Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
I think having a bye week going into Michigan State will be beneficial. Also being senior day, I highly doubt the team comes out flat. The Rutgers game in between MSU and Northwestern is the game where I can see a slip up.
Illini Football 2024
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
At 6-1 with this remaining schedule, we are at a point where 8-4 would be really disappointing. 9 wins or bust has gotta be the belief. 10 or even, dare I say it, 11 would be pretty darn magical.
Illinicpa14
- Chicago
10 wins would be citrus or playoff - in the last 20 years only the rose bowl year would be a better outcome. And that team if we’re being honest only got into the rose bowl because things fell in line in front of them.
Yeah, 2007 was maybe the most topsy-turvy season ever.
I think '07 Illini would probably beat '24 Illini, and I think '07 USC would roll everyone in 2024.
Sounds like a great idea. Red River Shootout, World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, and Army-Navy are annual neutral site games that work extremely well. Not saying we could match the atmosphere of these rivalries, but I welcome new ideas to make this rivalry more interesting. If the Bears could ever get their act together and build the new stadium, neutral games there would make far more money than home-and-homes, even with NW's new tourist trap
Especially if those 2 losses are to the #1 and #2 ranked teams, but my concern is, in that situation, the BIG 10 could have 5 teams with only 2 losses (Indiana, Illinois, Penn St., OSU, and Oregon) and I don’t see 5 BIG 10 teams getting in.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
Zook would get outcoached by Coach B.
Illinicpa14
- Chicago
Right - big ten isn’t getting 5 to have the SEC get 3.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
Indiana needs to get to 11 wins to get in. Their schedule is so soft. If it were between a 10-2 Illini vs 10-2 Indiana, Illinois would get selected. Depending on how the season shakes out, I can't see more than 4 B1G teams in playoff (more likely 3 will be the number).
Illini4Chief
- TENNESSEE
Indiana.....2 wins /Florida International and western Ilinois. Also a win against powerhourse Charlotte. So far no W's against any ranked Team. Rest of schedule...Washington, Michigan State ,Michigan,Ohio State and then Purdue. The absolute Cream Puff Schedule of all time.
Indiana’s qb is out
troll somebody; good work.And yet they will probably make it to the CFP.
Ever since I saw you post this idea on here about a year ago, I've personally shared it with like 30+ people. Count me in on your crusade to make this happen. It just makes so much sense (from Illinois' side) and could make the rivalry so much cooler years down the road.
Also removing the home game on Thanksgiving weekend every other year would allow Memorial Stadium to host the IHSA State Championships - something that is very important to Bret Bielema and his coaching staff.
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Interested in y’all’s opinion on where Altmyer/Bryant/Franklin rank in QB/WR1/WR2 in the nation. I admittedly don’t watch a ton outside of the B1G and I know we aren’t peers with Oregon, for example, but I’d have to think that group has to be top 10 in the nation, no?
Top 10 overall? Maybe... but there are some really prolific offenses using their QB to do things we try not to ask Luke to do.
As I listened to all the podcasts and shows following the win yesterday, I heard several comments about if we could potentially sell out the Minnesota and Michigan State games. So I know there is probably some interest in getting an early look at the Minnesota game ticket sales. (I'll start posting these updates to the Minnesota pregame thread once that gets created.)
First edition of the Memorial Stadium Sellout Watch for Minnesota:
Currently showing an estimated 53,483 tickets sold - that's more than I would have expected at this point. There are a couple assumption changes here that make that estimate less conservative that what I usually report:
1. The estimate I have for unsold tickets in sections 123 and 131, which often have large portions of the sections showing unavailable only to become available later on, has been reduced compared to what I was assuming earlier in the season. Those sections have not been having those large amounts of tickets become available, so I think it's fair to assume that trend will continue.
2. Similar to #1 above, sections 202 and 203 are showing about 800 less unsold tickets than what Purdue would have been showing at this time. That's because the top 15 rows or so of both sections showed as unavailable ahead of the Purdue game and never became available - even when the rest of the sections were sold out. It's probably a little aggressive then to assume the sections are nearly entirely sold out at this point, but again the lack of public information on these sections creates a challenge.
Regardless, I think this game has strong potential to break 55,000 and could threaten to be a second consecutive sellout.
I'd also like to take a moment to check in on my performance of guessing game attendance this season. Excluding the two sellouts this season, below are my results for the other three home games thus far. I have attendance guesses have a simple average difference from actual announced attendance of 44, and an average absolute value difference of 781.
First edition of the Memorial Stadium Sellout Watch for Minnesota:
Currently showing an estimated 53,483 tickets sold - that's more than I would have expected at this point. There are a couple assumption changes here that make that estimate less conservative that what I usually report:
1. The estimate I have for unsold tickets in sections 123 and 131, which often have large portions of the sections showing unavailable only to become available later on, has been reduced compared to what I was assuming earlier in the season. Those sections have not been having those large amounts of tickets become available, so I think it's fair to assume that trend will continue.
2. Similar to #1 above, sections 202 and 203 are showing about 800 less unsold tickets than what Purdue would have been showing at this time. That's because the top 15 rows or so of both sections showed as unavailable ahead of the Purdue game and never became available - even when the rest of the sections were sold out. It's probably a little aggressive then to assume the sections are nearly entirely sold out at this point, but again the lack of public information on these sections creates a challenge.
Regardless, I think this game has strong potential to break 55,000 and could threaten to be a second consecutive sellout.
I'd also like to take a moment to check in on my performance of guessing game attendance this season. Excluding the two sellouts this season, below are my results for the other three home games thus far. I have attendance guesses have a simple average difference from actual announced attendance of 44, and an average absolute value difference of 781.
Understood, but I’m talking combo QB/WR1/WR2.
I got it at odds of +110 with a pay out of 1 = 2.10
MoCoMdIllini
- Montgomery County, Maryland
mhuml32
- Cincinnati, OH
My post from August 9th. Amazing to achieve each of these by middle October. This has been the best three-year stretch of Illinois football since 1999-2001.
I have the running coaching record as my signature but I wanted to provide another contextual point on how much Bielema + Whitman have resuscitated this program. Sport Reference creates a Simple Rating System (SRS) to compare teams within and across seasons based on the team's point differential and strength of schedule. Therefore you can have a team like the 1994 Illinois that ranks ahead of other Illinois teams that won more games, like the 2001 Illinois team. I shared a bunch of the top Illinois seasons earlier but most of them were from before 1960's. The higher the SRS score, the better. Therefore, let's look at the best Illinois seasons after the slush-fund scandal (post-1966). This means I'll be comparing Bielema's seasons across a 58-year period.
2021: 2.20 (30th best season)
2022: 10.01 (7th best season)
2023: -0.42 (37th best season)
2024: 9.62 (8th best season)
To show how that first season for Bielema is impressive, here are the first-season rankings for each coach after Bob Blackman:
Out of 58 seasons
1977: -3.13 (16th worst season) Gary Moeller
1980: 0.60 (24th worst season) Mike White
1988: 3.83 (22nd best season) John Mackovic
1992: 1.88 (27th worst season) Lou Tepper
1997: -12.97 (#1 worst season) Ron Turner
2005: -7.54 (8th worst season) Ron Zook
2012: -10.35 (3rd worst season) Tim Beckman
2016: -7.75 (7th worst season) Lovie Smith
2021: 2.20 (30th best season) Brett Bielema
I know it's a little funky to switch from best- to worst connotations but the recent first-year coaches have been so horrible that it became necessary.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I will guess that at least 2017 and 2004 and maybe 2018 are in that bottom 8?
That all of our worst post-slush fund seasons happened after Ron Guenther had fully established his direction of the program tells you everything you need to know.