My biggest remaining hope for attendance is that during the summer, this DID look like one of the coolest Illini home games to attend in several years (likely since Zook was here, honestly), so I am hopeful that a lot of out-of-town fans simply picked it as a weekend trip to Champaign and will therefore still show ... that certainly describes my wife and me!
I just hope the DIA still tries to promote the heck out of this thing and make sure Grange Grove is poppin'. Big Noon Kickoff pregame show or not, I'm sure there will still be aerial footage of Grange Grove and Memorial Stadium on that broadcast, as we ARE still the game at 11:00 am CST on FOX. Huge opportunity to showcase our gameday environment, which - unfortunately - is currently an afterthought in the college football world. Time to change that! I'm certainly excited to get on the road Friday.