I think an 8-4 season would be more than acceptable to the fan base IF we win our bowl game. It makes a huge difference in the offseason with another trophy on Bret's desk.
Illinois #12 in Preseason Coaches Poll
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That was the very definition of a “death spiral.” My senior year was 1969, when we lost every game including 57-0 to Michigan.
I live in Pennsylvania now among all the Nittany Lions fans, and I’ve taken lately to saying “It’s a shame Illinois won’t get to play Penn State until the conference championship game.”
To the Ohio State fans I simply point out that in 2024, Illinois defeated the defending national champions when they came to our house, so you never know. Plus we’re better than last year.
And they’ve lost a lot of starters.
FeelYourPaign
- So Cal
This!
After literally decades of griping about boneheaded decisions, penalties, clock management, etc. it is so comforting to see steady progress every year in building a base of football awareness up and down the roster.
Just like "defense travels", smart play is a virtue... And we've not known it until recently.
This encourages the heck out of me
pruman91
- interviewing new NL's daily....I really really am
boneheaded decisions that showed a lack of discipline allowed by the coaching staff that were embarrassing to the Illini brand......
I'm more excited about this years team than I have been in a long time.......BB and staff have brought in an atmosphere of change that hopefully will erase the old thought of that's just " Illinois FB " and replacing that with " Illini FB being a force to be reckoned with "...................It's way past time to rise up and rub shoulders with the Elite programs and I feel that BB , staff and players will get us there and more importantly keep us there............I really really do..............
Joel Goodson
- how was I to know, she was with the Russians too?
underrated at #12? ($): https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6534866/2025/08/04/college-football-coaches-poll-texas-top-25/
yeah, I could get used to this (even though preseason polls mean squat)
yeah, I could get used to this (even though preseason polls mean squat)
Illini in Italy
- Illini HQ, Florida Panhandle
Username checks out
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
You don't have to tell me! I may not be old enough to remember some of those guys, but the first Illini football season I remember watching games with my dad was 2002 ... so the first four years of my Illini fandom featured a record of 13-45, zero seasons with 6+ wins and an average wins per season of 2.6! I genuinely remember thinking we were "kind of good" in 2002 simply because we weren't a joke. Then after a blip of success in 2007, it was back to being awful. While the older folks have seen more bad years, they also got to experience genuinely stable eras like the 1980s ... I was always so jealous of that until this.
The point is, past failure does not predict future failure if the fundamentals have changed. And Bret and Co. are a HUGE change from those staffs you mentioned!
I'm sorry, but 8-4 will be a dissapointment to me. I do not have a "unjustified expectations" persona. I am realistic. I agree that, from a historical perspective, Illini FB fans should be "relieved" 8-4 wasn't 5-7. But, I saw this team last year. They are solidly 2 deep everywhere (except probably QB, can't afford an injury there). There are too many contributors back from last season to ignore. Another year of progress under BB and his staff. I don't believe the final score of the bowl game against the Gamecocks was indicative of how much better Illinois was overall. I won't be upset with them if they aren't a CFP team, but I expect it. 8-4 won't do it. The stars are aligned for this season.
Your point is totally spot on IMHO... Coach B and Co. are the best overall staff we've had since Ray Eliot retired in 1959 IMHO... my enthusiasm is sky high, and my hope is that we can reach some very lofty goals before I get to 'game over'...You don't have to tell me! I may not be old enough to remember some of those guys, but the first Illini football season I remember watching games with my dad was 2002 ... so the first four years of my Illini fandom featured a record of 13-45, zero seasons with 6+ wins and an average wins per season of 2.6! I genuinely remember thinking we were "kind of good" in 2002 simply because we weren't a joke. Then after a blip of success in 2007, it was back to being awful. While the older folks have seen more bad years, they also got to experience genuinely stable eras like the 1980s ... I was always so jealous of that until this.
The point is, past failure does not predict future failure if the fundamentals have changed. And Bret and Co. are a HUGE change from those staffs you mentioned!
Yet ESPN doesn't think we're good enough to even be one of THIRTY-TWO teams that could make the CFP.
Please, Sweet Baby Jesus, let ESPN be wrong, I hate them so much...
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
8 wins is a very acceptable season to me, but it will still be a slight disappointment given the sky high expectations. It would simply mean that the Illini have no good wins or they lost a game or two that were unexpected losses. This team is built to win at least 9 games, but it is easy to see where they could get 4 losses. The road games at Duke and IU in September will be very important (need at least a split of those two games). I think the team has to be at least 4-1 heading into Homecoming vs USC. The schedule is much more manageable after the Washington game. It would not be completely surprising to have 4 or more losses if the team loses to both Duke and IU.
What I have a hard time grasping is the number of posters that would be happy with a 7 win season. Any team that is ranked in the top 15 by coaches pre-season to have 5 or more losses would mean that the team completely underachieved or they were completely overrated going into season. In either case, it is hard to not be disappointed as a fan. Everything was always pointing to 2025 being a very experienced team, and the schedule is ripe for winning a lot. 7 wins would put back-to-back seasons of winning football (something not seen in 35 years), but more is expected from this team. If the team does indeed underachieve with 7 wins, it is completely justified in being disappointed, but also appreciative to what Coach B has done for this program in bringing in these sky high expectations.
We should be entering an era where the floor of success is 6-7 regular season wins year in and out, but years like 2025 need to be seen as the seasons where we compete for a CFP slot. We have the talent, experience, and favorable schedule. Being completely out of the equation in early November is simply an underachievement and worthy of disappointment.
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
Oh I am optimistic. Cautiously optimistic. Bert is the best coach we've had since at least Mackovic & maybe on his way to being the best coach any of us younger than 80 have ever seen. I'd just like to see a solid season. That could be 9-3 or 10-2 or with a bad break it could be 8-4. Just establish that the program can at least be solid & competent when there is some expectation from the fanbase. Keep the momentum rolling.
Playoffs would of course be wonderful, but we could lose a couple we shouldn't, still have a good season & keep the program headed in a positive direction. That to me is the biggest key cause I can remember what those dud seasons do to the fanbase. Hype built up only to be let down does more to kill a fanbase than a perpetually mediocre to bad program. It's a lot of why our fanbase is so skittish at times. Myself included.
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
F*** ESecPN. They've got more pressing matters to worry about. Like how they are going to destroy NFL RedZone as soon as they get their hands on it.
"It's the lack of hope that comes and gets you." --Ted Lasso before the crucial Premier League game between AFC Richmond and Manchester City FC.
Vast difference between hope and expectation.
A lot of expectation on this board, that if not met, will end in despair and anger. That's what happens to unmet expectations.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
I've noted it before here and will say it again: if you'd told me in the fall of 1990 that Wisconsin would appear in a Rose Bowl within the next 20 seasons, let alone the mere four that it took them to climb that mountain, I would not have thought it possible. Props to UW president Donna Shalala for hiring the Miller Brewing marketing head as AD and Barry Alvarez as HC. Along with the Hayden Fry hire at Iowa in '78 and BB at Illinois (and perhaps Cignetti if he can sustain what he did last year for a decade) IMO these are the most program-changing hires of the past 50 years in the conference.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I've seen some people mention that none of our "top 25 wins" last year were against teams that finished ranked.
It's worth noting that after starting off 1-6, Kansas clearly got it together and won 3 of 4 games, including wins vs. #17 Iowa State, at #6 BYU and vs. #16 Colorado. Also, they had FIVE one-score losses, including a 2-point loss at #16 Kansas State that prevented a 5-game winning streak.
Michigan also looks SO much better in hindsight, and I think people put way too much stock in their home beatdown at the hands of Texas, a team that obviously proved to be a very, very good team. After losing to us, they finished the season 4-2, with the only losses being to #1 Oregon (we can't really judge that!!) and a 5-point loss at #8 Indiana, IU's closest game up to that point. Their wins obviously also included a stunner at #2 Ohio State and vs. #11 Alabama in the ReliaQuest Bowl.
Point is that we clearly beat some genuinely good football teams last year, and I didn't even mention the "crown jewel" of humbling South Carolina in the Citrus Bowl!
The flip lesson of this is that sometimes a team's record does not reflect how good a football team it is, and it's entirely possible we are exactly as good as we expect to be and yet will suffer a similar fate to Kansas.
Obviously hoping this is not the case, but having seen that happen I'm also not going to be freaking out if we play good football but we still end up not reaching the lofty win totals we all are expecting and/or hoping for.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Looking at the pre-season top 25 AP poll from last year, 13 teams that started the season ranked did not finish the season ranked and there were 9 preseason AP top 25 teams who finished the season 7-5 or worse:
#9 Michigan: 7-5
#10 Florida St: 2-10
#12 Utah: 5-7
#16 Oklahoma: 6-6
#17 Oklahoma St: 3-9
#21 Arizona: 4-8
#22 Kansas: 5-7
#23 USC: 6-6
#24 NC St: 6-6
I want 10 wins and a playoff game. Who doesn’t?
But good teams lose 5 (or more) games every year. To me, that’s not a failure because I don’t look at this season as our only chance to have a good one. I believe in the trajectory of this program. We will make the playoffs under BB. Will it be this year? Hope so. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
The last part is where I (and I'm assuming many other fans) might possibly differ in our confidence, which leads to a bit of nervous anxiety to take a clear step forward this season. I don't think we have ANYWHERE near the current level of recruiting and (more obviously) fan support if we do not have a total surprise season last year ... it provided the kind of momentum and hype that you often need to seize in a relatively short window. We crazies might know that Bret started implementing the building blocks for improvement the second he got here, but to the rest of the college football world? We went from a total afterthought to widespread program respect because of ONE year. That sounds dramatic, but it's really not ... the perception of Illini football before the KU win last year vs. right now is just simply night and day.
And I think a lot of us are confident in Bret's ability to keep this program stable, competitive and even "really good" (however one defines that) over the next decade plus, and we know a 7-5 season this year wouldn't materially derail that. However, I worry that this season - with the returning production, relatively new hype and fairly favorable schedule - is just TOO perfect of an opportunity to take what can only be described as a MASSIVE leap forward if we were to make the CFP. It would instantly erase any lingering doubts that last year was an exception rather than the new norm, and it would take what has been a huge increase in exposure/perception/street cred and multiply it tenfold. Could we recapture that a couple years down the line? Possibly ... but it's setting up REALLY nicely for us to do it RIGHT now, and it would just be so, so, so much better to capitalize on it while we know the opportunity is right there in front of us!
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
My point is that each and every one of those fan bases were disappointed with the way the season turned out. Michigan fans certainly were not happy finishing 7-5 (though beating Ohio State probably changed some perceptions of the extent of the failure). I am not saying that it is a complete program-altering failure not winning more than 7 games, but it is justifiable to be disappointed in the end result as a fanbase (the team will certainly not be happy with those results). I simply think it is weird to argue that a team as highly ranked as the Illini are pre-season, that we should consider it a good season to finish 7-5 (with likely 0 votes in the polls). This team is built to compete for a spot in the CFP, or is one of the dark horses in many of the experts' predictions. Going 7-5 is a fairly large underachievement to pre-season rankings.
There are certainly teams each and every year that are ranked highly but do not live up to expectations, and more times than not, they are considered disappointing. I want to be clear, going 7-5 is from an historic viewpoint, a good season; however, you can have a relatively good season that can still be viewed as disappointing as well.
I can remember that as recently as…last season…looking at the schedule and trying to find 6 wins to become bowl eligible. It’s nice to be able to be disappointed with 8 wins. I think 9 is the floor for this team barring a significant injury or two.
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