Illinois football only sees slight bump in College Football Playoff rankings

With a great finish to the 2024 season, the Illinois football team finds themselves moving up in the latest College Football Playoff rankings.

Coming into Tuesday, the Illini sat at No. 23 in the nation after moving up one spot the week prior. A solid victory against Northwestern to cap off the 2024 campaign was only going to help our cause of moving up nationally.

Well, the new College Football Playoff rankings did give the Orange and Blue a slight boost. We moved up two spots to No. 21. That is the highest Illinois has been ranked in the College Football Playoff since being the No. 16 team in the country back in 2022.

There is still one more ranking reveal on December 8, but this is more than likely the final spot for the Illini this season.

Bret Bielema gave his best case for Illinois football to be ranked as high as they could in the College Football Playoff

You can say what you want about Bret Bielema, but you can’t say he didn’t try to elevate the Illini in the College Football Playoff rankings the past week.

Bielema started on Sunday night on social media arguing Illinois’ case to be ranked ahead of a team like Ole Miss. His basis for the argument is that Illinois had a tougher strength of schedule and better losses.

On Tuesday, Bielema then took to social media to say that he likes how The Athletic thinks, as they posted their rankings and had Illinois No. 17.

Lastly, Bielema posted on Tuesday that common sense is always a good sense. It was a reply to a suggestion that Illinois should be higher than Colorado.

Well, the CFP committee has spoken, and Illinois is still in the top 25. This is a good place to be for a program that was once at the bottom.