After a five game season-opening homestand that has been the envy of football schedulers everywhere, the Illini finally get to see the inside of a bus. On Friday, the Illinois football team will load up and make the ride to Bloomington, Indiana. A scant 3 hours and 150 miles away. My job is to tell you what they’ll do when they get there. This is tougher than it seems.
Illinois’ first road game is, by most measures, a good one for starters. Indiana is 1-4 overall, and winless in the Big Ten. That overall tally is not the result of a difficult non-conference schedule. Indiana’s lone win came against South Carolina State (noteworthy for being an historically black university and also public, and having a fantastic jaunty-bulldog logo, but not for football prowess). Let me just say it: Indiana has been bad this year.
Indiana notched losses to Ball State, Virginia and North Texas. Granted, Ball State is probably better than you would think: they are 3 and 2, and their only losses were to ranked teams (South Florida and Oklahoma). The flip side is that North Texas is probably worse than you think: they have lost blowouts to Florida International, Houston and Tulsa. And yet they beat Indiana.
Hoosier QB Dusty Kiel is the likely starter. He’ll be looking to hook up with Hoosier receiver Damarlo Belcher, presently second in school history for receptions in his senior season. It was hard to glean much from the Hoosiers’ matchup with the Nittany Lions, as it was so ugly all around. It was closer than most expected. Much of that had to do with Penn State turning the ball over just as they were knocking on the scoring door. Neither team looked particularly distinguished.
Turning to the methode Champaignoise. After last week, if you don’t know that Illinois has a dangerous offensive threat, I have no idea what you are doing reading this column. The restaurant reviews are the pink tab at the top. You clicked on the red tab. No hard feelings.
The national attention is shifting to Champaign, and to a large extent that attention has determined that a win is a win, and Illinois has five. Illinois is now ranked 19th nationally in the Associate Press poll, and 16th in in the USA Today poll. These numbers are nothing compared to Illinois’ ranking in volleyball (first nationally, undefeated through 15 matches), but they are raising the hopes of the Illini faithful, and represent a strong move in the right direction after some lean years of pigskin. For most prognosticators, this is all you need to know: regardless of how the game plays out, they find a way to win.
Side story: Illinois linebacker Jonathan Brown has been suspended for this game for a scuffle during the Northwestern matchup.
His fire on defense is welcome, and his talent is off the charts, but this kind of thing can’t continue. In addition to throwing a punch last year against Michigan State, Brown reportedly took a swing at a teammate in practice over the spring. Twice. Hopefully the suspension will get his attention, as there are some subtler indications of a disciplinary problem growing. After winning Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week for a fantastic performance against Arizona State, Brown did not start the following week. Defensive Coordinator Vic Koenning stated that Brown’s non-start was because Brown did not take care of his responsibilities the previous week, and was vague beyond that. Mr. Brown is a terrific player, and Illinois benefits hugely from having him on the field. Here’s hoping he gets his temper and his responsibilities under control.
Illinois is a 14 point favorite going into Bloomington. Which scares me. Illinois was a 14 point favorite over Western Michigan, and a 10 point favorite over Northwestern. Illinois barely eked out those wins.
In all honesty, having to predict these games for you all is getting worrisome. So far I’ve been perfect in predictions on results, but not-so-perfect on how Illinois has achieved those results. If I predict a run-heavy game (as I did against Northwestern), it’ll be all pass. I predict an offensively keyed game (Arizona State), and the defense sets the tone for the day. This is giving me nagging doubts. One of these days I’m likely to be wrong on the result along with the method. I hope it isn’t Saturday. I hope that I break my perfect-on-results streak by predicting a loss against Wisconsin. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Enough hemming and hawing. Here’s my prediction: a paragraph out of the post-game report:
Illinois finally broke its habit of playing lackluster in the first half of games on Saturday, and got off to strong start offensively, with a balanced attack between the run and the pass. Indiana’s defense was flummoxed by a committee of running backs mixed in with liberal use of the pass game. The Hoosiers continued their streak of forcing opponents into turnovers, but failed to capitalize offensively, as Illinois’ defense matches the offense for the most balanced game Illinois has put forth yet. Illinois won 34-14.
If I’m wrong on the method, call me out in the comments. If I’m wrong on the result, everyone will have bigger worries.
If you’re headed to Bloomington for the game, a couple things to note. The game is at 2:30 eastern, 1:30 central time, so be sure to account for that when planning your drive. There is road construction that will affect you on the way to the stadium, and IU officials are actively encouraging everyone to show up early to avoid any snags with getting there on time. Parking lots open at 8:00 a.m. and you can go here: http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/facilities/ind-facilities-memorial-traffic.html for parking and traffic information. Also, 866-IUSports is the number to call for tickets. Ask for the “Family Coke-Zero 4 Pack” which is 4 tickets, 4 hot dogs, 4 cokes and 4 popcorns (not kidding) for $20 per ticket. Which is pretty astounding, if you think about it on a calories per dollar basis.
If you’re not heading east for the game, you can kick back and watch it on the Big Ten Network. If you’re out and about on Saturday (let’s be honest, not a lot of people are planning their day around this game), you can tune your wireless to the Illini Sports Network radio stations (97.5 FM in C-U) or Sirius satellite radio channel 135.
Rest up for next weekend. Ohio State comes to Champaign, and the basketball team has organized an open practice and scrimmage (and it’s free!) that has been coordinated in time to let fans see all the hardcourt before heading over to Memorial for the turf. In addition, you’ll have to coordinate your outfit to go to the game. As they’re assigning clothing colors to section numbers (evens = blues, odds = oranges, student section = orange, obviously) to create a “Stripe the Stadium” effect. You can look forward to that. Let’s hope the football team doesn’t.
After all, I’ve got a streak going here.