Illini Football 2026
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I would assume Brandon Hansen also? Or was he already mentioned in one of the guard spots?
The top 3 are: Matelau (injured), Henderson (injured), Hansen (current Left Guard).
That list were the guys after Hansen.
(Of course, McMillan is out for the year)
This market behaves like a continuous auction. As the money flowing in continues to grow, market prices will continue to rise. It’s pretty easy to see how one could misjudge the market price for each skill/experience level at each position in this environment. There’s no equilibrium in sight.
As long as funding soars in a significant number of programs, market salaries will soar as well. These schools will not leave their pot unspent. They’ll bid up prices endlessly, producing the surprises you describe. How to plan and budget in such a market? It’s a very tough job.
Only two factors could produce stability: funding stabilizing or being capped (demand) or a big influx of talent (supply). However, there’s no end in sight to the money gusher and of course supply isn’t going to change significantly.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
The important thing for donors to realize: right now is the cheapest it’ll ever be.
Had we spent $30 million this year, we’re in the playoff. A few years from, $30 million likely won’t even crack the top 25.
And that’s a huge problem in two respects. First, it ensures salaries remain an unpredictable moving target. How is a coach supposed to plan and budget with any confidence?
I assume the arms race discourages even some mega donors, who have no confidence their gift will move the needle. Do you want you give a couple million bucks only to find your team still can’t afford much talent?
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Yeah it's tough. Reportedly, we spent in the 20s this year. Assuming we spent $15m of our $20m available in revenue sharing on football, that means donors/businesses likely contributed another $5-$10m in NIL. Maybe not that exactly, but likely somewhere in that range.
If that $5m-$10m were to net a 5 win season, how eager are they to pony up even more next year? And more the year after that?
It's easy to raise NIL when you're winning. How easy was it for Indiana to take in another $15m after going 16-0 and winning the national championship?
It's way more difficult when you're underperforming expectations.
Also easier to raise money if your non conference schedule is like Indiana's. Guaranteed 3-0 start builds momentum and makes it easier to have a wining record. For us to ignore the way Cignetti is scheduling is just plain dumb.
BZuppke
- Plainfield
At what point is this unsustainable?
Realistically it’s now or never for Tuerk. If he gets passed up by true freshman he will never get on the field.
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
Not sure signing NIL agreements means much either (twice). See Johnson, Morez.
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
The current model, IMO, will start to become unsustainable fairly quickly. A decade or so. Every time somebody writes a check for NIL & that doesn't pan out it is gonna be harder to get that amount of $ from that person the next time. So there will be a gradual squeezing of the market when it comes to NIL dollars. I also won't be surprised if, over time, some mid level D1 programs (not P4 schools) decide football just ain't worth it any more & step down to FCS. At some level of D1 the juice just isn't gonna be worth the squeeze to try to compete at a reasonable level. I could perhaps see this at some of the low level D1 leagues. Maybe a MAC or SunBelt or some league like that for the schools that are fledgling at the bottom of those leagues.
According to the Athletic, we were in the $19-22M range, which put us close to the bottom of the BIG and less than half of what tOSU and Oregon spent, and roughly half of what UM, IU and USC had available.
Assuming these estimates are fairly accurate, there is a great deal to unpack from this article . Illinois is 14th in the Big 10 by these metrics.
man, credit to bielema because it's been a while since i saw a fresh "here is a college football metric. there's illinois hanging out in the bottom quartile" type of graph.
but there it is. i just don't know how this happened since the vibes seemed immaculate for the last couple years. the 5-7 season hurt our momentum but we won ten the next year. getting completely dismantled by an indiana team nobody knew was an unstoppable juggernaut also can't have helped, but we beat usc shortly thereafter.
everyone in the program had to know we were headed for a bit of a roster cliff after 25, did the boosters not know or did they not care?
this is a bit depressing.
but there it is. i just don't know how this happened since the vibes seemed immaculate for the last couple years. the 5-7 season hurt our momentum but we won ten the next year. getting completely dismantled by an indiana team nobody knew was an unstoppable juggernaut also can't have helped, but we beat usc shortly thereafter.
everyone in the program had to know we were headed for a bit of a roster cliff after 25, did the boosters not know or did they not care?
this is a bit depressing.
As premier University in a top 5 State for GDP output, and with a top 3 US City for GDP that is also where our student population predominantly comes from…
I feel we should have a stronger budget for our Athletic Department. Hell, Michigan and Ohio spends like they’re Texas, and you’re telling me Detroit and Cleveland and/or Cincinnati rival Chicago?
Obviously, the nuances like Chicago being a more national and international city could mean we don’t have as solely committed of a local base as some of these other cities (ie Milwaukee to Wiscy, Detroit to Mich/MSU, Indy to Ind/Purdue, etc), but our total alumni population has to at least match those other cities, if proportions aren’t as high. We gotta tap into this money.
Wisconsin even admitted defeat and got the state government to fund other departments in order to free up money and NIL for their trending downward football program and other athletics.
Just consider this a crazy rant. Gotta be better and we have access to more resources that’s all
I feel we should have a stronger budget for our Athletic Department. Hell, Michigan and Ohio spends like they’re Texas, and you’re telling me Detroit and Cleveland and/or Cincinnati rival Chicago?
Obviously, the nuances like Chicago being a more national and international city could mean we don’t have as solely committed of a local base as some of these other cities (ie Milwaukee to Wiscy, Detroit to Mich/MSU, Indy to Ind/Purdue, etc), but our total alumni population has to at least match those other cities, if proportions aren’t as high. We gotta tap into this money.
Wisconsin even admitted defeat and got the state government to fund other departments in order to free up money and NIL for their trending downward football program and other athletics.
Just consider this a crazy rant. Gotta be better and we have access to more resources that’s all
Iowa is one of the teams below us? That’s kind of shocking to me.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
If 10-3 followed by 9-4 to go along with back to back SEC Bowl wins gets us to 14th in conference, I’m scared to find out where 6-6 will place us.
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lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
On an unrelated note, did you guys know Beckman’s “take away those 3 plays” quote was basically fake? Made up by the media essentially.
Here’s the story from Robert’s latest article. I had no idea:
After Illinois lost at Washington 44-19 in 2014, the following quote was all everyone talked about after the game. It became the defining quote of the entire Tim Beckman era:
The issue with that quote, as I wrote at the time, was that it was a mashup quote. I was standing right there with the other media members at Husky Stadium. He did not say those three sentences consecutively. They were simply combined to make it sound like one quote.
He said the "big strike" thing in reference to the 21 point blitz (in the first half, Illinois gave up a 75 yard bomb, a fumble return for a touchdown three plays later, and a pick six not long after that), then he answered a question about penalties in the game, then he answered a question about the pressure from Washington's defensive ends, and then he was asked what message he gave to his team at halftime. He said that he told his team there were still 30 minutes left and that "you take out 21 points on three plays and we're in this game" as a way to communicate that there's a lot of football left. (Spoiler: we did not come back in the second half.)
With that context (answering a "how did you try to rally your team at halftime?" question), it's a fairly innocuous quote. Combine one of his answers from earlier ("in three plays we gave up 21 points") with that answer, making it sound like he stood in front of the media after a game he lost 44-19 and said "you take out 21 points on three plays and we're in this football game", and it will take off like wildfire. It's now all you remember about Beckman. And it was cooked up on a laptop by not telling the reader that he was asked to quote himself from halftime when he was trying to rally the troops for a comeback.
www.illiniboard.com
Here’s the story from Robert’s latest article. I had no idea:
After Illinois lost at Washington 44-19 in 2014, the following quote was all everyone talked about after the game. It became the defining quote of the entire Tim Beckman era:
The issue with that quote, as I wrote at the time, was that it was a mashup quote. I was standing right there with the other media members at Husky Stadium. He did not say those three sentences consecutively. They were simply combined to make it sound like one quote.
He said the "big strike" thing in reference to the 21 point blitz (in the first half, Illinois gave up a 75 yard bomb, a fumble return for a touchdown three plays later, and a pick six not long after that), then he answered a question about penalties in the game, then he answered a question about the pressure from Washington's defensive ends, and then he was asked what message he gave to his team at halftime. He said that he told his team there were still 30 minutes left and that "you take out 21 points on three plays and we're in this game" as a way to communicate that there's a lot of football left. (Spoiler: we did not come back in the second half.)
With that context (answering a "how did you try to rally your team at halftime?" question), it's a fairly innocuous quote. Combine one of his answers from earlier ("in three plays we gave up 21 points") with that answer, making it sound like he stood in front of the media after a game he lost 44-19 and said "you take out 21 points on three plays and we're in this football game", and it will take off like wildfire. It's now all you remember about Beckman. And it was cooked up on a laptop by not telling the reader that he was asked to quote himself from halftime when he was trying to rally the troops for a comeback.
More Duke Stuff
Nathan has a billion things going on right now so he's been unable to write his usual Monday "Postscript" column. In its place last week, I simply wrote "More UAB Stuff." So why not write "More Duke Stuff" this week? There's so much more to talk about. You
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