That is our strength of opponent rankings.
So in general, we are playing better defenses than offenses.
FWIW, KFord is a must follow if you are a college football fan. He puts out a lot of good stuff.
Illini Football 2025
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That is our strength of opponent rankings.
So in general, we are playing better defenses than offenses.
FWIW, KFord is a must follow if you are a college football fan. He puts out a lot of good stuff.
But the Ducks Wire article itself projects us to finish 4th, with a 10-2 record. They compare this to ESPN’S 10th place projection and 6.8-5.2 result.
no returning sec team with 10 wins??
And just as a further clarification, the "ESPN" projection is just the projection of one particular ESPN model, FPI. ESPN has another model, SP+, that projects us as the #19 team in the nation, and whose predictions average us at 8.7 wins.
Bret Bielema responds to Diego Pavia shading Big Ten football
Bret Bielema was asked for his thoughts on Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia's comments dismissing the level of competition in the Big Ten.
www.saturdaydownsouth.com
https://bigten.org/fb/article/blt9618f9390f7309b3/
Something to think about and watch.
Ohio State Qb room. None of their top three have ever started a college football game.
One of them has left the door open to possibly grad transferring after summer quarter of school is complete at end of July.
Their trip to Champaign will be, at most, the 2nd road start of their career. Depending upon how things go for them the two weeks before, if a qb switch is made, it could be their first.
They just recently brought in a small school journeyman type transfer dude with a below 50% completion history to provide at least some veteran presence.
Game of matchups and circumstances
Something to think about and watch.
Ohio State Qb room. None of their top three have ever started a college football game.
One of them has left the door open to possibly grad transferring after summer quarter of school is complete at end of July.
Their trip to Champaign will be, at most, the 2nd road start of their career. Depending upon how things go for them the two weeks before, if a qb switch is made, it could be their first.
They just recently brought in a small school journeyman type transfer dude with a below 50% completion history to provide at least some veteran presence.
Game of matchups and circumstances
Joel Goodson
- how was I to know, she was with the Russians too?
3 and 9 works too
I'd feel better about our chances for an upset if this game came a few weeks earlier. I think OSU will have everything fine tuned by week 7 with all their 5-star talent - but there is a reasonable argument that the lower ranked team with a 3rd year QB, experience up and down the lineup, and playing at home, can pull off the upset. I remember seeing upsets (#21 & #5) in back to back (hot) weeks in 2007.
More than reasonable, I’d submit. Especially if there is some controversy going on about who should be starting. The two hotshot youngsters have distinctly different body types, skill sets.
Texas is being favored at Columbus in the opener, from what I’ve seen. Then two gimmes at home.
Week 7, but with one less game coming in for them due to early bye week.
Illini get to develop a book on the new guys by watching them against Ryan Walters’ Defense at Washington, then against the Fleckster.
They might be doing the two-qb system by that time.
About as good of a situation as Illini could ask for; especially if Illini are on a heater entering the matchup.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
Yeah it does.
I thank the good Lord regularly that social media did not exist when I was 18-22 yrs old
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
“…the SEC, it’s like week after week. You’re going to get beat on.”
I think that has more to do with playing at Vanderbilt and less about which specific conference you’re in.
Gotta be a heck of a preach - the I (NIL) stands for instant money, the F (NFL) stands for forever money.
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lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Ranking the games on our schedule from most difficult to least difficult:
Ohio St
@Duke
@Indiana
@Washington
USC
@Wisconsin
Rutgers
Maryland
Northwestern
@Purdue
Western Michigan
Western Illinois
Ohio St
@Duke
@Indiana
@Washington
USC
@Wisconsin
Rutgers
Maryland
Northwestern
@Purdue
Western Michigan
Western Illinois
Indiana is def. harder than duke. i'd put USC third.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Indiana is better than Duke, sure. But is it the more difficult game? We've lost something like 19 out of our last 20 first road games of the year.
By current SP+
(1) Ohio St. 29.5
(23)Indiana 12.2
(30)USC 11.0
(37)Wiscy 7.2
(39)Wash 6.4
(41)Duke 4.9
(45)Rutgers 4.7
(87)NW -6.1
(101)PU -10.0
(118)WMU -14.8
________________
WIU NA
(19)Illini 14.3
So one loss on the season. I’ll take it
and flying out to the west coast and playing @ Washington is no easy task. probably tougher for us than going to Btown
weve lost A LOT of games in the pacific time zone over the last 60 years . I mean A LOT
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