Illini Football 2025

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#151      
IlliniInBuckeyeState
Gies Memorial Stadium Sellout Watch 2025 Season Recap

It was another fun and memorable home slate of games that featured:
- 6 wins. 12-2 at home over the last two years. We may be starting to turn GMS into a tough place for opponents to come win.
- 5 great weather days. I truly think the great weather for the other games added to the terrific gameday environments we saw. The Rutgers game was debatable, but for November, it was fine. For the sake of my countdown, I won't call it great.
- 4 sellouts. Amazing. When I started this tracking, a sellout seemed unachievable. To have four in one season felt like a huge step forward for this program and fanbase.
- 3 night games. Those are fun. Memorial Stadium under the lights is top notch.
- 2 Fox Big Noon Kickoff environments. We put on a great showing and it added palpable buzz to the gameday atmosphere.
- #1 hosted in a big ranked matchup. Wasn't the showing nor the result we wanted, but it was as big of a game and atmosphere that we've had here in many, many years (I'd say equal to the Rededication game vs Michigan in 2024).


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Average attendance was 58,381 this season, up from 54,750 last year. Total season was 408,454 - the first time above 400,000 since 1994. The increasing attendance and fan buy-in continues to be a tangible symbol of the growth of this program.

My (three) attendance guesses were all over the board this year. Clearly, I don't have the tickets sold estimations quite dialed in. 😅 That said, the main objective was to provide insights on the ticket sale trends, which I think was achieved. Thank you for those that followed along.

Here's to a great season of supporting our Orange and Blue! May we continue this momentum into 2026 and beyond!
 
#152      
Mr. Tibbs
IlliniInBuckeyeState said:
Gies Memorial Stadium Sellout Watch 2025 Season Recap

It was another fun and memorable home slate of games that featured:
- 6 wins. 12-2 at home over the last two years. We may be starting to turn GMS into a tough place for opponents to come win.
- 5 great weather days. I truly think the great weather for the other games added to the terrific gameday environments we saw. The Rutgers game was debatable, but for November, it was fine. For the sake of my countdown, I won't call it great.
- 4 sellouts. Amazing. When I started this tracking, a sellout seemed unachievable. To have four in one season felt like a huge step forward for this program and fanbase.
- 3 night games. Those are fun. Memorial Stadium under the lights is top notch.
- 2 Fox Big Noon Kickoff environments. We put on a great showing and it added palpable buzz to the gameday atmosphere.
- #1 hosted in a big ranked matchup. Wasn't the showing nor the result we wanted, but it was as big of a game and atmosphere that we've had here in many, many years (I'd say equal to the Rededication game vs Michigan in 2024).


View attachment 45398

Average attendance was 58,381 this season, up from 54,750 last year. Total season was 408,454 - the first time above 400,000 since 1994. The increasing attendance and fan buy-in continues to be a tangible symbol of the growth of this program.

My (three) attendance guesses were all over the board this year. Clearly, I don't have the tickets sold estimations quite dialed in. 😅 That said, the main objective was to provide insights on the ticket sale trends, which I think was achieved. Thank you for those that followed along.

Here's to a great season of supporting our Orange and Blue! May we continue this momentum into 2026 and beyond!
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thank you very much for your effort in doing this
 
#153      
mhuml32
lstewart53x3 said:
I was told reliably on this board that Jacas wasn’t having a very good season?
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I'm happy to take the heat here because I was vocal about Jacas' performance. My biggest gripe was the inconsistency and poor performance against the best teams this year. He's an excellent player and he'll be badly missed, but the team needed more from him in the biggest games.

Jacas had 8 of his 11 sacks against Western Illinois, Rutgers, Wisconsin, and Northwestern. He had .5 sack against Ohio State, USC, Indiana, and Washington.
 
#157      
Grandpa
mhuml32 said:
I'm happy to take the heat here because I was vocal about Jacas' performance. My biggest gripe was the inconsistency and poor performance against the best teams this year. He's an excellent player and he'll be badly missed, but the team needed more from him in the biggest games.

Jacas had 8 of his 11 sacks against Western Illinois, Rutgers, Wisconsin, and Northwestern. He had .5 sack against Ohio State, USC, Indiana, and Washington.
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Which is only logical. It would be pretty surprising to get a bunch of sacks against the top teams and be unable to do so against the bottom dwellers.
 
#158      
therealmiket86
TheChief4Life said:
Depending on when people said that, there's some stats to back it up.

I'm not here to knock on Jacas, as he has definitely been solid. However, I think a lot of the angst regarding how "good" he's been is due to the fact that he seems to just not show up in big games this year. Yes, he leads the B1G in sacks, but he got 6.5 of those sacks in the last 4 games. Against arguably the weakest stretch of our schedule. He had 5.5 through the first 7. His tackling numbers are way down too. Another weird side note: in our 4 losses, he only has 2 sacks... both against Wisconsin. He was a non-factor against IU, OSU, and Wash.

What I will say, however, is that I don't necessarily think he's had a down year. I think Henry hasn't utilized his presence correctly this year.
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You realize teams are game planing for him. We also have a DC that drops Gabe into coverage
 
#161      
Rap47
How many sacks did the rest of the team get? Illinois had t he worst pass rush in the Big 18. Jackas had 44% of the teams sacks. He got double teamed practically every play.
 
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#163      
TheChief4Life
Rap47 said:
How many sacks did the rest of the team get? Illinois had t he worst pass rush in the Big 18. Jackas had 44% of the teams sacks. He got double teamed practically every play.
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What's crazy is that last year we only had 29 sacks through the regular season. It's not like we were piling them up at some astronomical rate last year either.
 
#164      
kmunt09
IlliniInBuckeyeState said:
Gies Memorial Stadium Sellout Watch 2025 Season Recap

It was another fun and memorable home slate of games that featured:
- 6 wins. 12-2 at home over the last two years. We may be starting to turn GMS into a tough place for opponents to come win.
- 5 great weather days. I truly think the great weather for the other games added to the terrific gameday environments we saw. The Rutgers game was debatable, but for November, it was fine. For the sake of my countdown, I won't call it great.
- 4 sellouts. Amazing. When I started this tracking, a sellout seemed unachievable. To have four in one season felt like a huge step forward for this program and fanbase.
- 3 night games. Those are fun. Memorial Stadium under the lights is top notch.
- 2 Fox Big Noon Kickoff environments. We put on a great showing and it added palpable buzz to the gameday atmosphere.
- #1 hosted in a big ranked matchup. Wasn't the showing nor the result we wanted, but it was as big of a game and atmosphere that we've had here in many, many years (I'd say equal to the Rededication game vs Michigan in 2024).


View attachment 45398

Average attendance was 58,381 this season, up from 54,750 last year. Total season was 408,454 - the first time above 400,000 since 1994. The increasing attendance and fan buy-in continues to be a tangible symbol of the growth of this program.

My (three) attendance guesses were all over the board this year. Clearly, I don't have the tickets sold estimations quite dialed in. 😅 That said, the main objective was to provide insights on the ticket sale trends, which I think was achieved. Thank you for those that followed along.

Here's to a great season of supporting our Orange and Blue! May we continue this momentum into 2026 and beyond!
Click to expand...
That 8th win, and the memorable way it happened, is priceless for retaining many of the new season ticket holders (and potentially a few new ones). Left everyone wanting to come back!
 
#165      
The Ghost
STLini25 said:
How are those the best years? By what metric?
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Was wondering the same thing. Only 2 (1983 & 2007 (not listed)) those years were Rose Bowls and one was a Sugar Bowl (2001). The 1994 team went to the Liberty Bowl and went 7-5.
 
#166      
Battle89
The Ghost said:
Was wondering the same thing. Only 2 (1983 & 2007 (not listed)) those years were Rose Bowls and one was a Sugar Bowl (2001). The 1994 team went to the Liberty Bowl and went 7-5.
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Sources were all laid out a while back the last time this list was updated. While I don’t recall either, the poster here did cite his sources as by SRS, which I presume is the Pro Football Reference Simple Rating System.

You can Google that for all the details, but yes statistically by that measure the 1994 team was our best ever. And which leads to all the Tepper jokes on this site, one of which I just made yesterday or today.

Biggest head coaching choke job and waste of talent in Illinois history.
 
#167      
champaignchris
Illini in Italy said:
While Lovie was not the coach that Bret is, he brought in talent that eventually improved the program, including what 20 NFL draft choices, including 3 first rounders? Not the coach we wanted, but we wouldn't be here today without having him as a coach from 2016-2020. I still think Whitman chose wisely.


Choose GIF
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Because of the timing of Whitman’s hire, he was faced with the impossible choice of going another year with an interim coach, with all the recruiting negatives that went with that, or trying to hire the best available guy one week before Spring practice started, when all the best candidates were already committed somewhere.

The admin put him in a horrible situation due to waiting so long to can Thomas, letting the interim AD extend Cubit, and then taking half a year to finally complete his hiring.

I certainly had my problems with the way Lovie did some things, but all things considered, he left the program in much better shape than he found it, and handed over enough of a foundation to BB to build upon.
 
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