under the bus, but I would defend him for taking the wind in the third quarter, down 17-7 at the half...23-mph is a pretty significant advantage wind, and at that point, you want to get caught up as quickly as you can ...worry about the 4th quarter when the time comes...if you take the wind in the 4th quarter, you may not be in the game at that point take advantage of it.

OSBF wrote:Link to full artical:

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/colleg ... 002e0.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Coaching staff bears absolutely no blame whatsoever for that giant turd laid on the Hancock carpet..............

Yeah, sure thing there Coach.

Talk like that will sure motivate the kids to want to play for you.

You continually make Redbird fans look awful on this board. Yes, the 2 deep defense we run is not working, however how many times Saturday were players in position to make plays and just didn't. Is it Spack's fault that Brown threw that awful pass seconds before halftime and killed momentum? Is it Spack's fault that a great play was called and 3 players couldn't bring down Dieker? No, at some point it is on the players. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Spack saying it like it is. If a player can't handle a little criticism in the paper then I don't want him. on the team I root for. Thats part of being a D-1 football player.

Now quit giving Redbird fans a bad name. Or you can just pull out your Knee High tights and continue blowing Cap'n'Cat.

ISUBirds89 wrote:

OSBF wrote:Link to full artical:

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/colleg ... 002e0.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Coaching staff bears absolutely no blame whatsoever for that giant turd laid on the Hancock carpet..............

Yeah, sure thing there Coach.

Talk like that will sure motivate the kids to want to play for you.

You continually make Redbird fans look awful on this board. Yes, the 2 deep defense we run is not working, however how many times Saturday were players in position to make plays and just didn't. Is it Spack's fault that Brown threw that awful pass seconds before halftime and killed momentum? Is it Spack's fault that a great play was called and 3 players couldn't bring down Dieker? No, at some point it is on the players. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Spack saying it like it is. If a player can't handle a little criticism in the paper then I don't want him. on the team I root for. Thats part of being a D-1 football player.

Now quit giving Redbird fans a bad name. Or you can just pull out your Knee High tights and continue blowing Cap'n'Cat.

What a random 6th post.

Everyone blows tha Cap'n. If you haven't it's because he didn't let you. Probably the source of your bitterness.

That's no insult to the Cap'n. OSBF continually makes bad posts on the Redbird message board and goes out of his way to insult people. It's ridiculous that a grown(questionable) man(also questionable) continues to make an ass out of himself and an entire fan base.

He's getting a little windy...any UNI or valley fan should catch that reference...

ISUBirds89 wrote:That's no insult to the Cap'n. OSBF continually makes bad posts on the Redbird message board and goes out of his way to insult people. It's ridiculous that a grown(questionable) man(also questionable) continues to make an ass out of himself and an entire fan base.

He's getting a little windy...any UNI or valley fan should catch that reference...

First, good to see another Crimson Crow fan here. Second, lay off The Cap'n. He's here just to have fun.

Third, OSBF is nothing more or less than a passionate fan. Thinking you could have stated your objections to his posts in a more friendly manner. Last thing we need in the Valley family is more wild Bisonville crap.

I think no less of the Staters because of OSBF's posts. He is an individual.

Suggestion: Why don't YOU round up some more of your Crimson Crow friends and get them here, contributing, and creating a positive impression of State? Your reaction casts a more negative pall over your fanbase than do Greg's posts and furthers the impression here, held be some, that Staters are elitist and insular and scared to step out on our national stage. That notion was created by your buffoonish previous site owner.

Go State!

45otseoj wrote:

Cap'n Cat wrote:That notion was created by your buffoonish previous site owner.

What's the story here?

Uptight khundt. Xenophobic, no sense of humor.

I hate to chime in on this but most Redbird fans go to football as something to get them to basketball season...Its hard for me to come to terms with this, but most Redbird fans dont care about football...everyone is entitled to their opinions...As a person, Coach Spack sent me a signed game worn helmet to console me on losing my house and not to lose my spirit, it was awesome, then I saw him 2 weeks later at a basketball game and after saying my name, he knew exactly who I was...He also called me on his cell phone on a recruiting call in Florida (I hope thats not an NCAA violation LOL)

The frustration is that he was the DC at Purdue for 10 years and our D is piss poor...The bar was also set very high after last years 7-4 record so its going to be tough to stay up there...after giving up 54 to Central Missouri, 41 to Mizzou St, 37 to Northwestern, and now 38 to Southern Illinois, the football people are frustrated...

Lets just remember, its a message board, we are entitled to our opinions, if you have a problem with OSBF or ISUMatt or redbirds89, we all know each other, we all tailgate together (kinda) settle it there and play nice on the boards

Now who wants to eat my Sicilian Sausage?!?! LOL

45otseoj wrote:I think we're gonna miss Stewart on the interior D-Line more than we thought. I wouldn't say the scheme didn't work on Saturday. We had guys in positions to make tackles; they just couldn't. SIU just had better players than us.

Kudos to Lennon and Co. for controlling the clock the way they did.

SIU has been decimated by injuries, ISU caught us when our o line is getting healthy. We've been without our best run blocker and our AA left tackle has been slowed by an ankle. We had to control the clock because we've lost 3 out of our first four secondary members for the season, including AA FS Mike McElroy. I was a little surprised by our run game considering that ISU has about a dozen Big-10 xfers. With respect to the zero blitz, yes they should have sacked Dieker, but Dieker has a history of being hard to sack. He beat MSU last year on the same kind of play with no time on the clock, hell, he's 230 lbs., he can break an arm tackle.

ISUBirds89 wins this thread. He had some stiff competition at the end there with ISUMatt putting in a solid performance but I had to go with 89 anyway because he had some real flair to add a couple of extra style points.

Coach Spack=

ISUBirds89 wrote: however how many times Saturday were players in position to make plays and just didn't. Is it Spack's fault that Brown threw that awful pass seconds before halftime and killed momentum? Is it Spack's fault that a great play was called and 3 players couldn't bring down Dieker? No, at some point it is on the players. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Spack saying it like it is. If a player can't handle a little criticism in the paper then I don't want him. on the team I root for. Thats part of being a D-1 football player.

This is the exact same kind of crap we blamed Coach Johnson for (Im saying we although I was one of the few on his side saying it was the players fault), among other things, we lumped poor tackling on him, bad penalties on him, and passed it off as not prepared enough and bad coaching...

Matt, are you coming to the Dome in a few weeks? I was telling Greg how awesome the sausages you guys had for our game last year were. Please bring some if you come. Looking forward to that game. We need some revenge.

pantherrob82 wrote:Matt, are you coming to the Dome in a few weeks? I was telling Greg how awesome the sausages you guys had for our game last year were. Please bring some if you come. Looking forward to that game. We need some revenge.

Everyone loves my Sicilian Sausage Problem I have in coming to the Dome this year is that my wife has to work Saturday 9-5 and Sunday 1-5 so I really dont think I will be able to make it this yr...2 years ago (maybe 3 or 4 yrs ago, dont remember) I was supposed to go in November with Ralph, but he called me the morning we were going to leave and said he couldnt go, so its been disappointment twice

isumatt wrote:

pantherrob82 wrote:Matt, are you coming to the Dome in a few weeks? I was telling Greg how awesome the sausages you guys had for our game last year were. Please bring some if you come. Looking forward to that game. We need some revenge.

Everyone loves my Sicilian Sausage Problem I have in coming to the Dome this year is that my wife has to work Saturday 9-5 and Sunday 1-5 so I really dont think I will be able to make it this yr...2 years ago (maybe 3 or 4 yrs ago, dont remember) I was supposed to go in November with Ralph, but he called me the morning we were going to leave and said he couldnt go, so its been disappointment twice

Ralph and disappointment in the same sentence? :ROFL: