It has been a pretty special season thus far for the Illinois football team despite the result of the last contest.
If you are judging the 2024 Illini season based on the last game against Oregon, you should probably adjust your expectations a bit. The Ducks have a great program with national title aspirations. Illinois isn’t quite there yet.
That is okay, though. No one thought the Illini would compete for a national championship. Sure, two losses are never a good thing, but they are against two of the top three teams in the country. Sitting a 6-2 overall and 3-2 in the Big Ten is better than what 99.9% of people thought for this team in 2024.
I have raved about what Bret Bielema has done with the Orange and Blue. This program was completely lost before he entered the picture. The turnaround has been impressive.
Moreover, you know that bottom. You know the floor for Illinois is 5-7 and, in the past, that would have been a decent season. Now that is the worst-case scenario.
Bielema has put Illinois in this position. It is called being competitive and a serious program. Another element Illinois fans need to get used to is the AP Top 25.
Since the turn of the century, Illinois has been ranked in just seven seasons. That is an ugly statistic. Bielema owns two of the seven seasons, and he has only been our coach for four years.
To take that stat further, Bielema has Illinois still in the AP Top 25. We have been ranked in the AP Top 25 for seven straight weeks. The last time an Illini team was ranked seven straight weeks in the AP Top 25 in a season was in 2001. It has been 23 years.
Illinois football will hopefully see some other similarities to that 2001 season
For some of us, the 2001 season doesn’t seem that long ago because we experienced that great run. But if you think about it, anyone who is 23 years old or younger wasn’t even alive for that season, let alone have any memory of the Kurt Kittner era.
My hope is that there will be a few more similarities between the 2024 season and the 2001 campaign.
We have already established the seven straight weeks of being in the AP Top 25. This season, Illinois has beaten three ranked opponents, No. 19 Kansas, No. 22 Nebraska, and No. 24 Michigan. In that 2001 campaign, the Illini also beat three ranked opponents, No. 25 Louisville, No. 20 Purdue, and No. 25 Ohio State.
In 1999, Illinois had a Cinderella season when the program won eight games out of nowhere. We managed to be ranked that season but followed it up with a 2000 season that had us win five games. The 2001 season followed with 10 victories.
In 2022, Illinois came out of nowhere to win eight games and cracked the AP Top 25. Following that season, in 2023, the Illini won five games. Through eight games in 2024, Illinois is 6-2 and has a chance to win 10 games.
Bielema has Illinois football looking good and playing at a level we haven’t seen in over two decades. Being ranked in the AP Top 25 for seven straight weeks is pretty special. Hopefully, we can finish the season strong and get to that 10-win mark.