Illinois vs UAB, Thursday, September 3rd, 8:00pm CT, BTN

#27      
king dad runnerup
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
I find score predictions of cupcake games in football very difficult… because I don’t know if the opposing coach will go for every 4th down in the red zone, or will he defer to taking some free points via Field Goals?

In our last 4 games against trash teams, we’ve allowed 0 touchdowns (Eastern Illinois, Central Michigan, Western Illinois, Western Michigan).

For the sake of it, I’ll go with: 48-6 Illinois.
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Western Michigan was an above-average team last year, taking the MAC title, winning their bowl game, and finishing with a 10-4 record.
Western finished the season with an overall SP+ rating of 21.8, which ranked 42nd nationally. Illinois beat several good teams last year.
 
#28      
TheChief4Life
king dad runnerup said:
Western Michigan was an above-average team last year, taking the MAC title, winning their bowl game, and finishing with a 10-4 record.
Western finished the season with an overall SP+ rating of 21.8, which ranked 42nd nationally. Illinois beat several good teams last year.
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I actually didn't realize how well the teams Illinois played last year were (if you base it on conference championships and bowl games at least). Illinois played, and beat, two conference champions in their OOC schedule, and played teams that went 7-2 in bowls last year going 4-3 against them. Not bad really. I mean, honestly, looking again at last year knowing what we know now, I'd argue our only really bad loss was to Wisconsin. The Indiana loss was embarrassing from a pride standpoint... but we didn't know then what we know now.
 
#29      
Dkayak
TheChief4Life said:
... but we didn't know then what we know now.
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This applies now as well. And it cuts both ways, better and worse. The teams on our schedule aren’t the same as last year. That’s the nature of college ball . . . relentless change between teams and at positions within teams.
 
#30      
Fighter of the Nightman
I hate a Thursday night game both for the inconvenience it causes our fans who want to attend and just on basic principle, but ... I'm not gonna lie, this is sort of selfishly awesome for me! We'll be rolling into Door County with the family the day before, and this will both give us a "focal point" for Thursday night AND allow us to spend our Saturday not worrying about when the Illini play.
 
#31      
IlliniCaboose
I never know how to predict these games, and it's even harder when there's a new Co-ordinator/ system. You want to win with showing as little as possible.
That should be easy offensively. If we can't impose our will on them and get the back ups in for most of the second half I'll be a little worried.
Now with the new 3-3-5 I know they won't want to show many blitzes and stunts. But on the flip side this is their first opportunity to really test the new scheme at full speed and they'll want guys to get as many real time reps as possible.
I say 45-18 (they go for 2 in the second half and get it)
 
#32      
DeonThomas
34 ILL
24 UAB

The pessimist in me says..........

I predict we'll win, but not cover. Too much year-over-year roster change, and overall way too much inexperience. A brand new Offensive line, and a QB who's new to the program. A beat up WR corp. A new DC, and we're still trying to learn his highly complex new defense. Plus, I believe 2026 is just a 7-5 season, best case.

On the flipside, Bielema has another great opportunity to show us how he can coach these guys up! 60-3 would help raise my confidence level going into Duke.
 
#33      
TheFlyingIllini1317
DeonThomas said:
34 ILL
24 UAB

The pessimist in me says..........

I predict we'll win, but not cover. Too much year-over-year roster change, and overall way too much inexperience. A brand new Offensive line, and a QB who's new to the program. A beat up WR corp. A new DC, and we're still trying to learn his highly complex new defense. Plus, I believe 2026 is just a 7-5 season, best case.

On the flipside, Bielema has another great opportunity to show us how he can coach these guys up! 60-3 would help raise my confidence level going into Duke.
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If we only beat UAB by 10 we're going 4-8. Don't see that happening. The win total is 7.5 so Vegas basically sees it as a 50% chance of doing better than your best case scenario.
 
#34      
BretMyBeachHouse
TheFlyingIllini1317 said:
If we only beat UAB by 10 we're going 4-8. Don't see that happening. The win total is 7.5 so Vegas basically sees it as a 50% chance of doing better than your best case scenario.
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You're kinda applying the transitive property here and that doesn't generally work for Bielema teams and certainly doesn't work well with the first few weeks of the season across college football.
 
#35      
TheFlyingIllini1317
BretMyBeachHouse said:
You're kinda applying the transitive property here and that doesn't generally work for Bielema teams and certainly doesn't work well with the first few weeks of the season across college football.
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Teams can lay an egg early vs an inferior team and be fine late, but 7-5 best case is still ridiculous.
 
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