Big difference though is Virginia was horrible that year. I think KU will be good this year.
Pregame: Illinois vs Kansas, Saturday, September 7th, 6:00pm CT, FS1
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I believe the key in this Kansas game, and any game, to use our receivers height and hit the post or corner routes against the cornerback. Franklin is 6‘1“ and Elzy and Bryant are 6‘3“. We can use this to our advantage. Bryant‘s height advantage was apparent against Eastern Illinois University. Bryant and Luke both are great on the corner or flag route and I don’t think there’s a cornerback on any team who can stop it.
illiniswish09
- Northwest Suburbs
2011 Arizona State vibes… Need the place rockin, huge game
Dan
Admin
"Alex Faust (play-by-play) and Robert Smith (analyst) have the national television broadcast on FS1"
fightingillini.com
Illinois Hosts Kansas on FamILLy Weekend - University of Illinois Athletics
Fewer than 1,000 tickets remain as the Illini take on the Jayhawks for FamILLy Weekend.
fightingillini.com
Maybe, just maybe, the highest-paid employee in the state of Illinois is a bit more informed on the topic than you.
mhuml32
- Cincinnati, OH
Maybe it’s happened before but I can’t think of a single meaningful SEC starting running back from Bielema’s time that also played special teams.
The OT position is so important. Our O-Line play the first 6 games last year was just abysmal. Not gonna win all too many games with O-Line play like that.
But just getting two guys that provide stability at both OT spots in Davis and Priestly elevates that unit so immensely in every which way from a depth standpoint, quality, comfort, etc.
Real nice job by the staff to address that position in the off-season.
But just getting two guys that provide stability at both OT spots in Davis and Priestly elevates that unit so immensely in every which way from a depth standpoint, quality, comfort, etc.
Real nice job by the staff to address that position in the off-season.
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Gives me Leslie Frazier vibes
Maybe Bret is just trying to get KU to waste time preparing for it?
Joel Goodson
- dawgville
it's still super early, but it looks like the staff has hit a grand slam (for Illinois, anyway) with the 2 OT transfers. feeling really damn good about our OL. and we have a legit 2 deep finally
The only negative you can say about our bookend offensive tackles are that they wait until game time before they eat their breakfast. But they sure do love those pancakes.
Mr. Tibbs
- southeast DuPage
that would maybe apply if he was on punt receive team. I just can’t see that much upside to having him fly down and making tackles all the while fending off blocks .
just my opinion
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Resist temptation. We have more to loose than to gain from this.
This is shaping up to be one of my most difficult ticket tracking/attendance guesses. So many layered assumptions and bits of information to consider. To recap:
1. We expect a good crowd considering a Saturday night game with a 6pm kickoff against a ranked Power 4 opponent. AND Illinois had a strong showing in week 1 that provided no buzzkill heading into week 2.
2. There will be thousands of tickets given away to this game as part of two special events/promotions. Teachers are receiving free tickets and it's the annual high school Band Day where several area HS marching bands are invited to the game (free ticket) and they get to play with the Marching Illini at halftime.
3. The student turnout was reported very strong for EIU and will presumably continue for this game. The main student section was full and even the student overflow section 101 was reportedly "full" per a comment on the Tay and Piper radio show. (The tracking of student tickets is always black box since none of them publicly appear on the tickets site. My tracker always assumes a full main student section and a completely empty section 101 as a baseline. This is being adjusted more aggressively for this week.)
4. The Fighting Illini Football email that went out to season ticket holders claimed "LESS THAN 1,000 KANSAS TICKETS REMAINING." This claim was repeated by Bret Bielema during his press conference today.
Here is the current ticket tracker with some additional comments and caveats below:
I struggle to take at face value that there are less than 1,000 tickets available for this game, so this tracker flies in the face of what we're being told. The areas where tickets are being given away are the top 10-15 rows of sections 201-209; the top 10 rows of 112-120; and perhaps the top 15 rows of sections 101-109. Those are all rows where no tickets has ever shown available for sale in the weeks/months up to now.
I wanted to compare tickets remaining in sections where there are not large swaths of tickets being given away to a highly attended game last year: Wisconsin. As of tonight, there are 108 tickets remaining in sections 223-231 for Kansas. There were only 97 remaining ahead of Wisconsin. In sections 124-130 there are 38 tickets remaining for Kansas. There were only 23 remaining for Wisconsin. I think it's fair to say ticket sales are trending about like they were for Wisconsin, maybe a hair under, but add in the thousands of freebies that will be given away. My ticket tracker (51,734) and official guess (52,102) were light compared to actual announced attendance (54,205) for Wisconsin last year. If we assume that ticket sales are tracking about as they were for Wisconsin, plus another ~5,000 of free tickets given away, we could be talking about attendance above 59,000 which might prove out the math on "LESS THAN 1,000 KANSAS TICKETS REMAINING."
More to come later this week.
1. We expect a good crowd considering a Saturday night game with a 6pm kickoff against a ranked Power 4 opponent. AND Illinois had a strong showing in week 1 that provided no buzzkill heading into week 2.
2. There will be thousands of tickets given away to this game as part of two special events/promotions. Teachers are receiving free tickets and it's the annual high school Band Day where several area HS marching bands are invited to the game (free ticket) and they get to play with the Marching Illini at halftime.
3. The student turnout was reported very strong for EIU and will presumably continue for this game. The main student section was full and even the student overflow section 101 was reportedly "full" per a comment on the Tay and Piper radio show. (The tracking of student tickets is always black box since none of them publicly appear on the tickets site. My tracker always assumes a full main student section and a completely empty section 101 as a baseline. This is being adjusted more aggressively for this week.)
4. The Fighting Illini Football email that went out to season ticket holders claimed "LESS THAN 1,000 KANSAS TICKETS REMAINING." This claim was repeated by Bret Bielema during his press conference today.
Here is the current ticket tracker with some additional comments and caveats below:
I struggle to take at face value that there are less than 1,000 tickets available for this game, so this tracker flies in the face of what we're being told. The areas where tickets are being given away are the top 10-15 rows of sections 201-209; the top 10 rows of 112-120; and perhaps the top 15 rows of sections 101-109. Those are all rows where no tickets has ever shown available for sale in the weeks/months up to now.
I wanted to compare tickets remaining in sections where there are not large swaths of tickets being given away to a highly attended game last year: Wisconsin. As of tonight, there are 108 tickets remaining in sections 223-231 for Kansas. There were only 97 remaining ahead of Wisconsin. In sections 124-130 there are 38 tickets remaining for Kansas. There were only 23 remaining for Wisconsin. I think it's fair to say ticket sales are trending about like they were for Wisconsin, maybe a hair under, but add in the thousands of freebies that will be given away. My ticket tracker (51,734) and official guess (52,102) were light compared to actual announced attendance (54,205) for Wisconsin last year. If we assume that ticket sales are tracking about as they were for Wisconsin, plus another ~5,000 of free tickets given away, we could be talking about attendance above 59,000 which might prove out the math on "LESS THAN 1,000 KANSAS TICKETS REMAINING."
More to come later this week.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Our big advantage in this game:
It’s Kansas’ first road game of the year. Remember how unbeatable Kansas looked against us last year?
Their next game was their first road game of the year at 2-10 Nevada. They won that game by 7. Two weeks prior Nevada lost by 42 to 8-5 USC.
First road games can be brutal for college football teams.
It’s Kansas’ first road game of the year. Remember how unbeatable Kansas looked against us last year?
Their next game was their first road game of the year at 2-10 Nevada. They won that game by 7. Two weeks prior Nevada lost by 42 to 8-5 USC.
First road games can be brutal for college football teams.
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