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So Is This The Season Of Luck?

So Is This The Season Of Luck?

First off, a round of applause for Holly for that photo above. And for the photo attached to Nathan's article yesterday. And the photo attached to my article on Saturday night/Sunday morning. She's killing it this year. It's time to NERDstat again. This

So Did Anything Change While We Were Off?

So Did Anything Change While We Were Off?

This isn't really an official NERDstats post because this was a bye week. The only adjustments to the NERDstats came from other teams around the Big Ten, not from anything Illinois did over the weekend. There are some slight adjustments based on who we played (Nebraska did X

So Thankful For This Bye Week

So Thankful For This Bye Week

It probably sounds dumb to say this given that I'm just a guy who covers the team, not a guy who has to coach or play on this team. The players and coaches are putting in 90-hour weeks and here I am saying "man, I need a

So, Just How Good Are We?

So, Just How Good Are We?

Ever since I began writing them two years ago, these Tuesday NERDstats articles have been about context. They're my attempt to use NERDstats (I don't really think of them as "NERDstats" anymore) to put what we're seeing on the field into context.

So, What Now?

So, What Now?

I will now describe the Illini Football fan mentality in one paragraph: We're ranked #24. We have a ranked vs. ranked game on Friday night at Nebraska on Fox. There will be a TV showing our game in nearly every bar in America on Friday night. And I

So That Was Fun

So That Was Fun

I have this ongoing text thing with Kansas Game John (that's how I used to have him in my phone) where we are trying to will the luckiest season in the history of Illini football into existence. Last year, using 2nd Order Wins, Iowa was a 7.4-win

So Did We Learn Anything?

So Did We Learn Anything?

It feels good to have my feet back underneath me. I just sat here pouring over some NERDstats and it feels so good. I can't really explain how it normalizes the world for me, but it does. August feels like a freefall and September feels like a foothold.