To be fair, not sure this is anything that could be guaranteed.
Illini Football 2024
- Status
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I’m biased as a native Peorian … but couldn’t we have tossed out a subtle non-threat about wanting our Central Illinois travel partner to be an exclusive partner? Peoria Charter would have drawn up the contract addendum in 30 seconds and would never give Purdue a ride again, lol. And we could keep needed money in the Land of Lincoln’s economy.
To grow the fan base, we need to be seen as a team that represents EVERY Illinoisan for sports, not just alumni (like OSU for Ohio). And that dynamic has to go both ways.
To grow the fan base, we need to be seen as a team that represents EVERY Illinoisan for sports, not just alumni (like OSU for Ohio). And that dynamic has to go both ways.
Football can’t get here fast enough
It might seem like a small thing, but the Peoria Charter news is a big topic here locally, and TBH we need all the local support and goodwill we can get right now to show up to Memorial Stadium, write checks, and cheer on our lackluster football team.
The AD PR responses have been damage control, with the publicly released reasons behind the decision being things that could have been negotiated with Peoria Charter. But instead, we’re paying an Iowa company to drive a charter bus in from Cedar Rapids to take our football team to games at Northwestern, Indiana, and Purdue. All because Bert/someone on Bert’s staff got mad about a local company booking one of Purdue’s trips.
Just a rare, unforced error from the athletic department.
The AD PR responses have been damage control, with the publicly released reasons behind the decision being things that could have been negotiated with Peoria Charter. But instead, we’re paying an Iowa company to drive a charter bus in from Cedar Rapids to take our football team to games at Northwestern, Indiana, and Purdue. All because Bert/someone on Bert’s staff got mad about a local company booking one of Purdue’s trips.
Just a rare, unforced error from the athletic department.
GrayGhost77
- Centennial, CO
Yeah. No real positive way to spin it, sadly.
I like when Bret gets a Lil cheeky, but the salt levels could come down a little.
The original article only gives Peoria Charter's side of the story regarding the argument, taking it as gospel would be ridiculous. The article also hand waves away the breakdown as if the fan base wouldn't melt down if that happened to a revenue sport on or before gameday. Likely, the university wasn't satisfied with the service they were receiving and a breakdown in a foreseeable manner and lack of promises to keep it from happening again was the last straw. Finally, the Purdue comment could have been made by anyone in the football program, I have a hard time imagining that Bielema or Whitman would let anything like that bother them, let alone mouth off about it.
I remember in 2022 the athletic department and fans were begging people to pack the stadium, now most fans are wanting us to cancel arguably the hottest ticket of the season. Kansas was in the same place as us and overcame a relatively tough non-con.
Georgia would be a hot ticket too, but that's not a justification for giving up one of our 6 wins and replacing it with the hottest ticket of the year - virtually guaranteeing we miss a bowl game and the extra practices. Can someone help me understand why the majority position is not unanimous? That's a serious request and I don't mean to attack anyone. I just need to understand the opposing viewpoint better.
We need the extra practices to build our program. We need the extra media mentions and the prestige associated with being in bowl games to draw better recruits. In order to get both of those, we need to win six games this season and every season. If we knowingly give up one of those six wins, and miss a bowl game, just to be able to say "Look, we proved we can fill the stadium for a big named opponent," is that a good strategy?
Is it as simple as people believing that 3 or 4 programs (out of 130+) have been able to have their cake and eat it too so we're going to cross our fingers and believe we'll be able to schedule top 20 teams, beat enough of them AND make it to a bowl game? It has admittedly worked for some programs to have a tough schedule while working their way up from 4 wins to 8 wins, but I don't want to bet the future of our football program that we can be one of those exceptions. And don't reply that you don't want to watch Kent St, Akron and UConn. Don't build that strawman. We could schedule teams in the 60 to 90 range and have a very entertaining/competitive game.
Fighter does a good job of articulating his philosophy. I guess I need to hear it from a few more of you to convince me that the Gunther strategy of toughening up the schedule is going to produce great short term and long term results (after we have strong evidence that it hasn't worked for us).
If we are on the straddling 5-6 wins every year, then we are very much in jeopardy of losing to the teams in the 60-90 range.
'If we knowingly give up one of those six wins, and miss a bowl game, just to be able to say "Look, we proved we can fill the stadium (for ONE game) for a big named opponent," is that a good strategy?' I added an addendum for emphasis...
We have done this many times since I started following in 1955... And I can't find any evidence that scheduling this (one) high stakes, high prestige non-con game has benefited us in any way.... We are Illinois and we AREN'T allowed to have nice things... Most years we have needed the extra practices and the extra media coverage just to get someone (anyone) to know that we actually do play football here... BTW: Those extra practices are NOT for the (nearly non-existent) 4-stars. They have been for the 2-3 stars that we usually had on our roster, so that they could improve at least a little over the winter... With the exception of a few years in the 1980's and early 90's we've been SO far down the totem pole that we've often needed an extra advantage just to be an afterthought. Catching lightning in a bottle once a decade is NOT good enough. Not being allowed to have nice things in football is NOT good enough.
Having said all that, a bowl game in Detroit does NOT in any way excite me and/or many others in the fan base at large... Also, I'm of the opinion that the minor bowls, which have been flagging in attendance (and relevance) for years, are going by the wayside in this new CFP era. If they continue to exist they'll probably be relegated to weekdays, which will help kill them off. Consequently, I believe this entire scenario will change dramatically in this new CFP era...
NOTE: Please forgive the rantings of an old man ....
Comparing Mizzou to Georgia is criminal. Over the last 5 years Mizzou is 34-27, while Georgia was 62-6. Mizzou would be a better draw than Georgia too for many reasons. They are a regional rival that we have history with. The fanbase's overlap. We share recruiting grounds.
I'm not for toughening up the schedule, we should absolute schedule W's outside of this game. I just think mizzou is an exiting and fun, meaningful game for fans outside of central and northern Illinois. If Illinois is going a more appealing atmosphere, then engaging with fans in greater STL metro area is key. The bottom line is good teams find a way to win 6 games regardless of schedules, and bad teams find ways to lose with a soft schedule. We had a pretty soft schedule last year and proceeded to win 5 games, because we weren't good.
Neidermeyer
- Faber College
Duck Dive: Illinois Football 2024 Preview
Going deep with the Illini’s scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns
www.addictedtoquack.com
Although an honest assessment like this is tough to hear, I'm glad it's out on the table. We have to keep in mind that about 5 years ago, Lovie had a couple bad years in OL recruitment. I remember thinking at the time that stacking a couple years in a row of low ranked recruits will come back to haunt us, and now we're paying the price in the middle of that nightmare. Bret has had time to correct this and he hasn't.Duck Dive: Illinois Football 2024 Preview
Going deep with the Illini’s scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns
I appreciate the link. I get that these reviews of teams by authors that don’t follow said team will be flawed. This was really in depth, and sometimes harsh in reality, but man they missed some key things. I only read the offense so far. Major errors in that McCray is a lock to start over Feagin, Rusk had zero catches at previous school, and Kreutz was lowest graded center in big ten. A mistake on a team you don’t follow is fine, but these are major elements to our success tor failure his year, so it lessens the hard work put into such an in-depth report.Duck Dive: Illinois Football 2024 Preview
Going deep with the Illini’s scheme, returning personnel, and unknowns
illinifan4249
- Space Coast, FL
If we are scheduling tough teams I would prefer to do something like Minnesota is where they are scheduling Alabama for a home and home. I feel like we have the propensity to lose to many teams so I would either prefer to schedule 3 cupcakes or 2 cupcakes and a top 10 team in the country. Having Alabama, or a similar team, play at Illinois would put a lot of eyes on the program. For the program's sake, going back to 8 conference games would give us a chance at an extra win or give more latitude in the other scheduled game.
- Status