PMP 2024: The Football Opportunity

This is the final PMP article from the 2024 fundraiser. As I mentioned with the previous one last month, I had two remaining, they were both podcast guest requests, I wasn't able to fill those requests, and so I asked those two donors to request something else. The first request resulted in this article about the Big Ten student sections and the second request is...

Please write about one of the most anticipated seasons in football history, re-covering the few opportunities in both yours and my LIFETIMES.

~Neil P.

That I can do.

Neil's email stated that he graduated in 1991, so he's four years older than me. Since I was born in 1972 I'm going to assume he was born in 1968 and take my research back to that season so that I'm covering "LIFETIMES" here. But as I'm typing that I'm realizing that it doesn't matter because whether it was 1967 or 1973 we were still trying to recover from the Slush Fund scandal and were light years away from "anticipated" seasons. 1983 would be the first opportunity for such a season.

But as I'm typing that I'm realizing that my brain has already shifted to "most historic seasons", not "most anticipated seasons." I need to spend some time hashing that out before I get to my answers.

We don't do anticipated seasons in Champaign. We just don't. Every time we've been good it has snuck up on us. I'll get to the specifics in a bit (1983 and 1989 were much more "anticipated" than 2001 and 2007), but for the most part, our good seasons – even 2024 – have snuck up on us.

And the main reason for that is "age." Our good seasons have mostly been because our roster finally matures. We get old enough, it all comes together, we go 10-1 and make the Sugar Bowl... and then those players graduate and we have to try to build it all back up again (or, in that example, we tumble all the way back down to the basement and from 2003 to 2006 we only win eight total games across four seasons before peaking again in 2007).

As an aside, it's just so crazy to think about stuff like that.

2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006: 8 wins
2024: 10 wins

(Man, I picked the perfect years to be tied up with kids sports and unable to get to Champaign.)

Back to "anticipation." If I were to list the most anticipated seasons of my lifetime, there are three that come to mind. These might sound weird at first but... hear me out. The three seasons where I was SO READY for the season to start:

1990
2000
2009

Perhaps 1983 (or maybe 1984?) was like this. I was only 11 years old at the time so I don't remember. But we weren't ranked in the preseason poll either year. The 1983 team wasn't ranked until October and the 1984 team wasn't ranked all season. I know that we had that sellout streak back then, so "anticipation" was high after the Rose Bowl in 1983, but I don't think my dad would have said that the 1984 season was "one of the most anticipated seasons in history" simply because Mike White had lost a ton of starters from the 1983 team.

1990 I do remember, though. That fall was my senior year of high school. The vibe was very, very similar to right now. We had just gone 10-2 in 1989 and returned a ton (although we lost starting QB Jeff George who was the #1 pick in the draft). Still, there was a lot coming back and the pollsters agreed. The preseason AP Poll in 1990 had us #11 in the country. If there's a comp for my anticipatory feelings at the moment, it's 1990:

1989: 10-2, beat #16 Virginia in the Citrus Bowl, returning a lot for 1990 (but not the QB)
2024: 10-3, beat #15 South Carolina in the Citrus Bowl, returning a lot for 2025 (including the QB)

2000 was probably next on that list (in that I'd rank them 1990 first, 2000 second, and 2009 third in terms of "most anticipated seasons"). I'm not sure people fully appreciate what kind of a roll we were on at the end of the 1999 season. We won at #9 Michigan (Rocky Harvey game). The next week we lost to #2 Penn State at home but then we turned around and won at Iowa by 16, won at #25 Ohio State by 26 (!!), and beat Northwestern by 22 at home. We then go to the Micron PC Bowl and beat Virginia 63-21. And we have Kittner-to-Lloyd coming back (well, we did until the broken foot).

The pollsters agreed and had us #21 preseason in 2000. We start the season 3-0, beating Middle Tennessee, San Diego State, and Cal, before welcoming #10 Michigan to Champaign while ranked as the #17 team in the land. If you're younger and you're wondering why older Illini fans talk about the 2000 Michigan "robbed by Bill Lemonnier" game like it was the worst experience of our lifetimes, this was the buildup.

Four absolute blowouts (plus a win over #9 Michigan) to close out the 1999 season. Three wins to open the 2000 season. #17 in the polls. And then two, count 'em, TWO bad calls on two fumbles in the final five minutes handed Michigan the game. That absolutely broke the 2000 team and they stumbled to a 5-7 finish.

The third season on my list is 2009. No, not 2008. I really did mean to type 2009. Because of how that season finished (3-9), many don't remember the anticipation. But it was there. I can still remember the CFN article that had us 10-2. And I remember that because my own prediction was... 10-2.

Don't just take my word for it. The over/under in Vegas that year bounced between 7.5 and 8 wins. Why such anticipation for a team that had gone 5-7 the previous season? I'll set the whole thing up for you.

We had gone to the Rose Bowl in 2007. We were then ranked #20 preseason in 2008 but for me, the anticipation wasn't there. The 2007 team had sustained a lot of losses (not just Rashard, but also on the offensive line, at defensive tackle, at linebacker, at safety) and there were questions about sustaining that level of football.

There was buzz – Ron Zook had just signed two great recruiting classes – but there was a lot of "right, but those players are freshmen and sophomores and it will take a bit" as well. And 2008 did hit a bumpy road with a younger team. The loss to Western Michigan in Detroit cost us a bowl game and we finished 5-7.

And I want to pause here to point to the "when we're good, we're old" thing again. The thing that makes 2025 so unique is that we just went 10-3 with sophomores and juniors in 2024. We've always had those seasons with juniors and seniors leading the way. It's never been "won ten games and then returned almost everyone." We've had "we didn't win very much but we have a ton coming back" seasons, but never a "we won big and return nearly everyone" season.

After we finished 9-4 in 2007, the pollsters ranked us #20 before the 2008 season (mostly because Illinois had gone to the Rose Bowl and Zook had been recruiting well). But I wasn't having these conversations that year. It was more "not only did we lose J Leman and Antonio Steele at linebacker but we also lost Kevin Mitchell, Justin Harrison, AND Justin Sanders at safety." The conversations we were having were very similar to the 2023 "so we have to replace Spoon and Syd AND Quan" conversations.

Before 2009, though, there was all kinds of anticipation. To wit:

• Juice Williams was a senior. Arrelious Benn was a junior in his last season before the NFL. The school built a website called 7to9.com to promote their Heisman campaigns. Yes, their Heisman campaigns.
• We were "#26" in the 2009 preseason poll despite having gone 5-7 the year before (I put that in quotes because being the first team in the others receiving votes isn't really a "ranking").
• We were favored by a touchdown in the opener against Missouri. That's an Illinois team that was 5-7 in 2008 playing in the opener against a Missouri team that was 10-4 in 2008 – a Missouri program that had beaten Illinois in all four previous St. Louis matchups – and we were favored in 2009 by 7. Not only were the pollsters onboard with 7to9, Vegas was on board.
• So confident was our athletic director (Ron Guenther) in the strength of the 2009 team that he moved a MAC opponent to a future season and instead added Cincinnati for 2009. You know, so that our strength of schedule would be off the charts and we'd have a real chance of making the BCS title game. He made this move in February of 2009, so within the year that the game would be played. And he did this knowing that Cincinnati had won 11 games the previous season (they would win 12 games in 2009).

Sadly, that's the last time we went into a season with any true anticipation at all. There was some hype in 2011 after going 7-6 in 2010 but it was nothing like this. Any post-bowl hype in 2015 and 2020 was muted by A) the Tim Beckman firing a week before the 2015 season and B) Covid cutting the 2020 season in half. And there was excitement after the 2022 season but then we were #71 in Returning Production for 2023 so we were having those "we're replacing four of five guys in the secondary" conversations I mentioned above.

This year, we're #3 in Returning Production (not in the Big Ten - nationally). We're not coming off a 7-win season or an 8-win season; we're coming off a 10-win season. A team that beat #15 South Carolina in the Citrus Bowl returns 18 of the 22 starters from that game (remember, we won that game with Hank Beatty starting for Pat Bryant and Alec Bryant starting for Seth Coleman). We've filled the (few) holes we have with West Virginia's top receiver, Ball State's top receiver, and Wisconsin's entire defensive line. And in Bill Connelly's initial release of the toughest schedules for 2025, he has us with the 17th-toughest schedule in an 18-team Big Ten (only Maryland has an easier schedule).

So the true answer here is that we've probably only experienced this one other time in our lifetimes: 1990. In that year, we had just watched our quarterback be selected first overall in the NFL Draft so Illini fans were wondering how we'd fare without Jeff George. This year, our quarterback returns for his senior season.

If I had to say "which season had more anticipation?" (between 1990 and 2025), I have to say it's 2025. Our preseason ranking won't be as high, but college football was less top-heavy in 1990 than it is today (1990 co-champions: Georgia Tech and Colorado). And the returning QB thing really does push this season over the top.

So there you go, Neil. No pressure, Bret.

It's only the most anticipated season of our lifetimes.