Cha-ching
Illini in the Pros (Football)
A week late, but Pat Bryant returned from injury, had 4 catches for 31 yards vs Chargers. Finishes the season fourth on team in receiving yards.
Devon Witherspoon also finishes the season as the #1 rated corner on PFF (89.9 OVR grade).
How fun would it be to have a DEN-SEA Super Bowl !?
Devon Witherspoon also finishes the season as the #1 rated corner on PFF (89.9 OVR grade).
How fun would it be to have a DEN-SEA Super Bowl !?
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Right behind Bears vs anyone...
When the time comes Witherspoon projects to potentially be the highest paid CB ever (Subject to change).
Heck of a sell on the trail to have (At the time highest paid S ever) and then the highest paid CB the next year (Not sure if its one more after but still).
I heard his name called during the game & was like , “what ? “
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
People here or NFL draftniks?
Spoon is there with Corey Liuget and Rashard Mendenhall as the most obvious NFL studs I've seen at Illinois. And credit to Spoon he's already better than either of those guys were.
NFL draftniks, but also some Seahawks fans who weren't sure they needed him because of the emergence of Woolen.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Sure, I mean, it's a top 5 pick, the team's fans are naturally going to be focused on the team's biggest needs and wanting to address them. And they could have taken say Bijan Robinson or Jalen Carter at that spot who are also excellent players.
(The Seahawks had two 1sts in that draft and took Spoon and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, holy moly that's great work)
The questions about Spoon were his lack of bulk and whether he could play in a way that wasn't going to get him flagged for PI on every play. But the way he used his hands in ways that avoid refereeing indicators reflected his mastery of technique, and he used every ounce of his 180 pounds as violently as you'll ever see. Just a great football player.
I loved that draft process because there kept being these quotes from scouts in just disbelief at how flawlessly our defensive backfield executed every single snap, the tape munchers had never seen anything like it at the college level. Aaron Henry got his current job for a reason.
That secondary is one of the best in modern CFB history (Defense is up there in the ranks as well). Definitely one for the books. And it would've been even better had they gotten another key player or two in the recruiting process. Here's to hoping they have another dominant one soon with the talent they've gotten.
Sucks that team only went 8-5. It’s not just the defense, Chase Brown may have been the best RB in the country. I know yards matter more, but IW led the conference in receptions.
That secondary especially was extremely sound, both talent and technique-wise.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I know what you mean (I still get upset every time I see a pick play getting flagged), but that 8-5, and the battling, watchable 5-7 base camp built the year before, saved and reestablished this football program at a moment in the sport's history when the alternative path could have been virtually unrecoverable.
Those guys are heroes in my book and get a chunk of the credit for every win that comes after them in this era.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
I fully believe if that team had the same experience as this year’s team (if they were coming off the heels of a winning season), they would have won 10 games against that 2022 schedule.
Takes time to learn how to win.
Pretty much the inverse of the 2024 team. All five losses single digits, four of them by a single score.
I feel like where we struggled is not having another field stretcher at WR.
Williams was very good as a slot option, but that big play threat as an X receiver - like SR year Pat Bryant in 2024 - would've done wonders for that team. We legit may have gone undefeated.
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We were extremely talented, no doubt about it, and it's very disappointing how the season ended.
But we were one dimensional offensively, and like Iowa every year, that only takes you so far. Good for 8-9 wins a year, and that's the limit.
Brown was as close to a one-man offense as you could be. Without him, we were just not good (as we saw in the bowl game). Take away IW after that, and we had nothing.
We were a poverty program. I think Bret mentioned that around that time we were around 2mil in NIL and highly limited compared to our peers. To have that lightning in a bottle season, when the program desperately needed it, laid a massive foundation in the long run.
2024 was equally as important to re-establish the foundation after the step back in '23.
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Fair, but the counter would be that Iowa doesn't usually (of course there's exceptions) have BAD losses to teams they are substantially better than. I just don't think as a program we were used to the territory.
Michigan State was very bad that season, and came into our game left for dead. That was really the lone game that bothered me from that year. Indiana was just as bad of a team, but it was week 2, and we redeemed ourselves by rattling off six in a row. Purdue was a good team, and Michigan was a playoff team and we played our hearts out.
I've said this here before, but right before our game, Iowa went in and pummeled Purdue. I was looking at tiebreakers and standings all day that day and have it in my notes so that's how I remember. It was basically "beat MSU, and even if worst case happens and we lose to both PU and scUM, as long as Iowa wins out, we're in the BIG championship game."
The couple caveats with this ultimately was:
1) we also had to beat Northwestern, but that was the worst big ten team I've ever seen. There was basically zero chance we would ever lose to them.
2) Iowa did not end up winning out as they lost to Nebby in their season finale. We did, however, end up having to cheer for Iowa to lose because, well, we didn't beat MSU and therefore needed the three way tie between us, Purdue, Iowa... which also meant IU would also have to beat Purdue which didn't happen, etc, etc.
ANYWAYS, all that to say, that MSU game was pretty heartbreaking. Lots of people talk about that Purdue game, but for me it was MSU.
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Two things everyone should have learned from that MSU game:
1) Punter position is more important than you think (HORRIBLE plays by Robertson, just embarrassing)
2) Stalling out on 4th down could prove a catastrophe (we were 0/7, until one conversion in the final minute to make it 1/8)
When the guy talks about our team mirroring Iowa, those are two things that pretty much never happen for the Squakeyes. They play (sometimes overly) conservative, and are very disciplined on special teams.
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