Illini Football 2026
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IlliniSaluki
- IL metro east burbs of St. Louis
Overall I think we have a pretty good schedule. I only see 2 for sure losses (prove me wrong team!) and that's OSU and Oregon.
I think our basement in the regular season is 7-5 and our ceiling is 10-2. My gut says 8-4 again like this year. In the end let's just make at minimum another bowl game for the 3rd straight year and get to put another SEC team down.
Go Illini!
I think our basement in the regular season is 7-5 and our ceiling is 10-2. My gut says 8-4 again like this year. In the end let's just make at minimum another bowl game for the 3rd straight year and get to put another SEC team down.
Go Illini!
You guys hearing UAB will be Thursday or just a guess? I think Bret does like the few extra days prep you get for week 2.
FlyNavy
- Los Angeles
Rose Bowl’s about a 25 minute walk for me though… so I’m definitely opposed to the SoFi move.
UCLA staying at the Rose Bowl? It certainly appears that way
Transparency is not what UCLA Athletics is known for. We have another example this offseason with UCLA quietly returning to the Rose Bowl
uclawire.usatoday.com
cuillini
- San Bernardino, Ca.
The Rose Bowl is about 1.5 hr from my house in the IE. Sofi is a good 2 hours....I'm hoping for the Rose Bowl. Much better tailgate options.
DeonThomas
- South Carolina
Despite what I perceive as a weaker year-over-year Illini roster, I'm still expecting a 5-1 record heading into the Week 8 home game vs. Oregon. We then close-out the regular season with a back half of the schedule that goes Home-Away-Home-Away-Home-Away. 4-2 would be really nice with perhaps the three easiest road games of any Big10 team.
9-3 just got more achieveable than I originally thought it would be. And only Bret could pull it off!! Would take us to another tough New Year's Day Bowl game.
DeonThomas
- South Carolina
To our benefit............
Overall, I think our schedule is about as navigatable as it gets in the B10. Only 2 games we'll be big underdogs in (@OSU, Oregon), all our tougher coin flip games against upper half to mid-mid-t
Overall, I think our schedule is about as navigatable as it gets in the B10. Only 2 games we'll be big underdogs in (@OSU, Oregon), all our tougher coin flip games against upper half to mid-tier conference teams at home (Iowa, Nebraska, Duke). All our remaining road games against bottom half B10 teams.
Story of our season will be defined by:
Duke- This will tell us where our young OTs are at and how much pressure our DL can generate
@MSU- Hopefully we'll be healthy for this game. East Lansing is a weird place. Right before the bye and having Hopefully a 4-1 record coming into this game is going to test our resolve. Need to win this but it will be tougher than people think
@UCLA- West coast road games suck. If we beat Nebraska, this game is a big time danger game with Iowa the following week and a lot on the line. And if we lose to Nebraska this also doesn't feel like a get well game. This will be a tough one to get, but if we can it makes a season
Nebraska/Iowa: Win both and we might be talking playoffs. Win 1 and can't really be upset about it. Lose both and it'll put a damper on the entire season. Tough games but they're at home. Need to win at least 1.
This is a schedule where we theoretically could go 10-2 if everything goes right. I think realistically, going 2-1 vDuke, @MSU, @UCLA and 1-1 vNeb, vIowa to go 8-4 is a goal for a successful season. 7-5 seems reasonable. And hopefully not anything less than that
Story of our season will be defined by:
Duke- This will tell us where our young OTs are at and how much pressure our DL can generate
@MSU- Hopefully we'll be healthy for this game. East Lansing is a weird place. Right before the bye and having Hopefully a 4-1 record coming into this game is going to test our resolve. Need to win this but it will be tougher than people think
@UCLA- West coast road games suck. If we beat Nebraska, this game is a big time danger game with Iowa the following week and a lot on the line. And if we lose to Nebraska this also doesn't feel like a get well game. This will be a tough one to get, but if we can it makes a season
Nebraska/Iowa: Win both and we might be talking playoffs. Win 1 and can't really be upset about it. Lose both and it'll put a damper on the entire season. Tough games but they're at home. Need to win at least 1.
This is a schedule where we theoretically could go 10-2 if everything goes right. I think realistically, going 2-1 vDuke, @MSU, @UCLA and 1-1 vNeb, vIowa to go 8-4 is a goal for a successful season. 7-5 seems reasonable. And hopefully not anything less than that
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Yeah, there are no more "easy" schedules in the Glen Mason sense anymore, but in the new world of the Big Ten, this is about as favorable as it gets.
Sneaking the Purdue "rivalry" into the permanent schedule along with Northwestern was a gigantic coup for us, I can't believe we got away with that.
(And because we got away with that, I will soft-pedal my criticism of the ludicrous decision to grant Iowa-Wisconsin and Iowa-Nebraska that status)
I get there's no such thing as a "sure win", but anything less than at least a 4-1 start with at least a 5th win against Northwestern would be disastrous. By just general trajectories of the teams we play against and whatever, I would also expect 6 wins being the floor. Honestly, 6 wins with another bowl game trip for the third year in a row and 4 out of 5 years is an awesome time to be an Illinois fan.
Remind me of my post when I !!!!! about only winning 9 games next season and missing the playoffs.
Remind me of my post when I !!!!! about only winning 9 games next season and missing the playoffs.
Joel Goodson
- how was I to know, she was with the Russians too?
fully get that we're in S&C mode, but which of our newcomers is getting early buzz?
Illiniblueorange
- Pontoon Beach IL
We are in aruba wearing our Illini gear and John Nord is inour resort. Great couple have enjoyed throwing a few back with him and hus wife.
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