Illinois Football: Illini make history by cracking the College Football Playoff rankings

History has officially been made, as the Illinois football program has cracked the College Football Playoff rankings.

The College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings started back in 2015 when No. 4 Ohio State forged ahead and took down No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Oregon en route to a national title. As most Illini fans remember, we were not a good program at the time.

2015 was the awkward year of Bill Cubit as the head coach of the Illinois football team. That season, we would go 5-7 and then switch head coaches to Lovie Smith. Since the CFP inception back in 2015, Illinois hasn’t just missed out on every CFP ranking, but we have only made one bowl game. That was the Red Box Bowl and we got smoked by Cal.

But times have changed and so have the Illini. Bret Bielema is now the head coach, and in season two at the helm, he has Illinois ranked No. 16 in the first CFP rankings of the 2022 season.

Illinois football has made history by making the College Football Playoff rankings.

I honestly didn’t know when this would ever happen. Just a few years ago, it seemed like such a dream to ever be ranked inside the AP Top 25, let alone the first rankings of the CFP.

History has been made for the Illini, as this is the first time we have ever been in the CFP rankings. While it is fun to see our name in the top 25, we aren’t even close to being finished.

In the next two weeks, Illinois takes on Michigan State and Purdue at home. These are two winnable games that would enable us to move up in the rankings. And then we get to the big boy game.

Illinois takes on a top-five Michigan program that has their eyes set on a national title. We have to travel up to the Big House to take on the Wolverines. That is a game to keep an eye on. If Illinois can win the next two games and then go up to Michigan and beat a top-five program, then there is a legit shot we are in serious contention to make the final four and compete for a national title.

All of this is a big ask. It would be amazing if it happened. People are going to say that it can’t happen. But people also said Illinois was going to finish at the bottom of the Big Ten this season. We have proved doubters wrong once, let’s go out and prove them wrong again.