The Age of Cignetti...Bret on the hot seat...winning 7, 8 or 9 games not successful. Man, I love good sarcasm. Made me spit out my coffee. Well done!
Pregame: Illinois vs Rutgers, Saturday, November 1st, 11:00am CT, NBC
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Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Pivotal moment for this team, IMO. Win comfortably and actually have the defense play well, and you can gain some momentum down the stretch and still make another great bowl. As others have said, two straight 9-3 seasons would still be amazing for this program in the big picture. However, a loss here could cause the wheels to truly fall off. Looking back at a few seasons where we were in a similar situation, you can see it often goes one of two ways...
2024: 6-3 record after getting demolished at Oregon on October 26 and losing a disappointing one to Minnesota at home on November 2 to fall out of the top 25. Sitting at 6-3 and unranked, we got the medicine we needed in a home game vs. an inferior opponent and ended the season on a tear.
Nov. 2 - L 17-25 vs. Minnesota ---> Illini fall out of the top 25
Nov. 9 - Bye Week
Nov. 16 - W 38-16 vs. Michigan State ---> Illini #25
Nov. 23 - W 38-31 at Rutgers ---> Illini #23
Nov. 30 - W 38-28 vs. Northwestern at Wrigley ---> Illini #20
...
Dec. 31 - W 21-17 vs. #15 South Carolina in the Citrus Bowl to get 10 wins and finish #16!
2008: An up-and-down post-Rose Bowl season looks like it might have turned a corner after defeating Iowa on November 1 and getting back to 5-4 headed down the stretch. Instead of capitalizing on the momentum when we badly needed at LEAST that 6th win, we folded.
Nov. 1 - W 27-24 vs. Iowa
Nov. 8 - L 17-23 vs. Western Michigan in Detroit
Nov. 15 - L 20-30 vs. #10 Ohio State
Nov. 22 - L 10-27 at Northwestern to finish 5-7 and miss a bowl...
We can't have another 2002 or 2008 campaign ... we already used our mini-mulligan on the 5-7 season in 2023 in that regard. Beat Rutgers soundly, ensure back-to-back bowls and then make the goal another Citrus Bowl.
2024: 6-3 record after getting demolished at Oregon on October 26 and losing a disappointing one to Minnesota at home on November 2 to fall out of the top 25. Sitting at 6-3 and unranked, we got the medicine we needed in a home game vs. an inferior opponent and ended the season on a tear.
Nov. 2 - L 17-25 vs. Minnesota ---> Illini fall out of the top 25
Nov. 9 - Bye Week
Nov. 16 - W 38-16 vs. Michigan State ---> Illini #25
Nov. 23 - W 38-31 at Rutgers ---> Illini #23
Nov. 30 - W 38-28 vs. Northwestern at Wrigley ---> Illini #20
...
Dec. 31 - W 21-17 vs. #15 South Carolina in the Citrus Bowl to get 10 wins and finish #16!
2008: An up-and-down post-Rose Bowl season looks like it might have turned a corner after defeating Iowa on November 1 and getting back to 5-4 headed down the stretch. Instead of capitalizing on the momentum when we badly needed at LEAST that 6th win, we folded.
Nov. 1 - W 27-24 vs. Iowa
Nov. 8 - L 17-23 vs. Western Michigan in Detroit
Nov. 15 - L 20-30 vs. #10 Ohio State
Nov. 22 - L 10-27 at Northwestern to finish 5-7 and miss a bowl...
We can't have another 2002 or 2008 campaign ... we already used our mini-mulligan on the 5-7 season in 2023 in that regard. Beat Rutgers soundly, ensure back-to-back bowls and then make the goal another Citrus Bowl.
After decades and decades of 0-fer, 2-10, 4-8, and 5-7 - followed by ONE year of 8 wins and a decent bowl, only to fall back the next year to 4-8 or so has been the story of Illinois football since the 1990's... We haven't even made any back-to-back bowl games of ANY KIND, since when ? ? ? ? If we can achieve back-to-back bowl games this season, we will have made HUGE progress... HUGE... I get the hype train / orange kool-aid drinking (young) crowd enthusiasm... I relish it and applaud it... I hope in my heart that it can carry the day... But I've seen fifteen (15) head coaches since Ray Eliot retired in 1959... How many coaching changes at Iowa during that time ? How many at Wisconsin, or Purdon't, or even Northwestern during that time ? ? ? ?
I really hope Cignetti is just like Charlie Weis at Notre Dame. He had got exposed in year 3 after he signed a big extension.
Both of them are definitely arrogant and will enjoy watching Cignetti's eventual downfall.
The main failure has been one of expectations. It was very clear early in the season that this team has deficiencies and isn't/wasn't a playoff level team. My preseason prediction, which felt optimistic to me at the time, was 8-4. I think we have a decent shot of reaching that. And if so, that will be a very successful season.
BZuppke
- Plainfield
Agreed. Cignetti, like Saban are unique and rare guys.
You can make jokes but Indiana is the number 2 team in the nation back to back playoff appearances and 19-2 in two seasons under Cignetti. In 2023 Indiana was 5-7 and the Illini beat them with John Paddock as the quarterback. I’m not Saying Bret is not a good coach and should be fired. I’m not saying that at all . I’m very grateful that Bret is our coach. I am saying it’s year 5 and you are what your record says you are 5-7 8-5, 5-7, 10-3 , 5-3 so far. Some of the fans are stuck in 1995,2005,2015 way of looking at College football. The old model of just getting to a bowl game is over with the 12 team playoffs. If you think the big money donors like Gies that just donated 100 million dollars are going to be satisfied with no playoff appearances and just going to the Music City or Las Vegas Bowl and calling it a success you are mistaken. As it stands this morning Illinois is 2-3 in the Big Ten in 12th place in the conference. Illinois is behind Northwestern and UCLA . This was supposed to be the season where everything was going to come together. We had the most returning players in the Big Ten Best Quarterback we’ve had in decades. All the assistants coaches were back etc. I had high expectations for team . We can still win out but I feel we let the opportunity to take the next step as a football program slip out of our hands.
8-4 ,7-5 and just getting to a bowl game was not the goal set by Bret at the beginning of the Season. I also feel sorry for Luke because that guy plays his butt off .
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Illini4Chief
- TENNESSEE
It's the mind set.....if ya settle for mediocraty as in 7 wins...then thats what ya get. This team is in nuteral.....at best
Kaliakmanis leads big ten in passing yards. Had no idea.
I didn't care about having 16 returning starters. If they are great players, they go Pro. Even NFL practice squad players make 500k to 750k. If they are added to 4 games on active roster it explodes. Our Oline didn't do it last year and hasn't this year, running back room is weak in comparison to other top 40 teams. Wide receivers and Luke just great job. Defense is absolutely horrendous and must be addressed in portal and coaching. We have good talent, plenty of heart, and sometimes that's not enough. I posted all along 7-5, 8-4 AWESOME season. 9-3, phenomenal. I will state I am stunned by our defense surrendering 40 points in conference games. Bowl games are super and great for additional time with young players like Brayden Trimble, Beerman, etc.
blackdog
- Champaign
Nobody is going to replicate the success of Cignetti because he is just that good. Cignetti was one the main guys who helped Saban get things started at Alabama including helping bring in Julio Jones and Mark Ingram. He has been coaching college ball since 1983. He has a HC record of 138-37 while turning around multiple struggling programs. Time will tell if he can sustain it but the guy seems like the real deal top class in college football and IU is lucky enough to have fallen in to him at the right time.
I came on here last week and boasted that BB would surely be in the weeds helping Aaron Henry and the defense come up with a great game plan for UW...
I just knew with the extra time they would get it figured out ...
Hope that I will be the only one of us to get it wrong!
Illini92and96
- Austin, TX
Let's try this a different way. Here's the last 4 years of the BIG, and the number of teams that won 9 games. This includes bowl wins, so if we are talking just regular season games the number would be less. We added teams in 2024, but they added as many BIG losses as wins so I would not think it would have a huge increase in 9 win teams.
2021 - 7
2022 - 4
2023 - 4
2024 - 5
We can use 5 as the expected number of 9+ win teams. So we need to be at least 5th best BIG team every year. Outside of our bubble, I think it would be universal to put 4 teams ahead of us - OSU, Michigan, Oregon, Penn State. I'll be aggressive and not put USC or anyone else in there.
So for us to be nine wins regularly we would need to be above everyone, notably USC, Washington, Iowa and Wisconsin every year. For this arguement we'll forget about the Northwesterns, Minnesotas, and Nebraska's catching lighting in a bottle every 5 years and getting to 9 wins.
All four of those programs have had much more success than us, say the last 20 years, but you think we should count on being better than all of them year in and year out? Why?
Exactly, remember how many people on here made comments in the past saying that if BB could just get us to respectable and bowl eligible most years, we world build a statue of him. Now we lose the chance to go to the CFP and people are losing their minds. Am I happy about how this session had played out? Heck no, but considering where we are coming from and how long we were driven into the dirt, I'm thrilled to be 5 -3 at this point. I've been a fan for 60+ years and I've seen the bad, bad years We didn't get turned into a doormat over night and we aren't going to come out of it in a few years. It's going to take long sustained successful seasons of 8 to 9 wins a year over a few years to get our of the deep hole we were in. Yes we are going have some really good years. But also expect some mediocre years with a bad year sprinkled in every once in awhile. Do changed need to happen on the defense? Absolutely, I'm still thrilled to be an Illini Fan and can't wait for the future of Illini football with BB at the helm...ILL
Indiana and Cignetti doesn’t think like Illinois and the Illinois fan base. He’s taken one of the worse football programs in the history of the Big Ten and has turned them into a powerhouse in 2 years . So it can be done. Indiana has definitely passed Illinois by and is now not only one of the best teams in the Big Ten but one of the best teams in the country. I’m hearing Michigan State is having discussions about firing Johnathan Smith. Luke Fickell is on the hot seat. UCLA fired their coach after 2 seasons. Schiano is on the hot seat. Mike Locksley will probably be fired at Maryland at the end of the season, James Franklin went 13-3 and was one game away from the college football national championship game last season and he got fired at Penn State. Lincoln Riley is on the hot seat. All I’m saying programs don’t want to hear excuses anymore. Not when you get 100 million dollar donations ,Millions of dollars in Television revenue, Coaches making generational wealth. Multi Million dollar stadiums and facilities. It’s Bret Bielema’s job to figure out how he can make Illinois one the top football programs in the Big Ten . That’s why he gets paid 8 million dollars a year. Brett needs to do whatever he has to do to make it happen
Toss in South Carolina as well for a major disappointment. Definitely more comparable to us as a program and expectations.
Like you said, it’s okay to be disappointed in the way we played in each of our losses, but it’s also important to put this team in the context of where we’ve been and also the teams who had similar expectations to us.
They should've lost to Purdue if it wasn't for a terrible TO by their QB. And they have legitimately one of the worst defenses in the country. Illinois is the better team, and must play like the better team.
this is very simple, rush 5 and play man. If we lose because of it we lose but at least you aren't playing scared.
I honestly can't believe we are still playing zone, it doesn't even make sense at this point.
I honestly can't believe we are still playing zone, it doesn't even make sense at this point.
Illwinsagain
- Cary, IL
Without research, it feels like NW and Minny have had more success in the last 20 years too.
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