Lambeau Field would like to have a word. The entire lower bowl is bleachers.
Illini Football 2022
- Status
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Benches with backs and cupholders is the highest synthesis, IMO
redwingillini11
White and Sixth
- North Aurora
This would go a VERY long way.
It didn't matter in the '80s, when I was a student, because we were standing most of the game, or too juiced to feel it.
I started to watched that last night about 11. Talk about total domination. Offense couldn't be stopped and that defense,man did they hit!! Can't believe he turned that team around so fast,too bad he couldn't sustain it.
1. You’d have to ask Bret that. I couldn’t tell you for sure. Probably a little bit of both of I had to guess.
2. Yes lol
ESPN.com article on best 2023 draft prospects and who could rise and fall (It's behind a paywall FYI): https://www.espn.com/nfl/draft2023/...ollege-football-teams-players-star-rise-class
They list Chase Brown as the top Illini draft prospect and the writer mentions that he has a Day 3 grade with room to push up boards.
The other B1G prospects and where they could see them going in the draft (if mentioned):
-Indiana: Taiwan Mullen, CB (Could be Day 2 pick if he stays healthy)
-Iowa: Jack Campbell, LB (Potential Round 1 talent)
-Maryland: Dontay Demus Jr., WR (Could potentially be top-50 pick if he and Tagovailoa can build chemistry)
-Michigan: Ronnie Bell, WR (Day 2 ability when healthy)
-Michigan State: Jacob Slade, DT (Potential riser with early Day 3 grade)
-Minnesota: John Michael Schmitz, C (Potential Day 2 prospect)
-Nebraska: Casey Thompson, QB
-Northwestern: Peter Skronoski, OT (Could be first OT taken in 2023 draft)
-Ohio State: C.J. Stroud, QB
-Penn State: Joey Porter, Jr., (Potential first round pick)
-Purdue: Aidan O'Connell, QB (Day 3 prospect with talent to rise with a good season)
-Rutgers: Avery Young, S (Day 3 prospect)
-Wisconsin: Nick Herbig (Day 1 draft potential)
They list Chase Brown as the top Illini draft prospect and the writer mentions that he has a Day 3 grade with room to push up boards.
The other B1G prospects and where they could see them going in the draft (if mentioned):
-Indiana: Taiwan Mullen, CB (Could be Day 2 pick if he stays healthy)
-Iowa: Jack Campbell, LB (Potential Round 1 talent)
-Maryland: Dontay Demus Jr., WR (Could potentially be top-50 pick if he and Tagovailoa can build chemistry)
-Michigan: Ronnie Bell, WR (Day 2 ability when healthy)
-Michigan State: Jacob Slade, DT (Potential riser with early Day 3 grade)
-Minnesota: John Michael Schmitz, C (Potential Day 2 prospect)
-Nebraska: Casey Thompson, QB
-Northwestern: Peter Skronoski, OT (Could be first OT taken in 2023 draft)
-Ohio State: C.J. Stroud, QB
-Penn State: Joey Porter, Jr., (Potential first round pick)
-Purdue: Aidan O'Connell, QB (Day 3 prospect with talent to rise with a good season)
-Rutgers: Avery Young, S (Day 3 prospect)
-Wisconsin: Nick Herbig (Day 1 draft potential)
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
All respect to Chase, but our best NFL prospect is definitely Keith Randolph, IMO
Nice write up on Terrell Jennings, the transfer CB from Minnesota St.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
As a freshman at Illinois in '84 I'd answer "Ohio" when someone asked where I was from. Then often the other person would say "Oh, I've been to Iowa. Did you grow up on a farm?"
Not kidding. It happened repeatedly. Head-scratching, that.
It was like anything east of Indy was that place on the map labelled "Here Be Monsters" and festooned with sea serpents. You can run with that if you like.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
That '99 Micron PC Bowl beatdown was delicious and epic. I had the good fortune of watching it that evening with my girlfriend at the time, a UVa grad, and several of her UVa classmates.
They talked trash pregame. My girlfriend was sufficiently cocky that she bet me a dinner at the top French restaurant in DC at the time. [Metaphor alert: it burned down several months later and I was unable to collect on the wager.]
Early in the second qtr they STFU. By halftime I felt like a sadist, such was my relishing of their anguish and shame. To this day it stands with the 2004 tourney beatdown of Cincy and the evisceration of WF at the Hall that December, as golden memories of the Illini crushing their enemies and seeing those dear to them bathed in tears.
Maybe so but my guess is that the writer of the article was looking more at draft eligible prospects. I guess Randolph may fall under that but I'm not sure.
That was one of my favorite games as well, after having lived in VA for a few years in the early 90's and listening to the tie-wearing UVA fans. It was a beautiful beat down.
This win was awfully sweet. It obviously didn't turn out this way, but between '99 and '01 I thought RT was going to be successful here for a long time.
Mr. Tibbs
- southeast DuPage
its hardly unprecedented in football (see Kansas 2007) , but it was mystifyingly strange how we were on such an upward trajectory from 1999-2001, and then all the wheels fell off all at once after that. Same goes for the Zook era right after the 2007 Rose Bowl year.
If we just go back only 20 years(or can go longer) Bret Bielema is the first respectable college coach we have hired that checks all the boxes. He talks the talk and walks the walk. Also surrounds himself with a great staff from top to bottom.
Lovie, Zook and Turner all checked off certain boxes and specialized in certain areas of the game. Definitely felt like when they got hired they were specialized as an offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, special teams coordinator, etc. It was how they were going to adapt to other areas of the game and who they would bring in to help them.
Lovie, Zook and Turner all checked off certain boxes and specialized in certain areas of the game. Definitely felt like when they got hired they were specialized as an offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, special teams coordinator, etc. It was how they were going to adapt to other areas of the game and who they would bring in to help them.
Illiniaaron
- Geneseo, IL
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
The Turner collapse is pretty much as simple as a pretty pedestrian overall talent level losing a superlative college quarterback and not replacing him adequately. We went from an A to a D at the most important position on the field and never fixed it.
Get Aaron Rodgers or Jay Cutler onto campus as Kittner's long term replacement as was agonizingly close and Turner might still be here.
On the other hand Ron Zook going 8-16 in 2008-09 with the players he had is one of the all-time great mysteries. There are easily 7-8 games in those two years there's no way on earth we should have lost.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
lol. Exactly how it felt. And Kittner killed a UVa lineman with a trident at some point IIRC.That 2nd quarter was ridiculous. From 14-7 to 42-7 before you knew it.
mhuml32
- Cincinnati, OH
This is an extremely lazy list. This reads as if the writer was trying to blend between which player on each team is the current star on the team and still has NFL hopes. A top-10 Michigan's best player is a 6-foot senior WR who just tore his ACL and has 27 catches the past two years? Nebraska's best player is a transfer QB who had a pretty meh last season at Texas? Aidan O'Connell is the best pro prospect on Purdue's roster? Slade is very similar to Rod Perry, that can't be the best pro prospect on a resurgent MSU roster.
You can extend that through 2011 re: Zook. A good coach wins 8-10 games a year with the talent Zook had.
Agree re: RT - if we land Rodgers or Cutler, RT probably retires from here after 20 years of consistent success.
- Status