Wow, I got that too and have a similar skepticism as you. As I noted on a previous post, the tickets site generally shows no tickets available for the top 10-15 rows of the east balcony, horseshoe, and east main. I think that’s most attributable to all the tickets they are giving away to teachers and bands, but perhaps some of those end up getting posted for sale this week if they can’t give them away. I’ll keep an eye on it. But currently there are not a lot of tickets currently available for sale, so that indicates it will be quite a large crowd.
Illinois 45, Eastern Illinois 0 Postgame
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
We shall see. Only 8 tickets left in section 209? Maybe those tickets are gone but I don't believe they were sold and/or there will be a fair number of no-shows with those tickets. Why are so many people buying section 209 when there are other seats are available at just a small price increase in other sections?
I will say the turnout last night far exceeded my expectations.
And I don't care how Illinois does it, if they can get all of the tickets into the hands of others, fantastic. Do it. Announce a sell-out. Play loose with the term "sell-out". They won't be the only program to do it.
Regardless, based on last night, it appears Illinois is headed to much better ticket sales in a long time. That is the best part.
Anyone else think Miles Scott looked quite a bit bigger than last year? That was my first impression of the night. He's matured and starting to look the part. Hollis looked as explosive as any Illinois player.
I'm still skeptical of the DB's as a whole (although improved). Kansas will be a true test.
OrangeBlue98
- Des Moines, IA
I have to admit that if I can get that DeLorean running, I want to go back to Illinois 33 Iowa 0 in the 1983 season. My dad enjoyed it so much he went to a t-shirt store to get the following put on an 80s white t-shirt with blue sleeves so he could wear it around his Hawkeye fan friends.Well now I know what date I am setting when I get my flux capacitor.
Illinois 33 (in orange letters)
Iowa 0 (in yellow letters)
Still my all-time favorite homemade t-shirt ever.
The 90 pff grade for Miles was well deserved- he was all over the field making plays. The performance of our DTs was also a really nice surprise- they were stout and won their matchups. As I said in the pregame, I think we have a sneaky good secondary if we can get pressure. Having Miles being able to play a ball hawking free safety while Bailey can creep into the box to lay the boom and shut down the run and short passes is a major plus.
Also not surprised Brooks had such a high rating in his limited snaps- his positioning was far and above better than our other CBs and he ran the EIU receiver's routes better than they did. I believe he was targeted 3 times and in those 3 targets he didn't give up a foot of space and had what should have been a pick. He looked the part of a high level DB. He has to get in order whatever he has going on right now to earn back the trust of the coaching staff. It's pretty clear the reason he wasn't starting wasn't because of talent or ability.
TentakilRex
- Land O Insects between Quincy-Macomb-Jacksonville
The 45 points were nice, put the big thing is the 0 in the score. I know it is "only Eastern" but teams can score accident in blowouts.
TheFlyingIllini1317
- Chicago, IL
I was really impressed with Hollins burst, think he'll have some good yac's this season when he turns and makes the db miss.
Legendary.
Hard to really know what you can take from this win. But it was fun. A few points.
As someone noted above, it's great to get a win without all the excuse making about why it didn't look good or was closer than expected. Exceeded expectations.
Really happy to see a good game from Elzy. Hope there's plenty more to come. I think we all agree that we'd like to do better with top ins-state recruits and part of that comes from top guys doing well. Elzy's success would mean a lot for future recruiting classes.
Also, injuries are so important to success for middling programs like ours. Look at Bailey and think of the difference he might have made last year.
As someone noted above, it's great to get a win without all the excuse making about why it didn't look good or was closer than expected. Exceeded expectations.
Really happy to see a good game from Elzy. Hope there's plenty more to come. I think we all agree that we'd like to do better with top ins-state recruits and part of that comes from top guys doing well. Elzy's success would mean a lot for future recruiting classes.
Also, injuries are so important to success for middling programs like ours. Look at Bailey and think of the difference he might have made last year.
The truest test will be our WR. Why? Because Kansas has 2 all 1st conference CB
Building this program from the ground up may not be as flashy as Coach Prime's antics, but is still very exciting to see the results slowly start to take hold.
This Illinois fan wants the floor to be 6 wins and a bowl.
skyIdub
