Head coach out due to COVID, assistant George McDonald will run the team Saturday.
www.stltoday.com
Illinois has proven it can go on the road in the Big Ten and win against ranked football teams.
Senior offensive tackle Vederian Lowe is confident the Illini can do it again — even without their head coach.
Bret Bielema said he’ll be sitting at an undisclosed location in the Champaign-Urbana area — after testing positive for COVID-19 earlier this week — when Illinois travels to face No. 18 Iowa at 1 p.m. Saturday at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City.
“It’s definitely a different feel with Coach B not being around and hearing him at practice, but they said it’s a next-man-up mentality,” said Lowe, who is making his 45th straight start. “People go down and the next man is supposed to come up and produce the exact same way we would expect the first guy to produce.”
That means Illinois assistant head coach George McDonald, who also is in charge of the receivers. Bielema said he’s had a plan in place since the spring that if something would happen where he couldn’t be at a game, McDonald would step into his duties.
Bielema didn’t want one of his coordinators — Tony Petersen (offense), Ryan Walters (defense) or Ben Miller (special teams) — to be distracted from their usual practice and game-time responsibilities.
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I feel a pulling together of the squad and a win one for the coach attitude.........
Illini 17
idiots 10
LET'S GO ILLINI...........................