We just got some short but decent mention on ESPN’s Championship Drive
Week 10 Polls - Illinois #14 in AP Poll
We are into November and technically still alive in the National Championship picture. Amazing.
Best defense in the country statistically and accordingly to SP+.
Best defense in the country statistically and accordingly to SP+.
skyIdub
Winged Warrior
What if they dumped on us first?? /s
This stat keeps jumping out at me: Eight games, and defense gives up only six touchdowns. Not per game, but for all the games. Can the D keep firing like that? Why not?
I seem to remember something that the only touchdown scored against the Illini in the second halfs was the one by Indiana.
I seem to remember something that the only touchdown scored against the Illini in the second halfs was the one by Indiana.
Just win, baby, and the ranking will take care of itself.
Should be bulletin material at hoop center.
It’s official I just got an email from fighting Illini we are a football school now
Here’s the crazier thing: in four of those games, we haven’t allowed a TD at all.
Perspective: On November 17th 2018, less than 4 years ago, we gave up 7 offensive touchdowns in one game. Amazing turn around and hats off to this staff. They are legit.
We're all used to being beyond ready for basketball season to start, by this point in the football season. This year...I'm actually having a bit of trouble getting excited about it. Too much excitement for the football team! It's a new, but very good feeling
There’s a lot of talk about how well we disguise our coverages. Apparently we always look the same pre-snap before we move into what we’re actually doing.
Any football minded people got some examples of how that’s looked over the season?
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
I checked Sagarin's ratings this morning for the first time in a while. We're #22 there and #53 in strength of schedule. Was interested to see that Michigan's scheduling (mostly because of its games v. UConn, Hawaii and Colorado State) puts its SOS at #69. We're immediately behind 5-3 Mississippi State; its SOS is #5.
I would like to have seen stronger BT teams on our schedule this year (e.g., Penn State and an Iowa team that has a credible offense) to gauge just what we really have under the hood. But we'll see on Nov. 19. Despite the relatively weak schedule I'm optimistic that we can hang wire-to-wire with Michigan on the road if we clean up the penalties and don't call timeouts when our kicker is setting up for long field goals.
But 7-1 on Halloween? That is a treat indeed.
Illinivek23
- Gurnee
And we gave up 63 points in 3 games that year...crazy
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
Here are the best Illini football starts since 1917 (before then they played at most seven games per season):
1923: 8-0
1927: 7-0-1
1928: 7-1
1934: 7-1
1950: 7-1
1951: 9-0-1
1983: 10-1 (lost to Miznoz in Sept opener)
1989: 7-1 (lost to Colorado in Sept and then Michigan in game #9)
2001: 10-1 (lost to Michigan in Sept)
2022: 7-1
This fall's team is now tied with 1928, '34, '50, and '89 for the fourth best start in the past 106 seasons of eight or more games on the schedule.
Win v. MSU and Purdue and they're tied with '83 and '01 for the second best start in our history through 10 games. Only '51 was better.
Just mind-blowing what these guys and their coaches have done so far IMO, especially considering the starting point two years ago.
1923: 8-0
1927: 7-0-1
1928: 7-1
1934: 7-1
1950: 7-1
1951: 9-0-1
1983: 10-1 (lost to Miznoz in Sept opener)
1989: 7-1 (lost to Colorado in Sept and then Michigan in game #9)
2001: 10-1 (lost to Michigan in Sept)
2022: 7-1
This fall's team is now tied with 1928, '34, '50, and '89 for the fourth best start in the past 106 seasons of eight or more games on the schedule.
Win v. MSU and Purdue and they're tied with '83 and '01 for the second best start in our history through 10 games. Only '51 was better.
Just mind-blowing what these guys and their coaches have done so far IMO, especially considering the starting point two years ago.
I’m curious how relevant the advanced stat approach is to analyzing college football?
College basketball has more games and many more possessions per game, and even then, the advanced stats don’t become reliable as rankings or predictors until the end of the season. I get that things like turnovers do correlate to wins and loses in football, but the luck factor in college football turnovers has got to be pretty insane.
As near as I can tell, the top 4-5 teams are exponentially better than everyone else in college football. And that is pretty much the only reason that there is some predictability in who makes the playoffs every year. Advanced stats have made baseball nearly unwatchable, kinda of hoping they don‘t apply to other sports in the same manner….
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
It's a good question. What matters is how these rankings predict future outcomes. I believe the answer to that is "fairly well" but I've never seen independent conformation of it. I understand that the media and coaches polls get much more attention and influence recruits much more. I prefer something much objective, which is what Sagarin's ratings are. They're an order of magnitude more useful in comparing teams than the polls are. The delta between adjoining teams is important, and it's small. But there's a heck of a gap between 1-5 and 20-25.
Having said that, I don't mind Illinois sitting at 13/14 in the coaches/AP polls compared with 22 in Sagarin's stack.
I think the biggest advantage for our defense is that these teams with bad QBs can't run as easily as they can on other teams because Illinois has a pretty elite DLine, and our secondary has a lot of playmakers on it.
illini80
- Forgottonia
J Leman gave a good breakdown on this in a recent podcast with Werner. Sorry I don’t remember exactly which one it was.