Illini Football 2025

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#252      
Birdus
A lot of differing opinions about how this upcoming year shakes out. I think we get 10 wins again. I know what the over under is. I get that the Illini have sucked for years and usually are inconsistent. This just FEELS DIFFERENT. The BOWL Victory was our biggest bowl victory since WHEN? I will say 30 plus years. No one talks about that much. WHO DID WE BEAT? According to the critics, we defeated the BEST TEAM not to make the playoffs. If we can stay away from major injury to our high end players, we can definitely make a run to the playoffs.
 
#253      
IllinoisssssssVarsity
Fly Illini Fly! said:
This is not me saying he is assuredly #1, but I'd feel okay taking Luke against any of those guys. Very, very likely we'll have the best QB on the field in every game we play in this season. That carries weight.

Agreed with this assessment.
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The guy who is number 1 played HS down the road from me. I was not sold on him. Didn’t think he was gonna make it.


And this is why I stick to basketball
 
#255      
1970 John
Surprised GIF by Peacock

Way too early of course, but the man said what the man said.
Surprise
 
#261      
OrangeBlue98
Oracle21 said:
in 2024, Illinois went 10-3. But they trailed in the 4th quarter of 8 total games. If you are behind in 8/13 games in the 4th quarter, the chances of going 10-3 is pretty low. Illinois will need to be a much much much better team in 2025 to replicate 2024’s record. I think lot of prognosticators are looking at the 10-3, with the returning starter count and just blindly saying “yep possible playoff team”. Without looking into the real numbers behind the 10-3 and how IL got that record.
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Which is why I feel like even 8-4 would be a successful season. I don't think anyone looking objectively at this season would say Illinois dominated its way to a 10-3 record. I've said since the end of the bowl game that 8-4 would be a success for me because I'm looking for sustainable success. Following up last season with an 8-4 type of season would show me that the program is building something that is more consistent.

I can also look at what you wrote and come away thinking that Illinois found ways to win a number of games that maybe they shouldn't have won. This year may be a year where Illinois can control games more. I think that will happen.

What I don't want to see is another 6-6 or 5-7 season, and I don't think this team should be at that level this season.
 
#262      
the juiceman cometh
Oracle21 said:
in 2024, Illinois went 10-3. But they trailed in the 4th quarter of 8 total games. If you are behind in 8/13 games in the 4th quarter, the chances of going 10-3 is pretty low. Illinois will need to be a much much much better team in 2025 to replicate 2024’s record. I think lot of prognosticators are looking at the 10-3, with the returning starter count and just blindly saying “yep possible playoff team”. Without looking into the real numbers behind the 10-3 and how IL got that record.
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Well, that's the thing. When you return most of your key contributors, who will all be a year older, you actually do expect that kind of team to be much better. So to a prognosticator, you're seeing the close games and thinking, "those wouldn't be as close this season."

Then you look at the schedule. We had a favorable schedule last season. This season's looks better. No Penn St., no Michigan. We gain OSU, but lose Oregon.

You make it sound like it's strange to you that people are considering the possibility of us as a playoff team, but we were kind of in the discussion last season (though admittedly on the very outer edge of that convo), and we're returning a lot of starters from that team. It would honestly make less sense not to entertain the possibility of us as a playoff team.
 
#263      
lstewart53x3
Oracle21 said:
in 2024, Illinois went 10-3. But they trailed in the 4th quarter of 8 total games. If you are behind in 8/13 games in the 4th quarter, the chances of going 10-3 is pretty low. Illinois will need to be a much much much better team in 2025 to replicate 2024’s record. I think lot of prognosticators are looking at the 10-3, with the returning starter count and just blindly saying “yep possible playoff team”. Without looking into the real numbers behind the 10-3 and how IL got that record.
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Using Vegas’ O/U of 7.5 as the baseline, I’d put our percent odds at something like:

5 wins: 5%
6 wins: 15%
7 wins: 25%
8 wins: 25%
9 wins: 15%
10 wins: 10%
11 wins: 5%

That seems about right. A 50% chance of 7 or 8 wins, the most likely outcome. If nothing goes our way, 5 or 6 wins possible. If everything goes our way, 10 or 11 wins possible.

I agree with your premise though that we’ll likely need to be much better than we were last year for a similar or better record.

Last year we finished at #38 in KFord.

Arkansas finished at #37 and went 7-6. Nebraska finished at #39 and went 7-6.

So we were likely a 7 or 8 win team (second order wins had us at 8.2) that went 10-3.

To win 10 again this year and not have to rely on winning so many close games, we’d likely need to sneak into the top 15 in KFord.

But even then, it’s not guaranteed. LSU finished at #15 and went 8-4 in the regular season, 9-4 overall.
 
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#264      
kmunt09
It takes a heck of a team to routinely take care of Duke, Indiana, and Washington on the road; as well as USC at home.

Time will tell! 4-0 in these seems like a big ask, albeit possible. I would realistically think 3-1.
 
#265      
thefalcon5
lstewart53x3 said:
Using Vegas’ O/U of 7.5 as the baseline, I’d put our percent odds at something like:

5 wins: 5%
6 wins: 15%
7 wins: 25%
8 wins: 25%
9 wins: 15%
10 wins: 10%
11 wins: 5%

That seems about right. A 50% chance of 7 or 8 wins, the most likely outcome. If nothing goes our way, 5 or 6 wins possible. If everything goes our way, 10 or 11 wins possible.

I agree with your premise though that we’ll likely need to be much better than we were last year for a similar or better record.

Last year we finished at #38 in KFord.

Arkansas finished at #37 and went 7-6. Nebraska finished at #39 and went 7-6.

So we were likely a 7 or 8 win team (second order wins had us at 8.2) that went 10-3.

To win 10 again this year and not have to rely on winning so many close games, we’d likely need to sneak into the top 15 in KFord.

But even then, it’s not guaranteed. LSU finished at #15 and went 8-4 in the regular season, 9-4 overall.
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Without knowing how ford calculates his rankings, I think it’s more likely we play a below average big ten schedule rather than us being a true top 15 talent team.

By that I mean we theoretically could play a single preseason ranked team. (Obviously OSU will be) Duke and USC are fringe at best. I’d be surprised if any of the other teams ended in the top 25 and they definitely won’t start there. Thats gotta be one of the easiest schedules. Indiana/washington
Are next up and we might be neutral dogs to them (though I’d wouldn’t put us as that). Everyone else we should be preseason favorites regardless of venue.

Gotta have 8 wins as a floor for this year. That’s losses to osu, usc, duke, and one of the two toss ups. Anything else is a failure. I don’t see this staff and roster capable of that though.
 
#269      
Fly Illini Fly!
It's tough to say how capable this team is of that 10-11 win record, but the floor expectation is 8 wins. If it's anything below that I don't see it as a very successful season, especially considering the schedule (this is by no means a florida-type guantlet).

Of course if anything that signifies how the bar has been raised, but with that comes raised expectations.
 
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#270      
lstewart53x3
To me, this is as stress-free as a season can get. All I’ve ever wanted out of Illinois football was competent leadership and a healthy program. We now have both.

My guess is, we’ll win 7-10 regular season games and make a solid bowl at minimum with an outside shot at a playoff birth.

I’m just happy to be here.
 
#273      
Ander1345
#274      
AZILL
Could you imagine, 3 minutes to go in a tie game in the 4th quarter of our 1st entry in the CFP, and one of our players, (probably a lineman) drops to the ground having contractions???? Now, when I was in the U.S. Navy, we didn't have any females allowed on combat ships, but we did have berthing areas strangely enough, in fact, every ship had one.....
 
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#275      
OrangeBlue98
Every time I see this trophy, I continue to marvel at how it could go right into a high school human development class…..
 
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