Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Sorry, to be clear I meant why we wore white pants in that throwback game rather than the orange pants shown in that older picture. Did we alternate both pants colors in the Butkus years?
Illini Football 2026
BZuppke
- Plainfield
Thankfully I’m not that old lol
I am, but that's probably why I don't remember.
Great-Grandpa Piasa: “Back in the day I used to pay a nickel to sit on the 50yd line and watch Dick Butkus run around clotheslining people to a National Championship. Now that was football”
Great Grandkids: “Yeah, but what color pants was he wearing?”
Great-Grandpa Piasa: I… Someone get me my meds
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
Wait, you are not 147 years old!?
If I'm a big donor, I say "no problem, I would love to stroke a check for $1M to help bring in better talent. Before I do that though, tell me what you are going to do to make sure I'm not wasting on my money on guys like TJ Taylor. How are you addressing your existing shortcomings in talent evaluation and development?"
To be fair, there were a lot of good programs ready to toss money to Taylor. He hasn't panned out. It happens. Tossing millions at unproven 17 year olds is what is really crazy, especially when they may transfer after a year.
True. Having said that, we clearly are not in as good a position as several programs that have comparable or less NIL $ available - Duke, Purdue, Minny, NW, etc. Where have we missed the mark and how do we plan to do better?
What good programs were after Taylor? His other visits were Kentucky, Nc state and north Caroline. The reason we got Morris to flip from usc is that usc was backing off from him.
We tossed big time money at Champ Smith. I would much rather do that than go the juco route.
Josh is going to have to work really hard the next few months to rev up interest and money for the program. Playing younger guys now will give us a good look at what we have but I hope Brad gets Barnett ready to go next week and hands Clayton the wheel for the rest of the year.
Purdue and Duke have cheaper rosters. If we can’t beat the teams that spend more we should be beating all the teams that spend less.
The 2024 & 2025 seasons were the 2 steps forward and 2026 is the 1 step backwards. Ugh.
If our defense was even mildly competent, we'd be 4-2 at worst, given that our offense was terrible against Purdue.
The only thing broken is our defense which is a product of a bad roster, that uses a specialty scheme without the personnel to run it, and coached by a guy who didn't really want to do it. Now we're stuck with it because we most certainly don't have the DL or LB depth to go 3-4 or 4-3.
Lots of bad decisions on that side of the field in the off-season has led us here.
The only thing broken is our defense which is a product of a bad roster, that uses a specialty scheme without the personnel to run it, and coached by a guy who didn't really want to do it. Now we're stuck with it because we most certainly don't have the DL or LB depth to go 3-4 or 4-3.
Lots of bad decisions on that side of the field in the off-season has led us here.
Bret misfired after last season with the Henry decision and you are right, you cannot run a 3 man front with subpar LBs. We could run a hybrid 4-3 but we would need a big bruising LB and a faster LB to fill holes. We are too small at LB to run a conventional D. We need a new concept for next year starting Day 1 of the offseason. I hope Bret has a short list of DCs whom he can hire when the season is over. I still hope Doernen becomes available from NCST.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
If you were a booster and the bar to clear was being better than those programs, mission accomplished.
Avg. FPI rankings past 5 years:
IL: 42.2
Duke: 44
Minny: 50.2
NW: 64.6
(And this includes this year up to this point).
Sure, they're having better seasons, but they aren't better programs.
If boosters think like you, where they want to see results, then money, well, then they'll never results.
And for those of you who are curious, here was our average FPI ranking in the 5 years before Bret arrived:
70.6 (with 3 seasons below 90 and 1 in the 100s)
Technically, 5 weeks from today would be before the Iowa game.
Well let's be honest here. Bret inherited a pretty talented roster from Lovie and our overall talent level is down a good bit from where it has been the past few years. Maybe there are some diamonds in the freshman class, but it's safe to say that in terms of talent, our sophomore through senior classes rank in the bottom quartile of the Big 10. I believe in BB, but his recruiting and portal additions haven't been sufficient to keep us in the top half of the league. I don't think it is an unfair request to ask what they are doing to address that shortcoming if I'm going to give $1M to the program.
At some point you have to pay your good players.
If they don't play as freshmen, then they'll play as sophomores, just with less experience and we have to live with growing pains. Then, they'll have to get paid as a junior. This is all based on the assumption that they stick around and don't transfer to a place where they will play immediately. This is a instant gratification world with these kids/parents. They want things, they want it now and they'll leave if they don't get it.
If they play as freshmen and do well, then they are much more seasoned going into their second year, but they'll get paid sooner.
So, they're either get paid as Sophomores or Juniors. You're not going to get around paying these kids. We either accept that and raise the money to keep them or we continue to go into the portal and get what we can afford, which as we've seen on the defense.....what we can afford isn't very good.
It all comes back to the same conclusion.....either have the money and be good or don't and have a ceiling of average.
There is a third option, which is go the Iowa route and put what we do have on the defense and on the offensive line. Get an average QB, some average receivers, a decent back and win games in the trenches. A defense travels, an offense doesn't. You can win with a dominant defense and an average offense. The reverse isn't true. It's not the most exciting brand of ball, but I'd rather win 14-10, then lose 42-21. That's a money management decision.