Your Illini Season Preview

We're one hour before kickoff against Southern Illinois so here is your University of Illinois football season preview. After last season's unmitigated disaster, where do we start? Being the optimistic person that I am, we'll start with the good stuff.

The Positives
- Say goodbye to last season's co-offensive coordinators - neither of whom had any previous playcalling experience - and say hello to former Western Michigan head coach Bill Cubit, who at the very least has called plays before.


- Freshman QB Aaron Bailey. Somehow Tim Beckman was able to convince a top 5 high school QB prospect to play at Illinois. Bailey chose the Illini over Ohio State, Nebraska and others. Don't be surprised to see him on the field early this season.

- Wes Lunt. Even more surprising, last year's starting QB at Oklahoma State, and Illinois native Lunt, decided he wanted to play for this dumpster fire of a football team instead and transferred to Champaign. He won't be playing this season, but Lunt will be the first quality pocket-passer the Illini have had since Kurt Kittner (maybe Jon Beutjer on a good day).

- Since I can't really think of anything else other than "it can't get any worse than last season", I'll say the new helmets. Gone is the stupid and uninspired slant ILLINOIS and in is the fat I. Next spring there will be a complete rebranding of the entire athletic department so expect new uniforms for all the teams.

The Negatives

- Pretty much everything else.

- The defense is going to be terrible. Again. Probably worse than last season. The entire depth chart for the linebackers and secondary has 1 senior, 2 juniors and 18 freshmen and sophomores. Expect a lot of passing yards put up against Illinois.

- Attendance at the games will be abysmal. The Illini play at Soldier Field against Washington on Sept 14 and the athletic department is practically begging people to buy tickets for it. Because I'm a schmuck, I'll probably go - but I'm actually going to watch the Marching Illini.


What to Expect
I have a feeling this season could be like Ron Zook's second season in Champaign. The team's record didn't improve (2-10 in each of the first two seasons) but they were much more competitive in each game and actually won a Big Ten game at Michigan State.

Tim Beckman Gets Fired If...
Last season repeats itself. Maybe AD Mike Thomas will just can him if they lose today.

Tim Beckman Keeps His Job If...
The Illini are competitive and show clear improvement. They could go 2-10, be in every game and he'll be back for a third season.

Season Prediction
It's hard to find win totals for Illinois at most sportsbooks, but 5Dimes has it at 3.5, which seems a little generous to me. Below is my very rudimentary game-by-game prediction

Games We Will Win (1.0 wins each)
8/31 vs Southern Illinois
Games We Should Win (0.75 wins each)
9/28 vs Miami (OH)
Games We Might Win (0.5 wins each)
11/23 at Purdue
Games We Should Lose (0.25 wins each)
9/7 vs Cincinnati
10/26 vs Michigan State
11/9 at Indiana
Games We Will Lose (0.0 wins each)
9/14 vs Washington (in Chicago)
10/5 at Nebraska
10/19 vs Wisconsin
11/2 at Penn State
11/16 vs Ohio State
11/30 vs Northwestern (it's a sad day when you pencil in NORTHWESTERN as a definite loss. Sigh.)

So that gets us to 3 wins by that metric, so I would err towards the Under 3.5 if you can find it. However, I can't bet against the beloved, so I have no skin in this game.

Best-Case Scenario
Illini go 4-8. That would be an incredible achievement for this team and coaching staff.