Who cares about Miami?!?!? Sheesh.
And where is this talk about their fan base being more invested than ours coming from?? Haha. Basketball is not even CLOSE, so I have to assume it’s an assumption on football?!
Miami was coming off of an 8-3 2020 season, started the season ranked and went 7-5 this year, including 5-3 in the ACC and played in near perfect weather all year … and they averaged 43k. Meanwhile, Illinois had to fire our coach and went 5-7, averaging 35k. The last time we were coming off of a winning season and had a team ranked in the preseason, we averaged over 61k per game.
Comparing Illini football fans to programs who have been remotely competitive in the last three decades is asinine … we should be compared to the fan bases of Duke, Indiana and Wake Forest, lol. The fact anyone is still in the stands every week, let alone nearly always 40k+ for any name opponent on a halfway decent day speaks to our loyalty.