Illini Football 2019

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Dren1

Glenview, IL
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No one is questioning if this team will be more talented than the teams we fielded through 2015-2018.

The question is, will that translates to wins? That comes down to the coaching and scheming.
And a bit of schedule/luck...the general consensus is the schedule is easy, but it is skewed a bit by the weak non-conference schedule...doesn't take much to imagine 4 wins (non-cof +Rutgers), but 5 & 6 get tougher...We get NW at home(feels like a must win to get to 6), the other home games are NE/MI/Wis, On the road MN/PU/MSU/IA, I don't see us favored in any of those & don't see anyone taking a big step back this year, may be a good sized gap we have to scheme over.
 
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An old Sports Illustrated story from 1981 that is imbedded in the article about the Illini nearly leaving the Big Ten may have been posted here before, but I thought it was interesting:

https://www.si.com/vault/1981/05/25...me-illini-clamor-to-get-out-of-the-conference
Just a side note on how things have changed in the last 20 years...5.8 million athletic budget

[QUOTE...and cut off conference revenue that Illinois would have received for the next two years, a sum estimated to be about $2 million. That's a loss of almost 20% of Illinois' $5.8 million annual sports budget. [/QUOTE]
 
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CAIllini

West Coast
So true... "The athleticism is higher than it was a year ago, but there's a long way to go to even reach defensive mediocrity."

Mediocrity sounds amazing right now ;)
 
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So true... "The athleticism is higher than it was a year ago, but there's a long way to go to even reach defensive mediocrity."

Mediocrity sounds amazing right now ;)

Exact quote I pulled. I think we are one year away from a stellar big west defense. The question is: can we hang around enough to win. I think this depends mostly on how long the offense can stay on the field.
 
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