Illini Football 2026

#129      
aaeismacgychel
Chief Piasa said:
I am, but that's probably why I don't remember.
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Great-Grandpa Piasa: “Back in the day I used to pay a nickel to sit on the 50yd line and watch Dick Butkus run around clotheslining people to a National Championship. Now that was football”
Great Grandkids: “Yeah, but what color pants was he wearing?”
Great-Grandpa Piasa: I… Someone get me my meds
 
#131      
JKR
Illini2010-11 said:
Wait, you are not 147 years old!?
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#132      
bluemountain
BZuppke said:
While winning brings more NIL don’t you think Josh and Bret are making the pitch to big donors now - we need more money to sustain what we did in 24/25. I would not be surprised if our NIL jumps up because of how we look and the taste of 19 wins in 24 and 25.
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If I'm a big donor, I say "no problem, I would love to stroke a check for $1M to help bring in better talent. Before I do that though, tell me what you are going to do to make sure I'm not wasting on my money on guys like TJ Taylor. How are you addressing your existing shortcomings in talent evaluation and development?"
 
#133      
illinoistradition
bluemountain said:
If I'm a big donor, I say "no problem, I would love to stroke a check for $1M to help bring in better talent. Before I do that though, tell me what you are going to do to make sure I'm not wasting on my money on guys like TJ Taylor. How are you addressing your existing shortcomings in talent evaluation and development?"
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To be fair, there were a lot of good programs ready to toss money to Taylor. He hasn't panned out. It happens. Tossing millions at unproven 17 year olds is what is really crazy, especially when they may transfer after a year.
 
#134      
bluemountain
illinoistradition said:
To be fair, there were a lot of good programs ready to toss money to Taylor. He hasn't panned out. It happens. Tossing millions at unproven 17 year olds is what is really crazy, especially when they may transfer after a year.
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True. Having said that, we clearly are not in as good a position as several programs that have comparable or less NIL $ available - Duke, Purdue, Minny, NW, etc. Where have we missed the mark and how do we plan to do better?
 
#135      
therealmiket86
illinoistradition said:
To be fair, there were a lot of good programs ready to toss money to Taylor. He hasn't panned out. It happens. Tossing millions at unproven 17 year olds is what is really crazy, especially when they may transfer after a year.
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What good programs were after Taylor? His other visits were Kentucky, Nc state and north Caroline. The reason we got Morris to flip from usc is that usc was backing off from him.

We tossed big time money at Champ Smith. I would much rather do that than go the juco route.
 
#136      
AssemblyHallForever
Josh is going to have to work really hard the next few months to rev up interest and money for the program. Playing younger guys now will give us a good look at what we have but I hope Brad gets Barnett ready to go next week and hands Clayton the wheel for the rest of the year.
 
#137      
therealmiket86
bluemountain said:
True. Having said that, we clearly are not in as good a position as several programs that have comparable or less NIL $ available - Duke, Purdue, Minny, NW, etc. Where have we missed the mark and how do we plan to do better?
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Purdue and Duke have cheaper rosters. If we can’t beat the teams that spend more we should be beating all the teams that spend less.
 
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