ILL expects 18 starters to return.
- Thread starter phatcat_rivals223240
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It was clear that Bielema going to Champaign wasn’t a good thing for Northwestern. They will be good as long as he is there.
Would be great if we could get good again at the same time and make the rivalry something truly meaningful.
Would be great if we could get good again at the same time and make the rivalry something truly meaningful.
Who’s this guy? Mt Carmel standout, 4 yrs eligibility, HS QB but listed as ATH. Maybe another Ebert or Peterman type WR?
Agree. I always considered Illinois to be a sleeping giant and just thought it was funny how they kept misfiring. Let's hope we haven't effectively flipped the script.
Bert has done a good job and deserves credit. However, it is still Central Illinois!
They have done quite well in the transfer portal they will be tough next year for sure
and he probably won't leave, having already failed at Arkansas. So we are stuck with him
Who cares? They are not some juggernaut when it comes to talent, even with portal additions.
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I still think he'd be the chosen son for Iowa when Ferentz eventually calls it. I know this has come up in the recent past and a poster said he's got a prohibitive buyout clause, but I maintain my generally uninformed position that contracts are made to be broken, and here are 479 examples in college sports/coaching alone.
“Illinois’ fourth-year coach is contractually forbidden from accepting another Big Ten head coaching job, per the language of an extension he signed on April 23, 2023.”
Caveat: if Josh Whitman is not the AD, then the buyout is cut in half and the Big Ten Clause is cut.
Although there isn’t a contractually agreed buyout, my guess is that there is some crazy magic number that Illinois would be willing to accept as a buyout to let him go to Iowa. But it’s probably so high that Iowa would never consider paying it.
I wouldn’t be super concerned about Illinois. They didn’t make a bowl in 2023 and then beat no one but bums and mids in 2024. They’re a paper tiger - albeit with a good QB in Altmeyer.
Agreed. In fact, this year we had less talent than almost every team in the big ten. I say this with a completely straight face, I believe Northwestern was significantly more talented than Illinois. (The one differentiator being QB play, where I think Illinois had a significant advantage.) Illinois will have a lot of continuity going into next year, and that is importsnt. But we will still be lacking talent compared to most of our conference peers.
Cause he's an Iowa grad and even has a Hawkeye tattoo on his leg?
Sure, the "Tiger Hawk" tattoo seemed like a great idea at the time. That was 1990, when Bielema, then a walk-on defensive lineman for the Hawkeyes under legendary coach Hayden Fry, sprang for the ink after receiving a scholarship as a sophomore. To celebrate, he got the iconic Iowa logo tattooed on his left calf with the words "Believe" and "Achieve" on opposite ends of a giant "I."
Bielema soon had the pedigree of a Hawkeye for life. He became a senior captain in 1992, returned to Iowa City shortly afterward to become a graduate assistant, and served as a linebacker coach under Fry and his successor, Kirk Ferentz, for six seasons.
Illinois is poised to make a playoff run. Ugly tattoo or not.Cause he's an Iowa grad and even has a Hawkeye tattoo on his leg?
Sure, the "Tiger Hawk" tattoo seemed like a great idea at the time. That was 1990, when Bielema, then a walk-on defensive lineman for the Hawkeyes under legendary coach Hayden Fry, sprang for the ink after receiving a scholarship as a sophomore. To celebrate, he got the iconic Iowa logo tattooed on his left calf with the words "Believe" and "Achieve" on opposite ends of a giant "I."
Bielema soon had the pedigree of a Hawkeye for life. He became a senior captain in 1992, returned to Iowa City shortly afterward to become a graduate assistant, and served as a linebacker coach under Fry and his successor, Kirk Ferentz, for six seasons.
Bielema is a hell of a coach. He gets results.
Wouldn’t you love that.
Bert certainly is one of the better Coaches in the B1G. What he is really good at is picking Assistant Coaches and Support staff.
His players love him. He gets results.
Until Northwestern learns how to be leaders at something other than sports media & materials science & other areas, I am proud to cheer on the Illini if they do things the right way.
My uncle, aunt, and many other friends studied in Champagne. It is a great school and their engineering program is better than NU’s, top to bottom.
Hilarious. I actually was involved in the recruitment of a kid that made its way to The Illini back in the day. Let’s just say naming the current President and Vice President presented a challenge. This time s coming from a parent of a UofI graduate. Your right way may not be what you think it is,His players love him. He gets results.
Until Northwestern learns how to be leaders at something other than sports media & materials science & other areas, I am proud to cheer on the Illini if they do things the right way.
My uncle, aunt, and many other friends studied in Champagne. It is a great school and their engineering program is better than NU’s, top to bottom.
Champagneing and Campaigning.
Or was it Campaigning for Champaign?
I never got the Rantoul reference. Maybe my buddy Coral can explain it to me
I have always felt that schools like Illinois and Indiana could not attract great coaches and players (you need both to win) because of their locations. Champaign and Bloomington are just not great places to live, sort of out of the way in rural areas. NIL has changed all that. Show me the money is what matters and not the schools location.
I don’t believe the resurgence of either Illinois or Indiana is due to NIL. Indiana is Transfer U, but I doubt their war chest is larger than the typical SEC or B1G team.
Bloomington is less than an hour from Indianapolis and is a pretty nice place to live and a great place to go to school. I wouldn’t compare it to Champaign.
I know a little bit about Bloomington. I graduated three kids from there four years apart and made at least 24 trips there and back when I lived in Valparaiso, IN. Great school as my kids are now very successful in their chosen professions. One of my daughters is high up the chain at Lilly and I had to move to Indy to babysit. I love Indy but leisurely trips to Bloomington do not happen very often. I was referring mainly to the TV/media exposure that an athlete gets/got at the two schools. A lot has changed in the last couple of years for the good of both schools. I went to a couple of football games in Bloomington and not much of a crowd. Now it will be hard to get a ticket.
Going back decades when bs-ing about college football when someone raised the issue "what team should be better, who has historically underachieved" I would always say Clemson and Illinois. Again, we are talking about "bar talk" two and three decades ago and obviously Clemson no longer is that way, but my stance on Illinois still stands.
And Happy Valley, South Bend, and the like are?
Illinois is a basketball school. It’s not some sleeping football giant and football will always be second fiddle there.
But that doesn’t mean they have to be incompetent, and they’ve been incompetent and further crushed in recruiting by Fitz for YEARS. Bret Beilema may be a variety of things, but incompetent is not what one of them.
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