Blip
45 days until the football season. That's kind of insane. When you combine the whole "there's no angst at all" thing that I wrote about a few weeks ago (there are small, meaningless concerns right now but overall, the Big Two programs are as
Robert
The 88 Illini: #48-#45
Just wanted to remind you of the "countdown flexibility" I've given myself here. When I first started writing these countdown posts 15 years ago, I tried to make them daily posts that counted down to the first game of the season. And I rarely ever stayed
The 88 Illini: #52-#49
I still have this sense that people aren't getting it. I've kept the section below the "recent posts" section on the front page (where I can feature a certain series) as last season's "NERDstats" posts because I wanted "How
Checking The Odds
I feel like this will be 1 of 12 articles I write on the topic of "what to do when there are incredibly high expectations for your college basketball team" this year. It's not something we experience very often – this will only be the fourth time
The 88 Illini: #56-#53
Do you want to know the biggest shift in my life the last six months? No, it's not "my football team beat another SEC team in a bowl game and my basketball team went to the Final Four." It's being on campus once or
The 88 Illini: #60-#57
Now we are reaching the numbers I think you'll see on the field. Maybe it's only some lineman you'll see on extra points and field goals, but I'm pretty sure these sixty Illini will see action at some point.
I always say
The 88 Illini: #64-#61
If you're sitting there and you're like "Robert, where are #68 through #65 because I keep a chart of the entire 88 Illini with individual magnets on my refrigerator and just this morning my six year-old son swapped out Michael McDonough and Connor Sullivan