Illinois-Notre Dame series 2027-2028

#51      
illini0440
Zorak said:
I find the fear in this thread very sad. If Notre Dame wants to play you, you play them. You've got to beat the man, etc.
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#55      
IlliniShelt
Long, long way off from know what our team much less others will look like next year but i dont think this is a huge gauntlet. We can get the two cupcake non cons. Can we get 3/4 of northwestern, penn st, wisky and ucla at home? Maybe. Can we split or maybe get both purdue and Minny on the road? I think we can get 1. Would it be crazy to think we could get Michigan or usc on the road? I don't think its likely but not impossible.

Maybe we don't get to 6 wins but can we have some level of optimism?
 
#56      
TheodoreRex
Typically on board with most everything Whitman does.. but our program doesn't feel like we are any where close to being good enough to schedule something like this yet...
 
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#57      
RoundBalcs
Zorak said:
I find the fear in this thread very sad. If Notre Dame wants to play you, you play them. You've got to beat the man, etc.
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If you want to win championships, sure. For us, a logical next step and realistic goal would be making an expanded playoff. This series will probably make that harder to achieve...unless we have seriously bolstered NIL funds. I'm a little torn.
 
#59      
hooraybeer
TheodoreRex said:
Typically on board with most everything Whitman does.. but our program doesn't feel like we are any where close to being good enough to schedule something like this yet...
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maybe JW knows something that we don’t.. I don’t think he’s willingly signing us up to get throttled on a national broadcast
 
#62      
Butters
I don't understand this move... Missouri seems like the better option to me in a number of ways. Fans seem to want it, we had an agreement, why aren't we doing that??
 
#63      
BZuppke
Mr. Tibbs said:
I would have never guessed this would ever happen in regular season . There was a long time from 1970’s - 2010’s that I was told they wanted nothing to do with us . not sure why
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My understanding was they were locked in with Purdue, MSU and Michigan that they did not want to play a fourth Big Ten team. They’ve rotated in Wisconsin, NW and tOSU recently so I guess it’s our turn.
 
#65      
Illini2010-11
TheodoreRex said:
Typically on board with most everything Whitman does.. but our program doesn't feel like we are any where close to being good enough to schedule something like this yet...
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How good do we need to get in order to schedule these games? The last five seasons:

2022: 8-5 (lost Reliaquest Bowl)
2023: 5-7 (complete rebuild season)
2024: 10-3 (won Citrus Bowl)
2025: 9-4 (won Music City Bowl)
2026: 5-3 (TBD rest of season, but a really retooled roster)

That is a remarkable stretch for Illinois. With an expanded CFP moving forward, high quality games like this will not be that detrimental to making it in to playoff. If we are so worried that scheduling this type of game hurts our bowl chances, we are already in a defeatist attitude. This is the type of move that you make when you are wanting to make the step to big time. If we are content simply getting to 6-7 wins, then sure, let's avoid this type of game. This type of game brings demand going into the seat renewal process. None of this scheduling is taking place in a vacuum.

We should also stop acting like Notre Dame is invincible. It is not too long ago that NIU went into South Bend and won the game. To be clear, I would have been content having Mizzou instead of Notre Dame as a home and home, but this brings a different type of excitement.
 
#67      
Fighter of the Nightman
A 2-year series with Notre Dame does more for the program than sneaking into a bowl no one watches at 6-6. If this series specifically drops us to 5 or fewer wins in either season, we have not addressed way more pressing problems. I don’t want to feast on mediocre 6-win seasons we limped into by playing bad teams!
 
#74      
BretMyBeachHouse
BZuppke said:
My understanding was they were locked in with Purdue, MSU and Michigan that they did not want to play a fourth Big Ten team. They’ve rotated in Wisconsin, NW and tOSU recently so I guess it’s our turn.
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I always heard that they didn't want to give us any more publicity or credibility that might carve into their monopoly on Catholic League players.
 
#75      
BretMyBeachHouse
Fighter of the Nightman said:
A 2-year series with Notre Dame does more for the program than sneaking into a bowl no one watches at 6-6. If this series specifically drops us to 5 or fewer wins in either season, we have not addressed way more pressing problems. I don’t want to feast on mediocre 6-win seasons we limped into by playing bad teams!
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I'm very happy with the switch. However I absolutely think going to bowl games consecutively, continuing that streak, is more important than a game against Notre Dame.
 
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