Week 9 Polls - Illinois #23 in AP Poll

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#27      
GoodePodzMelendez
You can’t rely on the idiot writers and flunkies for the coaches with voting. I believe that voting should not happen until no earlier than week 5. Then maybe it might be more accurate. But you are correct, we need to wait until the CFP rankings.
 
#29      
the juiceman cometh
#30      
Fighter of the Nightman
I was going to look into this yesterday, but I forgot! Waking up on Monday and having both our football and basketball team ranked was a great feeling, and I couldn't help but think how rare that has been in my life as a fan! So, here are the Mondays where you got to wake up as an Illini fan with both a top 25 football and basketball team. (This was actually super, super easy to look up since our football team has mostly sucked while I have been old enough to watch!)

2025-2026
Oct. 20 - #23 Football, #17 Basketball

2024-2025
Nov. 18 - #25 Football, #25 Basketball
Dec. 2 - #21 Football, #19 Basketball
Dec. 23 - #21 Football, #24 Basketball
Dec. 30 - #21 Football, #22 Basketball
Jan. 6 - #21 Football, #13 Basketball
Jan. 13 - #21 Football, #19 Basketball
Jan. 20 - #21 Football, #17 Basketball
Jan. 27 - #16 Football, #18 Basketball

2022-2023
Nov. 7 - #21 Football, #23 Basketball

2001-02
Nov. 12 - #12 Football, #3 Basketball
Nov. 19 - #10 Football, #2 Basketball
Nov. 26 - #8 Football, #2 Basketball
Dec. 3 - #8 Football, #5 Basketball
Dec. 10 - #7 Football, #10 Basketball
Dec. 17 - #7 Football, #9 Basketball
Dec. 24 - #7 Football, #7 Basketball
Dec. 31 - #7 Football #7 Basketball
Jan. 7 - #12 Football, #9 Basketball

1999-2000
Jan. 10 - #24 Football, #22 Basketball

An admittedly random stat, but it's kind of a nice illustration of how drastic the improvement in the athletic department has been over the last several years. I remember wishing that I could have been older during the 2001 / 2002 years, when we were seemingly riding high at both sports. However, it seems football is in a MUCH more stable spot than it was circa 2001.
 
#31      
Guest
the juiceman cometh said:
The SEC has absolutely been a marketing beast. Like Talyor Swift. Is it good? Yeah, probably. Is it way overhyped? Absolutely. This is why you always need to hold your nose and root for Big Ten teams in the playoff (and Big 12/ACC/ND when they play against SEC).
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Sorry, I just can’t find my way to rooting for ND against an SEC team (or just about any other team). Both ND and whatever SEC team they play will both be overrated. ND is almost always overrated and almost always plays a soft schedule.
 
#32      
NarrowJ
The you-cannot-lose-that-badly-and-be-ranked crowd in shambles yet again

We have a 63-10 outlier, albeit against #2, yet we had like 7 injured DBs.. wonder if that is and will be taken into account. I’m guessing with AP voters it is not.
 
#33      
BalloonsTheElephant
NarrowJ said:
The you-cannot-lose-that-badly-and-be-ranked crowd in shambles yet again

We have a 63-10 outlier, albeit against #2, yet we had like 7 injured DBs.. wonder if that is and will be taken into account. I’m guessing with AP voters it is not.
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I know this is rare, but I agree with you here. We were beyond injured.

Since then we soundly USC at home if we didn't fumble twice a combined 5 yards from the goal line.

We pummeled Purdue on the road. We looked more than competent against OSU and if it's not for an all-time screw up at the one yard line and going for it instead of a field goal late, it's 34-23.

I think we've proven that Indiana was a fluke due to having our entire 2 deep out basically in the secondary.

I still think OSU and Indiana beat us most of the time, but the final score at Indiana was the outlier, worst case scenario game for us.
 
#34      
the juiceman cometh
Guest said:
Sorry, I just can’t find my way to rooting for ND against an SEC team (or just about any other team). Both ND and whatever SEC team they play will both be overrated. ND is almost always overrated and almost always plays a soft schedule.
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If ND is overrated and then loses to an SEC team then the SEC gets outsized credit for that win and it the feeds the "it just means more" machine. If ND gets knocked off, it should be by a Big Ten team.

Also, ND being overrated and taking 1 playoff spot is a lot better than the SEC being overrated and taking 5 or 6 (which sounds implausible but SEC stans will argue this is what they deserve with a straight face).
 
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#35      
Battle89
NarrowJ said:
The you-cannot-lose-that-badly-and-be-ranked crowd in shambles yet again

We have a 63-10 outlier, albeit against #2, yet we had like 7 injured DBs.. wonder if that is and will be taken into account. I’m guessing with AP voters it is not.
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Optics matter, simple as that. And for the majority of human voters, they are shallow optics, what was the score and who did you play. And I'm not sure why I or we should expect more, tracking the top 30 or so teams down to the level that we do the Illini here would be impossible. The computers do that already, but that is the point of a human poll, to not just mimic the computer modeling.

There can be legitimate debate about where we should truly rank, and whether or not injuries, etc., should be taken into account. But it is highly likely we would be somewhere in the middle teens if we had put up any kind of fight in Bloomington, and maybe a bit higher with some better ball protection against OSU. Basically "but we only lost to #1 and #2" (normally a VERY legit argument) is offset by "yeah, but by 71 points".

Add in the pro-SEC bias and here we are.
 
#36      
NarrowJ
Battle89 said:
Optics matter, simple as that. And for the majority of human voters, they are shallow optics, what was the score and who did you play. And I'm not sure why I or we should expect more, tracking the top 30 or so teams down to the level that we do the Illini here would be impossible. The computers do that already, but that is the point of a human poll, to not just mimic the computer modeling.

There can be legitimate debate about where we should truly rank, and whether or not injuries, etc., should be taken into account. But it is highly likely we would be somewhere in the middle teens if we had put up any kind of fight in Bloomington, and maybe a bit higher with some better ball protection against OSU. Basically "but we only lost to #1 and #2" (normally a VERY legit argument) is offset by "yeah, but by 71 points".

Add in the pro-SEC bias and here we are.
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100%
 
#37      
the juiceman cometh
Battle89 said:
Optics matter, simple as that. And for the majority of human voters, they are shallow optics, what was the score and who did you play. And I'm not sure why I or we should expect more, tracking the top 30 or so teams down to the level that we do the Illini here would be impossible. The computers do that already, but that is the point of a human poll, to not just mimic the computer modeling.

There can be legitimate debate about where we should truly rank, and whether or not injuries, etc., should be taken into account. But it is highly likely we would be somewhere in the middle teens if we had put up any kind of fight in Bloomington, and maybe a bit higher with some better ball protection against OSU. Basically "but we only lost to #1 and #2" (normally a VERY legit argument) is offset by "yeah, but by 71 points".

Add in the pro-SEC bias and here we are.
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For sure it matters, but do we really think we'd be a middle teens or higher ranking just by not getting blown out by Indiana? The only 2-loss team that's ranked in the top-15 is ND - and they were preseason #6 (preseason rankings inertia is real) and we all know historically get very preferential ranking. The next closest 2-loss team is Tennessee at #17, and even if we'd lost to IU by 14 instead of by 53 (comfortable but not blowout), I doubt we'd be ranked higher than them. They lost to UGA by 3 in OT and lost to Bama by 17. That along with the SEC bias, still probably puts them ahead of us. I think we'd be ranked higher than we are now, but probably only a couple spots higher.
 
#38      
Battle89
the juiceman cometh said:
For sure it matters, but do we really think we'd be a middle teens or higher ranking just by not getting blown out by Indiana? The only 2-loss team that's ranked in the top-15 is ND - and they were preseason #6 (preseason rankings inertia is real) and we all know historically get very preferential ranking. The next closest 2-loss team is Tennessee at #17, and even if we'd lost to IU by 14 instead of by 53 (comfortable but not blowout), I doubt we'd be ranked higher than them. They lost to UGA by 3 in OT and lost to Bama by 17. That along with the SEC bias, still probably puts them ahead of us. I think we'd be ranked higher than we are now, but probably only a couple spots higher.
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All valid, and maybe I was best-casing it a bit. But I really think that only losing to 1 and 2 is a huge national narrative if we had been competitive in those two losses. And I'm sure you've seen the posts today about the 5/11 and 10/10 B1G vs SEC 5-2 biased rankings.

So yes, I think we'd be the beneficiary of the above two arguments plus some more from the anti-ND crowd. At least to the lower teens.

May also be wishful thinking on my part, because I wanted that extra cushion as I do not expect a win in Seattle. But if we do win then I'll double down on what I said above, that damn 53-pound Indiana anchor really pulling us below where we should be.
 
#41      
lstewart53x3
One stat showing the bias towards the SEC in the AP Poll is the AP Poll vs KFord’s most deserving (analytic based resume) rankings:

IMG_0365.jpeg


B1G teams are -10, -6, -1, +2, +6 for a total of -9.
SEC teams are -3, -1, -1, -1, +3, +4, +9 for a total of +10.

That’s a 19 point swing between the B1G and SEC.
 
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