Help me out here as I am going back and forth. Is she denigrating Illinois fans here, or Kansas fans? Not sure when the pic was taken.
Illinois 23, Kansas 17 Postgame
KU fans
Thanks @RIP_Chief_2003 .
The tweet just came across as strange to me after reading many posts here last week about how KU always fills their stadium because it's smaller than ours. I think those posts were during the conversations about how many KU fans would be at our game.
OrangeBlue98
- Des Moines, IA
I’m also thinking she took a dig at KU fans for their attendance.
But the point stands that it’s a bad idea to get into these TwitterX spats. Nothing good comes from it - or from being on Twitter in general.
Illini92and96
- Austin, TX
Yeah, but he also had carries at the end when they knew we were running to use clock. Can't blame him for that.
Illinivek23
- Gurnee
Valentine stepping in was massive. That cutback to pick up the first down was great
obviously super small sample size but exciting to see both vision and patience on display
I was at that game, what a day, what a game. I came over and spent the night with my cousin who went to school at U of I. I woke up to his roommate who was a Michigan fan playing the MU fight song as loud as he could.
BZuppke
- Plainfield
As to your number 3, Lou Henson said something similar - it’s in other teams best interests that we stay down so they can raid our state for talent. In the traditional Midwest Big Ten - the state of Illinois produced the most football players second only to Ohio.Okay, I have had the full weekend to organize my thoughts! Some notes I feel like typing, lol...
1. Wow. The postgame jazz has worn off, and I still feel like this is just SUCH a huge win for the trajectory of this program. To beat a ranked team in front of our first full house in almost a decade, with that many recruits in attendance and an impressionable new generation of fans there due to all of the promotions ... wow. Huge.
2. Lol at Kansas. I still have nothing against KU (I actually toured it as a high schooler and loved the campus/Lawrence, and I have NEVER shared this Bill Self-related hatred for the Jayhawks ... they're easily my favorite of the Blue Bloods), but their fans' psychotic behavior online makes it too difficult not to enjoy those tears a bit, lol. As others have said, they acted like it was practically their birthright to waltz into our house and win by 2-3 TDs. They've been a significantly worse program than Illinois historically, and they've not even really been better at all during this flash-in-the-pan renaissance that has given birth to this crazy, unfounded arrogance! I hope they enjoyed their ride home!!
3. On that note, I cannot help but notice that Illinois seems to evoke a weird and seemingly out-of-nowhere contempt from fan bases with whom we don't have regular interaction. Think of how Iowa State fans were talking about us with such undeserved hatred and even more undeserved contempt ... as if it were desperately important for them to convince themselves that Illinois was just this "nothing" so that there would be more room for their team among the crowd of "somebodies." I got the same vibe from KU fans before this game. What is up with this? I can KIND OF understand it in basketball, but you would think we would be totally inoffensive in football ... certainly not offensive enough to start gunning for our very fan support, campus, stadium, etc. My pet theory is that it (subconsciously) bothers fans of other programs that we are the state flagship school for by far the biggest state in the Midwest and because we have not properly taken advantage of that footprint historically to become a powerhouse (ala Georgia or Texas or Florida with their built-in population advantages), they see this "window" where they have to frantically degrade the Illini so as to never let that dynamic change, lol. Go read a college football comment section on Reddit of basic-a$$ bros talking about Illinois if we ever come up. It is NOT some indifference like they might give toward Wake Forest or Cal ... it's actual contempt and what seems like desperation to convince others of how pathetic and irrelevant we are. Can anyone honestly say KU fans would have been so antagonistically arrogant and mocking the mere fact that we had a sellout crowd "for them" if they were preparing to go on the road to face Georgia Tech, Syracuse or NC State? I highly doubt it. Well, joke's on all of them. It's high time Illinois lives up to its high ceiling in EVERYTHING, and last night was a monumental win as far as changing the perception for the next generation of fans. Keep building!!
4. I still hate the ILLINOIS font and especially how it reminds me of the philosophy of the Ron Guenther Era, but I have to admit ... there was an aspect of seeing those again that made me like them a lot more. I still really don't like the font, but I think I am realizing that the Block I looks too tall on our helmets, and I actually really like the more horizontal proportions of spelling out Illinois. As I said, I don't love the font, so ... I am officially all aboard the bandwagon to at least TRY the Script font on our helmets. I honestly think it would look amazing. Teams like Florida, UCLA and Ole Miss do it very effectively and have iconic helmets. Give it a shot here and see just how great it looks.
5. As far as all orange uniforms go, I am feeling very conflicted. On one hand, I still think it would have looked better with our white pants, and that is what I would always favor going forward (caveating that statement with the assertion that we would ONLY ever wear white pants with an orange jersey ... put those things away for road games!!!!). However, my thoughts are clouded by the fact that these all orange uniforms look ten billion times better than any orange uniforms we have ever worn in the past; as others have said, this is due to the matching B/W/B stripes on the helmet, jerseys and pants. It looks cohesive and stylish. As others have also said, playing at night really helped them pop, too. I would be more than okay with busting these out once per year on an orange out or night game, I just hope we don't randomly wear a different uniform combo every week like the Beckman and Lovie Eras ... we need to continue to establish an identity and a "look." But again ... they actually looked pretty great, haha.
If you skip everything else, at least read this:
6A. PROPS TO OUR FANS!! Great job, guys. Having grown up much of my life in Iowa City and getting to experience what an awesome gameday experience was (and being bitterly jealous of it for decades now), I have been as hard on our fans as anyone over the years. However, Saturday we were just simply the real deal. It sounded as loud as any other stadium of a powerhouse team during the game, and not just in reacting to big plays; the fans were ACTIVE and helped to rattle KU on multiple occasions. The students especially were amazing. Doesn't it give you shivers thinking that this could be the EXPECTATION of away teams as they travel to Memorial Stadium - a hornet's nest that they better damn well be prepared for?? It has not sounded that loud since the 2007 Michigan game, and I don't even think any game since then has come marginally close. On that note...
6B. Can someone knowledgeable about this subject explain why Memorial Stadium seems to have the capability to get why louder than 60,670 fans have any right to be?? It's famous at this point how the Big House is notoriously quiet for having 111,000 engaged fans due to the gradual slope of the bowl design. Similarly, it's famous how Autzen Stadium is super loud despite a smaller capacity than Memorial Stadium due to the acoustics. Those make sense, but I don't understand how Memorial Stadium can get THAT loud! Our south end zone (the Horseshoe) is more or less completely open, and there are very significant open gaps on either side of the north end zone stands (the student section), as well. It doesn't seem intuitive that we could effectively trap noise so well. I have heard people say that Memorial Stadium was considered one of the loudest in the Big Ten during the 1980s according to opposing coaches, and it would have had the same sound dynamics then ... is it because most of our fans are between the end zones on the west/east sides, and the noise bounces off of each side?? Really treading into a subject of which I know nothing here, lol.
I think the confusion might have been that first downs don't stop the clock any more. It only stops during the last two minutes of each half.
We didn’t have assigned seats. It was first come, first served. You could sit anywbere you preferred in The block. The best positions were in the middle, where all the action was.
I still have rwo of my tickets, which are specifically for East Blick I, and specified entry through the northeast gate. In four years as a student I never saw the concourse.
Yes, we got good seats. Because we were part of the halftime show. As far as today’s students, I’ve been BBC an advocate of moving students out of the NEZ. That said, Block I will not be good and worthy of keeping until it’s a “membership” group. Random people who have no idea what they’re supposed to do won’t work. It’s an embarrassment as it is. Unless the athletic department figures out how to make it a membership organization with a preseason practice, it’s going to look like crap.
We were at the game Saturday evening and on the drive home we all had a sense of how somewhat similar this particular game atmosphere was to what those of us who are old enough to remember how it was back when selling out the stadium was the rule, rather than the exception. There seemed to be an electricity that amped up an hour before the game started. None of us know what the future of this program will be but how things felt Saturday evening had a long lost feel to it that certainly put a smile on a lot of faces. Cheers to building on this victory and getting back to that feeling and atmosphere of those cherished days gone by!!
I think it is a membership organization run by Illini Pride who also runs Krush. When I was involved with Illini Pride in the '80's Block I was separate. Maybe it has lost its institutional memory.
Also, it looks like they are using the purchase of Block I tickets as an priority for basketball tickets, so it could also be that the interest level is not primarily in football.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Love to hear this! I was not around for those glory days, but I am incredibly optimistic about our future. I have grown up bitterly wishing that Illini football and Memorial Stadium could have the type of epic gameday atmosphere and feared crowd that you see so many other places. To go through your life as a college sports fan and spend college football falls pretty much waiting for college basketball to start is really sad. We deserve to partake in the incredible tradition and phenomena that is the college football frenzy!
Saturday seems like the first time Memorial Stadium actually felt like that since 2007.
I want to live the rest of my days in a world where Illinois Football is relevant every year.
Block I back in the day was not just the student section that it is now. It was a separate card section. There were student tickets and there were Block I tickets.
You actually had to go to a practice to learn how to “up” and “down” and where to hold you cards, and just generally make a clean, sharp show. Today it’s simply whoever winds up sitting in the center two sections of the NEZ.
It’s just sloppy, top to bottom. I know the the response to that is “ok boomer,” but it’s the we-don’t-care attitude that just says “kill it, put it out of its misery.”
Illini CB Terrance Brooks Forgotten Man In Rotation
Last year Terrance Brooks was playing cornerback in the College Football Playoff for the Texas Longhorns. Nowadays, Brooks is just trying to gain some playing
www.si.com
Based on the coaching quotable, this reads as Brooks hasn't been showing out at practice until this past week. It would make sense from the prior consistency comments from Bret. Yeah, you dog it at practice with a coach brought up in the old school method, you're going to be riding pine. Sounds like Terrance received the message loud and clear. Looking forward to him getting and making the most of his snaps against CMU and only going forward from there as we're going to need him the rest of the seasonIllini CB Terrance Brooks Forgotten Man In Rotation
Last year Terrance Brooks was playing cornerback in the College Football Playoff for the Texas Longhorns. Nowadays, Brooks is just trying to gain some playing