Illinois Football: What are the Illini expectations moving forward?

The Illinois football team finished their 2017 campaign on Saturday with a loss to the Northwestern Wildcats.

Illinois now heads to the offseason with only two wins to take into the following year. They finished 2017 2-10 and the final few games ended up being blowouts. I am sure this is not how Lovie Smith and the coaching staff wanted to the team to finish.

Heading into this season, I had higher expectations than just two wins to non-power five conference teams. Admittedly, I can get a little too excited at times and overshoot my expectations. I had the Illini somewhere around 6-7 wins according to an ill-advised tweet I sent at the beginning of the year.

In fairness, I thought Chayce Crouch could have improved slightly. I thought the offensive line was going to be okay despite a few departures. I also thought Kendrick Foster was going to be the lead tailback the entire year and improve from the season before. Well, 13 games have been played and I was clearly wrong. None of this happened and in fact, this Illinois team has the most true freshman starts in program history with 87 this year. Second to 2017 was 1977 when the Illini had 34 true freshman starts.

Lovie and the coaching staff had to have expected this type of a result from playing that many true freshmen. It almost seems like he had a plan. They would throw the young guys into the fire and that is how they will improve for the future. There is no better experience than playing time and I respect that.

But the big question is, what are the expectations moving forward? I would say, progress. Are we looking at a bowl game next season? I don’t know right now.

Illinois finished with two wins in 2017 but I honestly believe, if they had any semblance of a quarterback, they could have had a few more wins. They were a better team than Rutgers, they could have beaten Indiana and, don’t laugh, but if they had a quarterback in the that Wisconsin game, they could have beaten the Badgers.

The Illini are bringing in two great quarterbacks to see who can win the starting job in 2018. Coran Taylor and MJ Rivers are both impressive recruits – I don’t care who wins the job, but I am camp Rivers right now – and I think both of these players have more talent than anything on the Illini roster right now.

The offensive line – who started four freshmen for most of the year – should be much-improved after playing together and maturing as time went on. I look for the wide receivers to get even strong and for Louis Dorsey to be one of the best tight ends in the Big Ten.

Illinois’ defense, while young, did a great job this season. I wasn’t disappointed with them too much. I can’t blame the defense for giving up some points because they are worn out due to being on the field the entire game. Look for Bennett Williams to form into one of the best safeties in the Big Ten as well.

Lovie is also adding in some talented players on the defensive side of the ball. Most notably, defensive tackle Calvin Avery should step in and start day one for this Illini bunch. He is a superstar player from the lone star state.

Next: The real season is about to start for the Illini

Yes, the Illini floundered to a 2-10 record in 2017 but despite that terrible finish, I still have high hopes for 2018. I am going to shoot high because I expect a lot out of my teams. Illinois needs to have high expectations themselves. I know, mine are probably a little too high – some might say delusional – but I don’t care. Next season will bring new hope and even better talent. Let’s prove the world wrong. We Will Win.