The Illinois football team just finished up the 2025 regular season with a victory over Northwestern.
This is always a great way to end a season, as the Illini have had up-and-down results against the biggest in-state rival we have.
As the game concluded on Saturday night, the realization that this was the final game of the regular season set in. That feeling of knowing that Illinois won’t play another regular season game until August 2026 is terrible. I don’t like it one bit. The offseason sadness has already set in, and we still have a bowl game to play.
But another feeling also set in. Disappointment. Illinois had a chance to go to the College Football Playoff this season if we had just taken care of business. That didn’t happen, and it was a bit of a disappointing season.
As I sat there with a storm of feelings brewing, I thought to myself, how crazy is disappointment? This word, disappointment, didn’t used to be a feeling for the Illinois football program. It was always an expectation.
Some people talk about the good old days, but Illinois only really had the bad old days. Remember those? 17 wins during the entire five-year Lovie Smith era. Well, Bret Bielema just notched his 18th win over the past two seasons alone.
While disappointment is now a feeling, it shows Illinois football has expectations
I mean, think about it for a second. Illinois just won eight games in a season, and I am sitting there disappointed. Eight games used to be a near-parade in the streets for the program. We have only had eight wins in a season five times since the turn of the century, and Bielema has three of those campaigns.
Illinois football has expectations now. We have hopes to literally compete for a national title by getting into the College Football Playoff. That is something no one would have fathomed, even as recent as hiring Bielema in 2020.
I sure wasn’t on board with the hiring. I thought this was just another retread head coach who just wanted one more shot at coaching. Bielema always had a bad reputation as well.
I was dead wrong, though. Bielema came in and changed everything. He showed that he had changed as a person, growing up, maturing, and being a better dude. Meanwhile, he changed Illinois football. We recruit better, we play better, and we win.
Moreover, Bielema changed one of the biggest things that fans could change. Expectations. Bielema gives us hope and disappointment all at the same time. At least we have emotions now. It shows you how far this program has progressed in five seasons.