Illinois Football: Updated 2020 Illini schedule released

Ladies and gentlemen, Illinois football is back!

The Big Ten Conference released Illinois‘ new schedule on Saturday morning, just three days after announcing the 2020 fall season would return.  The season is set to begin on October 24.  Hallelujah!

Just when the football season looked like a dead end after Big Ten presidents and chancellors voted 11-3 to postpone until the spring, head coach Love Smith and the Fighting Illini will now be playing an eight-game schedule, consisting of four home games and four away games.

Here is the 2020 Illinois Fighting Illini football schedule:

Week one: at Wisconsin (Oct. 24)

Week two: vs. Purdue (Oct. 31)

Week three: vs. Minnesota (Nov. 7)

Week four: at Rutgers (Nov. 14)

Week five: at Nebraska (Nov. 21)

Week six: vs. Ohio State (Nov. 28)

Week seven: vs. Iowa (Dec. 5)

Week eight: at Northwestern (Dec. 12)

Week nine: TBD

Illinois’ week nine opponent is yet to be determined as the Big Ten has scheduled a set of plus-one crossover games to be played on the same weekend as the Big Ten championship game.  These will be games played based on seeding.

The Illini will get the opportunity to knock off the Badgers for the second year in a row to open the season on October 24.

With one of, if not, the deepest and talented teams they’ve had in years, I would not be surprised to see the Illini upset some of the favored teams on their schedule this season.

In just over one month, we will be watching Illinois play football for the first time since the Red Box Bowl loss to California.