I think the Illini will match or exceed Toledo's intensity,mid majors advantage vs. power 5 is the go for broke,nothing to lose factor.
Pregame: Illinois vs Toledo, Saturday, September 2nd, 6:30pm CT, BTN
- Status
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
All good, I was just joshing. I have the opposite experience ... my family and I drove 4 hours to Champaign to watch Louisiana Tech absolutely throttle us at home in Beckman's third game, lol.
aiwpfan
- Springfield, Il
Gawd, that game was horribad. The Illini secondary was getting pantsed the whole game.
Epsilon
M tipping over
- Pdx
Wasn’t even that level of success mostly due to one of his coordinators at Toledo?
They pantsed everyone one they played that year.
Mr. Tibbs
- southeast DuPage
wasn’t Sonny Dykes coaching them then ?
they kicked our arse the entire game iirc
it was a Sat night game correct ?
I've been to probably 95% of Illinois home games since I was 6 or 7, so 1995-96. I've been some terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Illinois losses. That game was by far the most embarrassed I've ever been to be an Illinois fan
I am so pumped for this year's Illini team, minus the new uniforms 
. If Luke can keep interceptions down and pass accuracy to 60-65%.. I believe we will win enough games to get to Indianapolis.
I love our OLine and of course our defensive front 6 or 7. What also gives me confidence is even with all of our Db's skipping the bowl game against Mississippi st. The youn men/ back ups in the 2 deep played great. Will Roger's is legit.
Plus, we got a freshman All American from FAU and don't sleep on Gabe Jacas! Nicario Harper, etc. Our running backs Have to Step up. The offensive line will do their job. Go Illini
I L L
I N I
. If Luke can keep interceptions down and pass accuracy to 60-65%.. I believe we will win enough games to get to Indianapolis.I love our OLine and of course our defensive front 6 or 7. What also gives me confidence is even with all of our Db's skipping the bowl game against Mississippi st. The youn men/ back ups in the 2 deep played great. Will Roger's is legit.
Plus, we got a freshman All American from FAU and don't sleep on Gabe Jacas! Nicario Harper, etc. Our running backs Have to Step up. The offensive line will do their job. Go Illini
I L L
I N I
Everyone is an "A" student on the first day of class.
Having 10,000 new season ticket holders should go a long way towards filling the stadium, assuming those are real-people tickets and not resellers. But it the resellers buy them, they're doing so on the hope of making money. I hope they do.
I can understand you angst... however in my mind, nothing (repeat: NOTHING) can be more embarrassing than a 0-0 tie against Northwestern with Gary Moeller as head coach... JMHO
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
You must have missed the hype going into 2008 season. Truly a letdown season after going to Rose Bowl, especially the debacle in Detroit vs Western Michigan.
I expect the team to have fire in belly this year and avoid the feeling we had that year.
Campbell OC, Candle WR.
Campbel took Heacock with him to ISU. Candle tried Beckmans D guy for a couple years (didn't work at all). Then hired Vince Kehres, D3 HC of national title Mount Union where Candle played... Also son of legendary coach Larry Kehres. And now the group is humming.
Both will be P5 coaches in the future. Candle enjoys his time in the 2nd cheapest city in America and has turned down OC spots at Miami in 22, and 23. As well as the ND OC job. Candle is a gem.
dgcrow
- Kelso, WA
And to add insult to injury, after the game, Moeller said he was "proud" of his team.
Here is the updated Sellout Watch for Toledo:
I won't include the screen shot here, but Penn State is currently sitting at just under 46k tickets sold.
I’m a season ticket holder for the first time. I’ll also say I care wayyyyyy more about basketball than football. But the lower prices and just the momentum from Bret and company has got me completely bought in. I have 4 tickets in the horseshoe and for any games I don’t attend, I plan on giving them away for free. I want the seats filled so I hope others either sell them cheap or give them away as well if you’re in the cheaper seats.
Haha this Toledo guy is funny.
I’d be shocked if Toledo scores more than 2 TD’s.
Illini 34
Whatever’s 10
I’d be shocked if Toledo scores more than 2 TD’s.
Illini 34
Whatever’s 10
I wonder if their field goal kicker can hit from beyond 40 yards?
Doubt it. Toledo is very small and meager. Meek even. 35 yards is the record long field goal, and that was WITH the wind in a bowl game vs. William and Mary.
Toledo is so good that one of their former water boys needs to come on to their opponents message board and demand that they are good. Then says that if given the opportunity he will disrespect our coach to his face because they beat a 3-9 Arkansas team. Have you guys heard that Toledo has actually had NFL players? Cmon man… the insecurity couldn’t be more obvious.
My favorite post of this thread.
By the way, I'm in the small group that is actually very concerned about this first game versus Toledo. I have no idea what our running game will look like.
Indeed. If there's been one consistent thing about our program in the 21st century that isn't being one of the cellar dwellers of the B10, it's in the rare instance of us having success, us doing a season of full faceplants in front of our finally excited about something/anything fanbase the following season. This season feels different to me, I really hope so at least.
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
I think most Illini fans are approaching this game with the appropriate amount of concern. Toledo's a good team that can surprise someone. Having said that, Bert and staff are going to game plan appropriately and we won't be surpised. Toledofan's assertions that the staff is "looking past" Toledo because they're using practices to game plan for several opponents and not just the first is--unsurprisingly--the mental gymnastics typically seen in little brothers with inferiority complexes.
- Status