Looking at the final ratings across the board, I'd say the team that ended up with the best case of getting left out of the playoff unfairly was...BYU? 11-2, lost out on the B12 championship on a weird tiebreaker, didn't get a second look at the playoffs because the B12 was perceived as down by AP voters, but they were right with the B1G overall and well ahead of the ACC (where SMU and Clemson finished outside the top 15 in composite metrics). Finished 10th in composites, won their bowl game.
Illinois #16 in Final AP Poll
- Status
100%, ending up ranked a 2nd straight season is pretty important. This program has had a handful of seasons like this that ended up being false starts, 2007 and 2001 being the prime examples. Dark days following the optimism of those two seasons for the Zook and Turner regimes. I'm confident Bielema will do better with this momentum. Next season could end up being the most important in his tenure here.
SMU screwed BYU by losing the conference title game (though who knows, the committee probably puts in another SEC instead anyway). Probably should have been BYU over a Clemson team that had 3 losses, including home games to Louisville and South Carolina, and other than SMU had no other impressive wins.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Yep, and both just slowly KILLED momentum in maintaining our fan base ... which was always important, but now it is even more essential in the era of NIL and conference realignment. Attendance ALWAYS somewhat lags success (e.g., our attendance in 2008 for basketball was better than in 2005, simply because season ticket sales improved as an AFTER effect of our 2001-2005 stretch), but here is the attendance in the following formats in the years after those stretches:
YEAR: Low Attendance - Average Attendance - High Attendance
2001: 43,232 - 54,949 - 70,904
2002: 46,258 - 55,199 - 69,249
2003: 38,688 - 50,961 - 58,495
2004: 41,458 - 48,626 - 55,725
2005: 31,465 - 47,852 - 52,633 (attendance finally craters after two awful seasons)
2007: 48,301 - 54,938 - 57,078 (NOTE: capacity was 57,078 due to renovations)
2008: 58,632 - 61,707 - 62,870 (post-Rose Bowl bump)
2009: 48,538 - 59,545 - 62,870
2010: 50,371 - 54,188 - 62,870
2011: 42,212 - 50,709 - 60,670 (capacity reduced to current 60,670)
So as you can see, while the average attendance indeed decreases, it's that minimum that really craters when fans lose hope. I think that is because ANY team with good attendance relies on a high floor provided by a strong season ticket base, and that takes 2-3 years of excitement building to get that number up. Looking at 2008 vs. 2011, you still have the opportunity for a sellout in both years, but the attendance floor in 2011 is over 16,000 lower than 2008 ... because fans had been slowly jumping ship for years.
The fact is that we cannot rely on diehards. In a state our size, we need to be creating a bigger bandwagon, and Bret has done an amazing job at that! For reference, here is the same format for our 2022 and beyond seasons:
2022: 33,669 - 43,048 - 56,092
2023: 42,310 - 49,698 - 54,205 (post-ReliaQuest Bowl bump)
2024: 43,849 - 54,750 - 60,670 (avoided a falloff from 2023 by being good)
That is true, sustained improvement that will almost certainly avoid any falloff next year simply because we didn't allow the 2023 disappointment to derail a great season this year. Follow up 2025 with another similar campaign, and we can start talking about regularly selling out every home game.
We're going to start off next season ranked. Looking at the schedule I think there is a decent possibility we are 6-0 hosting Ohio St. Good chance at Gameday coming into town if that's the case. Would be huge for the program's momentum.Yep, and both just slowly KILLED momentum in maintaining our fan base ... which was always important, but now it is even more essential in the era of NIL and conference realignment. Attendance ALWAYS somewhat lags success (e.g., our attendance in 2008 for basketball was better than in 2005, simply because season ticket sales improved as an AFTER effect of our 2001-2005 stretch), but here is the attendance in the following formats in the years after those stretches:
YEAR: Low Attendance - Average Attendance - High Attendance
2001: 43,232 - 54,949 - 70,904
2002: 46,258 - 55,199 - 69,249
2003: 38,688 - 50,961 - 58,495
2004: 41,458 - 48,626 - 55,725
2005: 31,465 - 47,852 - 52,633 (attendance finally craters after two awful seasons)
2007: 48,301 - 54,938 - 57,078 (NOTE: capacity was 57,078 due to renovations)
2008: 58,632 - 61,707 - 62,870 (post-Rose Bowl bump)
2009: 48,538 - 59,545 - 62,870
2010: 50,371 - 54,188 - 62,870
2011: 42,212 - 50,709 - 60,670 (capacity reduced to current 60,670)
So as you can see, while the average attendance indeed decreases, it's that minimum that really craters when fans lose hope. I think that is because ANY team with good attendance relies on a high floor provided by a strong season ticket base, and that takes 2-3 years of excitement building to get that number up. Looking at 2008 vs. 2011, you still have the opportunity for a sellout in both years, but the attendance floor in 2011 is over 16,000 lower than 2008 ... because fans had been slowly jumping ship for years.
The fact is that we cannot rely on diehards. In a state our size, we need to be creating a bigger bandwagon, and Bret has done an amazing job at that! For reference, here is the same format for our 2022 and beyond seasons:
2022: 33,669 - 43,048 - 56,092
2023: 42,310 - 49,698 - 54,205 (post-ReliaQuest Bowl bump)
2024: 43,849 - 54,750 - 60,670 (avoided a falloff from 2023 by being good)
That is true, sustained improvement that will almost certainly avoid any falloff next year simply because we didn't allow the 2023 disappointment to derail a great season this year. Follow up 2025 with another similar campaign, and we can start talking about regularly selling out every home game.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Yeah, one more note on attendance, too. Last year's home opener on a Thursday night at 8:00 pm vs. EIU dragged down our average. We drew just under 44k for that game (a number that would have no-doubt been in the low 30k range when Bret got here...), and our lowest crowd for the rest of the season was 51,498 vs. CMU. If you only count our Saturday home games, we averaged over 56k.
Given that we drew almost 49k for the 2023 home opener vs. Toledo and how much enthusiasm, season ticket sales and hype continues to grow, I would not put it past our fans to be within striking distance of a sellout for the home opener vs. Western Illinois if it is a night game. And that is incredible.
How about gameday for USC? Maybe they'll sneak into the rankings by then? So hard to know.
May need a new stadium project soon.
Horseshoe!!
Well I hope from a selfish standpoint they move the WIU game to Thursday or Friday. I just got a "Save the Date" notice from a family friend for 8/30.
It'll give an extra day two to prep for Duke. That's the angle Illinois needs to take on why they moved up the game.
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SuperMetroid
- Evanston
I was curious who we'd potentially be up against for Gameday coming to Champaign:
Week 5 vs. USC
Auburn @ Texas A&M
Oregon @ Ped St.
LSU @ Ole Miss
Alabama @ Georgia (ugh)
Week 7 vs.O$U
Georgia @ Auburn
Oklahoma vs. Texas
Florida @ Texas A&M
S.Carolina @ LSU
Michigan @ USC
Can't see them coming to C-U for any of our other home opponents. The O$U game is for sure a possibility considering we'd both likely be in the top 10 if we're undefeated.
mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
Yep, and both just slowly KILLED momentum in maintaining our fan base ... which was always important, but now it is even more essential in the era of NIL and conference realignment. Attendance ALWAYS somewhat lags success (e.g., our attendance in 2008 for basketball was better than in 2005, simply because season ticket sales improved as an AFTER effect of our 2001-2005 stretch), but here is the attendance in the following formats in the years after those stretches:
YEAR: Low Attendance - Average Attendance - High Attendance
2001: 43,232 - 54,949 - 70,904
2002: 46,258 - 55,199 - 69,249
2003: 38,688 - 50,961 - 58,495
2004: 41,458 - 48,626 - 55,725
2005: 31,465 - 47,852 - 52,633 (attendance finally craters after two awful seasons)
2007: 48,301 - 54,938 - 57,078 (NOTE: capacity was 57,078 due to renovations)
2008: 58,632 - 61,707 - 62,870 (post-Rose Bowl bump)
2009: 48,538 - 59,545 - 62,870
2010: 50,371 - 54,188 - 62,870
2011: 42,212 - 50,709 - 60,670 (capacity reduced to current 60,670)
So as you can see, while the average attendance indeed decreases, it's that minimum that really craters when fans lose hope. I think that is because ANY team with good attendance relies on a high floor provided by a strong season ticket base, and that takes 2-3 years of excitement building to get that number up. Looking at 2008 vs. 2011, you still have the opportunity for a sellout in both years, but the attendance floor in 2011 is over 16,000 lower than 2008 ... because fans had been slowly jumping ship for years.
The fact is that we cannot rely on diehards. In a state our size, we need to be creating a bigger bandwagon, and Bret has done an amazing job at that! For reference, here is the same format for our 2022 and beyond seasons:
2022: 33,669 - 43,048 - 56,092
2023: 42,310 - 49,698 - 54,205 (post-ReliaQuest Bowl bump)
2024: 43,849 - 54,750 - 60,670 (avoided a falloff from 2023 by being good)
That is true, sustained improvement that will almost certainly avoid any falloff next year simply because we didn't allow the 2023 disappointment to derail a great season this year. Follow up 2025 with another similar campaign, and we can start talking about regularly selling out every home game.
We are a couple months away from folks building a regression model to prediction 2025 game and season attendance.
Congrats to the coaches and the team for a successful season. Looking forward to the 25 season.
I really think we need to find out what our real attendance numbers can be if we have a decent team. maybe that takes 3-4 more years.
In the mid 1980's , we drew above 70,000 often. If that is where we can be on a consistent basis, we need to plan for that.
Redoing the south endzone portion of the stadium is the easiest space to get seats. Especially as we have under allocated spacing for fannies as is everywhere else. Proper spacing on the bleachers is way too narrow. We easily could lose 5000 seats if we gave everyone 2" more space.
1. get a handle on a more likely true attendance number in line with Wiscy, MSU & Iowa . Maybe that takes 2-3 more years.
2. re allocate bleacher seating based on the as$ size of todays football fan
3. seriously consider lowering the field 12'-15' . I just dont believe RG's statements from 25 year ago
4. Re-do the horseshoe in line with the grandeur of the building
5. make everything fan friendly - space to hang out during the game. I dont smoke, but could a smokers area legally be part of this?
6. line up a few mega mega donors to fund a big portion of this
7. strategically plant some 8" trees in our "grove"
8. DO IT RIGHT
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Kinda hope we can use the SEC model.
I remember well the '63 team ranked #3. Butkus was a beast at middle backer. They used to use him at center when we had the ball inside opponents 5 yd. line. He paved the way for a QB sneak. Don't hold me to this, but I think Custardo was QB and Grabowski was a RB. He too was an All-American.
Mike Taliaferro( pronounced Toliver, never understood that) was the starting QB and Fred Custardo played about 25% of the snaps. As a side note, Custardo died at a very young age, from a fall from a third-story apartment balcony while attempting to jump from his neighbor's balcony to his own one snowy night. An additional side note on Custardo--he got his bell rung one game at home. As he was lying on the ground face down, motionless, his mother ran onto the field and knelt next to him. A photographer captured that scene and the photo appeared in just about every newspaper in the US.
Just the musings of a geezer
aiwpfan
- Springfield, Il
Speaking of geezer, I was at that game.
aiwpfan
- Springfield, Il
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
"only stunned and remained in the game"...my how times have changed
TentakilRex
- Land O Insects between Quincy-Macomb-Jacksonville
There is one poll/power ranking from a well podcaster and CBS employee that might have shafted the Illini
That guy's an idiot who is blatantly engagement farming.
- Status