Pregame: Illinois at Maryland, Saturday, October 31st, 11:00am CT, FS1

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#3      
PizzaHutParkingLot
Season 10 Finale GIF by Curb Your Enthusiasm
 
#11      
OrangeBlue98
Any reasonable chance for six wins and a bowl ride hard on this game. Those extra practices would be so crucial for Clayton’s continued development.
 
#13      
IlliniWatcher
Season on the line. And this is a tougher game than it looks, bye week, interim bounce, going on the road, handling the emotion of this week.

Coping with success is very difficult in college sports.
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True, but the guys have won 3 straight and even the bookmakers give us the edge...not a big edge at 1.5 points, but an edge nonetheless.
 
#14      
IlliniWatcher
I like this Clayton QB, freshman or not. One thing that occurred to me is that Clayton keeps putting up W's, and if Hauser is cleared to return, should Clayton play if the Illini go to a bowl game? Hauser, I think, has given the guys 2 wins, but Clayton has been the clutch player since Hauser's injury. And Hauser, from jump street, was known to be an interim QB for this year, while Clayton (I hope) is slated to stick around with Coach B for a while. If the Illini get to 6 wins - with Clayton - then Clayton should be put in whatever bowl we go to, as a reward.
 
#15      
DeonThomas
Here are the remaining games (ranked easiest to most difficult):

1. @ Maryland
2. Nebraska
3. @ Northwestern (they're about to face the gauntlet, so maybe?)
4. @ UCLA (with their back-up QB)
5. Iowa

Clearly, these next two are the easiest to win, on paper. After MD, the combined record of the next 4 opponents is 23-5.

Those final three appear to be pretty much a toss-up.
 
#16      
Dkayak
DeonThomas said:
Here are the remaining games (ranked easiest to most difficult):

1. @ Maryland
2. Nebraska
3. @ Northwestern (they're about to face the gauntlet, so maybe?)
4. @ UCLA (with their back-up QB)
5. Iowa

Clearly, these next two are the easiest to win, on paper. After MD, the combined record of the next 4 opponents is 23-5.

Those final three appear to be pretty much a toss-up.
Click to expand...
Interesting how with the NU exception, this is the order in which they’re played. Maybe we’ll keep getting stronger and rise to the challenges?
 
#18      
Second place is 1st loser
Vegas opening line......

Illini -3.5

(FRESHMAN QB NOT TRUSTED BY THE EXPERTS)
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Our fanbase is absolutely incredible. We have a nice win vs a severely, severely, severely shorthanded Oregon offense. If we removed Dixon and our other top two wide-outs......do we cross the 50? Those injuries happened, which allowed the absolute worst portion of our team, our defense, to be on a level playing field. They also missed 3 FG's. I want to be careful with how I approach this because while I don't want to throw cold water on a win that we'd never thought we have when the season started, OTOH.....we lost to Purdue, at Home and were in a shootout at MSU, where one ot the only reasons we won us because Pat Fitzgerald is an absolute moron with WTF that was on their two point conversion.

Clayton threw for 84 yards yesterday, which included a catch that was beyond amazing. That catch by Dixon was one of the best we'll see. Let's not act like the QB position still isn't an enormous question mark. Let's also not act like, mid week, before the Oregon player idiocy occurred, we thought we were going to lose my 6 scores.

24 hours later, we have some talking about bowls and blaming Vegas for not taking those factors into the equation.

It's a road game, they're coming off a bye in a game where an interim coach is stepping in, which ALWAYS creates a boost.......yes, this has bad potential for us.
 
#20      
altgeld88
ChiefGritty said:
Season on the line. And this is a tougher game than it looks, bye week, interim bounce, going on the road, handling the emotion of this week.

Coping with success is very difficult in college sports.
Click to expand...
Not much more to say than this. Maybe + Maryland players just got their coach fired so will probably have at least a bit more fire than they did a week ago before the bye week respite.

We’ll be there, loud and in orange.
 
#21      
lstewart53x3
DeonThomas said:
Here are the remaining games (ranked easiest to most difficult):

1. @ Maryland
2. Nebraska
3. @ Northwestern (they're about to face the gauntlet, so maybe?)
4. @ UCLA (with their back-up QB)
5. Iowa

Clearly, these next two are the easiest to win, on paper. After MD, the combined record of the next 4 opponents is 23-5.

Those final three appear to be pretty much a toss-up.
Click to expand...
I don’t know man I think I’d swap UCLA and Iowa even with UCLA’s back up QB. UCLA is currently #17 in SP+ and Iowa is #23 + UCLA is on the road and Iowa is at home + the back up QB has played pretty decent (beat Wisconsin and Michigan St with 462 yards passing, 1 TD / 1 INT).
 
#23      
OrangeBlue98
I honestly think this game is one of the most important of the Bielema era.

Even before all of the adversity, I thought 7 wins would be the benchmark. Win this game, and I think winning one of the last four to get to six wins and a bowl would be quite an accomplishment. It would be a positive sign of this program’s sustainability and ability to overcome significant adversity.

Have to win this game. It’s really important.
 
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#24      
Illini2010-11
DeonThomas said:
Vegas opening line......

Illini -3.5

(FRESHMAN QB NOT TRUSTED BY THE EXPERTS)
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I am seeing -2.5 Illini right now. Maryland has been a hot mess and have a new interim head coach. Maybe Maryland gets a slight bump there, as well as the bye week to prepare.

If the Illini team from yesterday shows up, it should be a double-digit win. We will know in the first 5 minutes if Maryland has completely packed it in.
 
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