The 2024 season has been a whirlwind thus far, as we are two games in and the Illinois football team is being noticed on a national stage.
Entering the new campaign, I figured the Illini would win the first game against Eastern Illinois and then drop the Kansas contest. The Jayhawks are a good team, and they will win a lot of games this season. One game they aren’t winning is the Illinois game, as we managed to pull ahead late and never looked back.
Illinois wasn’t anywhere near the preseason AP Top 25. We didn’t have a single vote. But that has all changed.
In the AP Top 25 poll that was released on Sunday, Illinois didn’t just receive a vote. We received 101 votes to be ranked, which was the highest total votes of teams not in the top 25. So, we are technically No. 26 in the country.
Bret Bielema is trying to get Illinois football to a point we haven’t seen in nearly two decades
It is crazy that Illinois is already ascending to a near-top 25 ranking. In August, I wrote an article about the earliest the Illini could be ranked inside the top 25. In that article, I wrote that if Illinois took down Kansas, we would get votes to be in the AP Top 25.
That came true.
I also said we would likely have to win the first four games to be in the AP Top 25. I think that timeline needs to be sped up. If Illinois beats Central Michigan on Saturday, then we should see a slight bump up into the top 25.
If the Illini can win against the Chippewas and crawl into the AP Top 25, that means we have been ranked in two out of the last three seasons at some point in time.
The last time Illinois was ranked two times within three different seasons was back in 2007 and 2008. We made it up to No. 13 in 2007 and started No. 20 in 2008.