I Don't Know

With 15 seconds left to play, Illinois trailed Ohio State 83-81. After snoozing through yet another first half during which they trailed by as many as 18 points, the Illini had cut the Buckeye lead down to a single possession after an Adam Miller three

We Love No Other 4.14: Coach Bielema

Had the opportunity to have Coach Bielema on the podcast today. The first 12 minutes here are my thoughts on the first 27 days of the Bret Bielema era at Illinois. The final half hour is our conversation. We cover everything from a 30-minute conversation

An Attempt At A Depth Chart

Let's start with this: I really shouldn't be doing a depth chart yet. We still don't know if some seniors are returning or if they're leaving. And there will be several transfers coming in (and even a few more high school recruits). But the students

Looks Like University Of Illinois - Chase Hayden

I've decided that sometimes these posts will simply take a long time to put together. When making the move to doing this full time, I noted how I'll be able to evaluate recruits the moment they commit (and I have, sometimes), but other times I need to

The Little Voice

I know that many of you are angry at me. You've let me know countless ways. I know I'm supposed to be the positive fan (and I still am, I think?). It's just that positive, we-can-still-do-this fans can only take so many body blows until they're worn

7 of 10

We now know 7 of the 10 football assistants. And my brain has, for the most part, emerged from its "curled up in a ball in the corner, sobbing" state after the Maryland loss. So I will try to get my fingers to work again, writing some words on football

Crushed

I gave it nearly five hours. It's now exactly 1:53 am as I'm starting this post. I told myself that I probably needed to calm down - that this wasn't one of our worst home losses in the last 40 years. If I still felt that way after 4-5 hours, I'd write

Good Vibes Only

I get it, to an extent. Whenever there's a coaching change, the pendulum will swing from -9 Negative to +6 Positive overnight. A low 3-star commits to the old guy: "MORE FAIL". A low 3-star commits to the new guy: "FINALLY BUILDING A ROSTER OF FOOTBALL

Looks Like University Of Illinois - Calvin Hart Jr.

This is a difficult player evaluation. There's no real film, we're coming off a season where stats aren't very trustworthy, and for whatever reason my typical "I'll go find out what NC State fans thing by stalking their message boards" methodology isn't

Focus

[[twitter https://twitter.com/tylercott/status/1347394357100482565?s=21]] That's it. That's the tweet. Wait - no... [[twitter https://twitter.com/illinistats/status/1347394473475665927?s=12]] Yep - that's it. That's definitely the tweet. But then.

Looks Like University Of Illinois - Joshua McCray

It has been a lonnng time since I wrote a Looks Like University Of Illinois post. I need to look this up. When was the last verbal in either football or basketball? Basketball hasn't had a commit since Luke Goode in the spring, so it would have to be

Back & Forth - New Year

Sometimes this back-and-forth format isn't just a way to publish a new post on the site. Sometimes I really need Tyler's help and I allow you to watch me seek that help in real time. OK, probably not "in real time", but that would be cool. Maybe I'll

Rollout

I don't mind a slow staff rollout. In fact, I quite prefer it. When hiring head coaches, yes, move quickly because other teams are doing the same. When hiring coordinators, especially during bowl season, I'm good with taking some time to see who might

Nothing But NET

I've been waiting for this day. The day where the NET rankings come out. As you probably know, NET replaced the RPI several years ago as the "official" rankings that the Committee looks at. It doesn't matter if a team is ranked 14th in the AP Poll -

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