All that much sweeter when we beat them.
Pregame: Illinois vs Kansas, Saturday, September 7th, 6:00pm CT, FS1
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There are no guarantees, that's why they play the games.
Thanks! @IlliniInBuckeyeState do you concur? If only we could trust the DIA. In the past that’s meant “1,000 tickets left until we release the next batch of cheaper tickets”.@IlliniInBuckeyeState is your man, but someone else reported hearing on the radio that we are within 1,000 of a sellout … so 59,670 tickets sold if that’s true.
Edit: A sellout would be a HUGE milestone for the BB era; I’m cautiously optimistic.
My prediction for the Kansas game, the fighting Illini 32 and Kansas 17.
illinifan4249
- Space Coast, FL
I would hope that if we are truly within 1000 seats of a sellout we could potentially find a donor that would buy the rest of the tickets by the end of the week so we can announce a sell out. Win this game and I think there is a much better chance of the Michigan game potentially selling out. I believe we sold out the Michigan game in 2011 after the big home win against Arizona St.
I’m gonna take a guess at KU -5.5.
If we get a sellout, that’s great. But what’s more important is the crowd, even if only 90% of the way to a sellout, understands what to do and when to do it.
- get loud after second down. Communication in helmet isn’t going to work well if they can’t hear anything.
- quiet down on offense.
- get into the first down stuff, the I-L-L’s, and whatnot. That gets the team amped.
Like, 60,000 people there is great but 60,000 people making the stadium look full and just groaning loudly when you make a mistake is awful. J Leman used to talk about how it made him nervous playing in memorial stadium because if he whiffed on a stop he could hear the whole stadium’s disappointment. Crowd engagement has to get coached up a bit around here.
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one yelling on third down in my section idk. It ain’t hard.
- get loud after second down. Communication in helmet isn’t going to work well if they can’t hear anything.
- quiet down on offense.
- get into the first down stuff, the I-L-L’s, and whatnot. That gets the team amped.
Like, 60,000 people there is great but 60,000 people making the stadium look full and just groaning loudly when you make a mistake is awful. J Leman used to talk about how it made him nervous playing in memorial stadium because if he whiffed on a stop he could hear the whole stadium’s disappointment. Crowd engagement has to get coached up a bit around here.
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one yelling on third down in my section idk. It ain’t hard.
So annoying how our crowd is usually more loud during offensive 3rd downs than defensive.
If we are able to hold Kansas to 17pts we'll make the Playoffs this year. I'm thinking we need to score at least 34 in this one to take it home. Going to be a tough game but it's doable.
Yup, some people here have some short memories - I wish I could I forget last year's game too! The KU offense is going to test our defensive schemes looking to exploit mismatches, lean on their rushing attack and then create situations where our secondary make wrong decisions and give up big impact plays. Jalon Daniels and the Jayhawks are fun to watch (when they're not playing the Illini).
If we lose, it'll be ok and we shouldn't panic because we lost to a really good ranked team that has more roster talent, experience, and better coaching than us. We'll still have a good shot and pathway to be 6-6 and bowl eligible if we lose to KU. No reason to panic.
If we pull the upset over this really good ranked team, we're better than most people outside of this board think and we'll have a realistic ceiling of something like 9-3. Every reason to celebrate.
For those complaining about the uniformed crowds (I’m agreeing, btw), remember when Mizzou released a video a couple years ago about when to cheer and when not to? And stuff like that?
They got made fun of so badly, and I was over thinking “Illinois needs to do that…”.
They got made fun of so badly, and I was over thinking “Illinois needs to do that…”.
MustangWally
- Mayfield
We have to wear a uniform to the game? Where do we get it? I'd complain, too.
He may be on to something. Look at the ratings for the Army Navy game.
The Fighting Carrots?
They promised to not sell tickets later with a lower price and I haven’t seen any offered. I wonder how many were sold to speculators.
Haha whoops. I meant uninformed. Yeah, uniformed might be a hard pill to swallow.
Will be interesting to see the adjustments Henry makes this year for this game. Hopefully we see less 5 man fronts. Also moving Jacas inside is huge. It gets us a force up the middle and allows Coleman, Bryant and Barna to rotate
DeonThomas
- South Carolina
Both you and Loren Tate were spot on. According to ACTION Network, I'm seeing:
ILLINI +6.0 O/U = 55.
The Lawrence, KS broadcaster for KU basketball and football was highly (overly?) confident on Saturday Sports Talk yesterday with Loren and Steve. He made it sound like Kansas was quickly transitioning into the new Texas/Oklahoma of the Big 12, and Lance L. is settling-in to become the new Bear Bryant of the football program. In essence, he suggested that we might want to just stay home and do yard work rather than waste 7 hours at the game. After listening to the entire interview, his key to the game will be the Jayhawks returning experience (queu Robert Rosenthal)........
Where was this guy last year when I naively decided to fly 1000 miles to Lawrence, Kansas and sit through that debacle? Both TSJ and I could have benefited from the advanced notice.
I agree! Special Teams could also play an important role. Has potential to be the type of game where a late field goal really matters; and there is likely no room for silly punt or punt return mistakes.
I’m out of town until tomorrow night so I haven’t been able to update the tracker in the few days, but looking at the tickets site, there appears to be less than 1,000 tickets available for sale. As you note, that would typically be the point in which they release a new batch of tickets to appear available for sale on the site. The key difference this week is that they will be giving away thousands of tickets, so it’s hard to know how many of what they’ve set aside has actually been given away at this point. Is there a chance that, say Wednesday is a cutoff date, and anything they haven’t given away by then will be listed on the site as available for sale? If so, that would be unfortunate to not have those out there earlier.
My hunch is that they will be very motivated in given those tickets away and nothing substantial makes its way back to appearing on the tickets site. They see this is a great opportunity to reach a sellout - or at least come very close to it - and they want to capitalize on that.
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