The Illinois football program has made a few splashes this offseason.
One of the splashes was snagging Katin Houser from the transfer portal. Losing Luke Altmyer after three years was painful, but Bret Bielema had a plan to not miss a beat.
Another splash came in the form of game day atmosphere. Illinois added the largest video scoreboard in college football. The board includes 16 LED displays, over 26,750 square feet, and 30 million pixels.
This massive display will give fans a new experience, but there are some unintended consequences to the massive upgrade.
Bielema took to the podium after practice on Saturday, and he laid out his game plan for the scoreboard and how it affects the team.
“It is massive and puts out a lot of lights. After this weekend, starting next week and moving forward, anytime we practice in the stadium, we are going to have that scoreboard running.”
With that many lights and with it being so bright, the scoreboard can have a real impact on play at Gies Memorial Stadium.
“It will have a little bit of an effect on the field as far as if you are catching the ball down there, and the kicker kicking into it, on the flipside, when you are looking that way, it pops up in your vision. So, we will practice on it as much as we can.”
While the bright lights might have some impact on the game, the possibilities of the scoreboard changing the wind were addressed as well.
“We really haven’t had a windy day. It will be interesting. I always thought we had the homefield advantage for a reason.”
The new Illinois display will impact the special teams, but Bret Bielema has strengthened this area
From what Bielema was saying, Illinois’ special teams might be impacted the most by the new digital board. Thankfully, Illinois did some great work in the offseason securing this position group.
Illinois’ punter for 2026 is going to be Lars Rau. He came in from Texas State, where he had 24 punts and averaged 36.3 yards per punt. This included six punts inside the 20-yard line.
Bielema also managed to bring in Lucas Osada and Ethan Moczulski to kick. Both are talented kickers, and I think Moczulski gets the starting job as a fifth-year senior.
While the worry might be the digital board being so big and bright, Illinois should have plenty of time to prepare. This wrinkle in the game plan could end up being a benefit to the Orange and Blue, as it could help us with home-field advantage.
Add us as a preferred source on Google