No need for mocking, I’d love to hear your opinion, and I’d respect it. But there’s more instate talent here, and they split it with MSST. They have a meh history, and so do we. They play on possibly the hardest division in football, and we play in … TBD but NOT harder than the SEC West. Whatever NIL money is there for a consistently top 15 Ole Miss program is easily matched by a top 15 Illini program… We have more alumni, richer alumni and significantly more non-alumni instate fans like me.
The only argument, IMO, that Ole Miss is a clearly better job is recent record … and I’m sorry, but that’s the logic that says Baylor is a better job than UCLA. Again, I’ll defer to actual insider information … but comparing Illinois today to Ole Miss today isn’t a argument by itself … Alabama basketball is NOT a better job than UCLA. And the pieces are there at Illinois at least as much as at Ole Miss, if you ask me.