Week 15 Polls - Illinois #21 in AP Poll

[Navy_illini]

This is one way to think about it. There is also the other side to the coin.

We were a few plays away from 5 wins if not for the miracle against Rutgers, OT blitz against Nebraska, ending vs Kansas, and FG plus two point sack to avoid a horrific loss vs PU. This has been an exceptional season even if we seemed to be just a few plays short of a playoff berth.

I think if you look at almost anybody you could say the same thing. UGA took 8 OTs to beat GT beat UK by 1

PSU could have lost to Bowling Green USC and Minnesota

Football is a game of inches and a couple key plays in each game give teams opportunities they have to take advantage of

 

[TampaToo]

Don’t get the voters putting CU ahead of us. We beat 2 teams who beat them

All about “Prime”.

 

[rjeffreys]

Don’t get the voters putting CU ahead of us. We beat 2 teams who beat them

Good news is we're rated higher than Missery, which makes me happy.

 

[Dkayak]

It cuts immeasurably easier on the "more losses" side.

I know it's just the nature of fan psychology but it really blows my mind how straight-facedly so many people are believing we could have or should have even MORE from our total ridiculous miracle of a record that colossally overstates how good we actually are.

We could have won the Minny game, I agree.

We had absolutely no business in the universe winning Purdue or Rutgers. Pure lightning bolt of dumb luck gifts from the football gods. Twice.

You could argue PU had no business running up the score we eventually overcame. Something fishy going on w/ respect to knowing our defense? What was Love doing with that headset? PU didn’t rack up anything like that many points in any of their other 11 games. Fishy. The real miracle in that game was Purdue’s ability to score at all, not our comeback.

 

[TheChief4Life]

really ?

in a season we were supposed to win 5 ?
we are a good team , but hardly a real good team . we won two games in ot ( one by a miracle finish in reg) and won another game in reg on a miracle .

the football gods smiled on us this year in many respects , after many years of not doing so .

I’m 100% happy with our ranking . imo, we are a tad over ranked

You're not disappointed in the fact that we are getting passed over by teams that have a worse resume than us? there is no way we are over ranked. At the end of the day, we are 9-3 having beaten 3 top 25 teams with no "bad" losses. I don't care about luck. or any other non"win/loss" stat when all is said and done. We played 12 games and won 9 of them. The same as Colorado, who lost to two teams we beat.

That's disappointing. We have been constantly getting overlooked this year because of "luck" or "metric" or whatever. It's bull!!!!.

 

[1970 John]

This is one way to think about it. There is also the other side to the coin.

We were a few plays away from 5 wins if not for the miracle against Rutgers, OT blitz against Nebraska, ending vs Kansas, and FG plus two point sack to avoid a horrific loss vs PU. This has been an exceptional season even if we seemed to be just a few plays short of a playoff berth.

Oh stop it everyone with the “miracle” at Rutgers. That was well played. Why did Rutgers “deserve it” more than Illinois? There was no miracle. Illinois came in with more sand and putting the plays where they needed to be. Illinois WON the game.

 

[Illini2010-11]

You're not disappointed in the fact that we are getting passed over by teams that have a worse resume than us? there is no way we are over ranked. At the end of the day, we are 9-3 having beaten 3 top 25 teams with no "bad" losses. I don't care about luck. or any other non"win/loss" stat when all is said and done. We played 12 games and won 9 of them. The same as Colorado, who lost to two teams we beat.

That's disappointing. We have been constantly getting overlooked this year because of "luck" or "metric" or whatever. It's bull!!!!.

I am not really disappointed that AP voters put Colorado slightly higher than Illinois. The CFP committee will likely have Illinois a spot higher (Illinois is a spot higher than Colorado in coaches poll). Colorado got more love because of winning 52-0 against a bad Oklahoma State team, meanwhile we struggled a bit through the game yesterday. It is really hard to be upset with our ranking. We simply did not dominate bad opponents the way peers did. Michigan State was really the only conference game where Illini dominated.

 

[the juiceman cometh]

You're not disappointed in the fact that we are getting passed over by teams that have a worse resume than us? there is no way we are over ranked. At the end of the day, we are 9-3 having beaten 3 top 25 teams with no "bad" losses. I don't care about luck. or any other non"win/loss" stat when all is said and done. We played 12 games and won 9 of them. The same as Colorado, who lost to two teams we beat.

That's disappointing. We have been constantly getting overlooked this year because of "luck" or "metric" or whatever. It's bull!!!!.

None of the teams we beat are currently ranked in the top 25. When a person looks at our resume to rank us right now, they don't see any top 25 wins. An overtime win over 6-6 Nebraska isn't impressing anyone today.

In fact, the Kansas team we beat was much worse than the Kansas team that beat Colorado. We should still get credit for beating them, but it's pretty clear that's a team that improved a ton between when we beat them and when they beat Colorado.

And anyway, this season-long obsession with our ranking v. Colorado is so cringe. Why always Colorado? Why doesn't anyone bring up Clemson, ranked at 18 - another 9-3 team that hasn't really beat anyone?

 

[TheChief4Life]

None of the teams we beat are currently ranked in the top 25. When a person looks at our resume to rank us right now, they don't see any top 25 wins. An overtime win over 6-6 Nebraska isn't impressing anyone today.

In fact, the Kansas team we beat was much worse than the Kansas team that beat Colorado. We should still get credit for beating them, but it's pretty clear that's a team that improved a ton between when we beat them and when they beat Colorado.

And anyway, this season-long obsession with our ranking v. Colorado is so cringe. Why always Colorado? Why doesn't anyone bring up Clemson, ranked at 18 - another 9-3 team that hasn't really beat anyone?

Because they are right above us. But honestly, I am referring to them all. Here’s the next three teams above us in ranking. What makes their resume better? It’s frustrating/disappointing to see. Which was my point at the beginning.

 

[blackdog]

Oh stop it everyone with the “miracle” at Rutgers. That was well played. Why did Rutgers “deserve it” more than Illinois? There was no miracle. Illinois came in with more sand and putting the plays where they needed to be. Illinois WON the game.

But the comment was the flip side of the "if we only had won the Minnesota game" statement. Basically saying it seems like a fantasy to pretend Illinois could have won that game without acknowledging how easily they could have lost the close ones we did. If we are sticking with the reality then they didn't make the plays where they needed and LOST to Minn.

 

[1970 John]

My point was about saying Rutgers was a “miracle.” It was doing the right thing—with the skill and preparation—while your opponent does the wrong thing. And having the sand to not lie diwn a quit.

 

[Illinijoe]

My point was about saying Rutgers was a “miracle.” It was doing the right thing—with the skill and preparation—while your opponent does the wrong thing. And having the sand to not lie diwn a quit.

Yes, however the reality is the Minnesota game the team simply didn’t have the preparation, didn’t make many plays at all, and lost - miracles aside. We really are just as close to 11-1 as we are to 5-7, analytics wise much closer to 5-7. It works both ways.
Regardless, it was an exceptional season at 9-3

 

[the juiceman cometh]

Because they are right above us. But honestly, I am referring to them all. Here’s the next three teams above us in ranking. What makes their resume better? It’s frustrating/disappointing to see. Which was my point at the beginning.

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I'm sure if we were ranked above any of those teams their fans would look at our schedule and scoff as well. Our best wins were against two 7-5 teams. It's not a good look to complain about lack of marquee wins on another teams schedule when you can't point to any on your own.

This is all based on subjective measures. Subjectively, looking at those three resumes I can find something that we don't have - at least one game where they blew the doors off the competition against an FBS team (UNLV has that plus a 10-2 record). Does that matter? Maybe, maybe not. It's subjective.

The closest thing to an objective measure is analytics-based ranking, and we fare worse in that. Sagarin has us at 41. It has Colorado at 12. Clemson at 22. We are behind both in FPI too (UNLV is behind us in Sagarin but ahead in FPI). In fact we are behind Mizzou in both as well, but ahead of them in the AP poll. So maybe let's just enjoy our 9-3 record and ranking and not obsess over where Deion's team, who is not a rival or even in our conference, is ranked.

 

[Calvin]

UGA took some friendly refs and 8 OTs to beat GT beat UK by 1

Sometimes you need some luck. If you get your share when you need it most, it translates to a win or two. Definitely seen it go the other way for Illinois.