Illini Football 2024

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#51      
One of my favorites is A Christmas Carol starring Alastair Sim. Yes, I'm getting up there.
Santa Jaws! I’ll be accepting thank you’s after you watch it.

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#55      
Santa’s Slay… starring Bill Goldberg as Santa. Great opening sequence with the great James Caan amongst others. Christmas is over but 10/10 if you still have the holiday spirit.
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#62      
2024 Illinois football is the 7th-best Illinois team since the slush fund scandal by SRS rating.

1. 1994
2. 1989
3. 1983
4. 2001
5. 1999
6. 1982
7. 2024
8. 2022
9. 1984
10. 1976
11. 1990
12. 1995
13. 2007
14. 1973
15. 2010

This could inch forward a little more depending on remaining CFB playoff (Penn State, Oregon) and bowl games (Minnesota), so there's a chance they pass the '82 Illinois team.
 
#64      
A couple thoughts.

Avoiding injuries probably relies on luck more than anything else. Nevertheless, good conditioning is a factor as well. This team really avoided injuries that can easily derail teams that don't have depth like the blue bloods. So hats off to the trainers.

Also, one side effect of this win yesterday is that Bielema's name is going to pop up in off season coaching searches more often. This season and yesterday's win in particular probably rinses out about all the stink that he may have been left from the Arkansas years.
 
#67      
A couple thoughts.

Avoiding injuries probably relies on luck more than anything else. Nevertheless, good conditioning is a factor as well. This team really avoided injuries that can easily derail teams that don't have depth like the blue bloods. So hats off to the trainers.

Also, one side effect of this win yesterday is that Bielema's name is going to pop up in off season coaching searches more often. This season and yesterday's win in particular probably rinses out about all the stink that he may have been left from the Arkansas years.
I agree. However, I would add we had two pretty big injuries to KF and DR.

Thank goodness we had the depth at RB…I was a little more concerned about LB but dudes stepped up big late in the season.
 
#68      
2024 Illinois football is the 7th-best Illinois team since the slush fund scandal by SRS rating.

1. 1994
2. 1989
3. 1983
4. 2001
5. 1999
6. 1982
7. 2024
8. 2022
9. 1984
10. 1976
11. 1990
12. 1995
13. 2007
14. 1973
15. 2010

This could inch forward a little more depending on remaining CFB playoff (Penn State, Oregon) and bowl games (Minnesota), so there's a chance they pass the '82 Illinois team.
Brett has 2 of the top 8 teams we’ve had in the past 50 years.
 
#69      
SRS is missing out on some great teams prior to the '80s.
 
#71      
Illini fans: "Gosh I wish we could be good."
<Team gets good>
Illini fans: "Oh no! We're good, now our coach will be stolen."
You've just described every program that isn't Alabama, Notre Dame, Georgia, LSU, and now maybe Southern California (not that wanna-be USC with the nut case coach). Fortunately, I genuinely feel like Bret isn't going anywhere. He's already made that type of jump and realized the grass isn't always greener on the other side.
 
#72      
You've just described every program that isn't Alabama, Notre Dame, Georgia, LSU, and now maybe Southern California (not that wanna-be USC with the nut case coach). Fortunately, I genuinely feel like Bret isn't going anywhere. He's already made that type of jump and realized the grass isn't always greener on the other side.
I think you're right. He wants his name to be thought of like Alvarez was during peak Wisconsin.
Raccoon Sprocket GIF by Rocket City Trash Pandas
 
#74      
This might be the best time in the last 60 years to be a non-blue blood and your sitting head coach is unanimously embraced by the fanbase. The substantial increase in NIL funding (and the necessity to maximize it) has made firing a coaching staff and hiring a new one very expensive in ways not foreseen before.

Let's say Wisconsin wanted to fire Fickell and hire Bielema, they would need to come up with ~$55 million to fire Fickell and his staff. Then, they would need to pay Bielema's buyout, which is likely ~$25-30 million for him and a few key staff members that have years remaining on his contract. Then it would require another ~$12 million to hire the remaining staff. Add in the $22 million in NIL payments (with a huge helping of that going to football), and it's a $100 million cost for a good P4 program to fire their staff and hire Bielema and his surrounding group. That's the equivalent of an entire year's worth of B1G TV revenue per school.

Schools are way more interested in NIL funding right now than coaching hires. The best job open this year was North Carolina and they hired a guy with no buyout. Lots of schools with hot seat coaches found it much cheaper and promising to keep them and pour more money into their NIL apparatus (Arkansas, Oklahoma State, Florida, TCU).

It couldn't be better timed to have Bielema and the team showing this much success. Certainly he will get raises, but I'm guessing he's way more interested in the university finding more and more ways to increase the NIL funding so he can have more success in the long-term than getting an extra $100k in compensation.
 
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