“There is nothing like…the opening weekend of a football season.” Illini football head coach Lovie Smith said at Illinois Media Day. He’s absolutely, one million percent correct. The first game of week of Lovie’s inaugural season is finally here. Are you giddy yet?
From Lovie Smith to Defensive Coordinator Hardy Nickerson, one of the NFL’s best linebackers in the 1990s, to his son the new mike linebacker, to the defensive line being the strength of the team to defensive end Dawuane Smoot being the most talented player on the team, Illinois has something it’s sorely lacked for a long time- an identity.
Illinois was Linebacker U. Light with Simeon Rice, Kevin Hardy and Dana Howard in the early ’90s. They were a fun to watch, pass happy NFL QB factory in the 1980s with Tony Eason, Jack Trudeau and Jeff George. They haven’t had a persistent real identity since then. Now, under the new regime, they really do. Illini football probably won’t win a lot of games in 2016, but they have both a foundation in place, and a real direction now.
Illini football is back to being nationally relevant. Check out the New York Times:
Smith is one of six head coaches at the 128 Football Bowl Subdivision schools who have been in charge of N.F.L. teams, along with Saban at Alabama, Jim Mora at U.C.L.A., Bobby Petrino at Louisville and Smith’s fellow Big Ten coaches Jim Harbaugh at Michigan and Mike Riley at Nebraska. Their combined college record is 466-226-1, a 67 percent winning percentage.
Eighteen other F.B.S. coaches have been N.F.L. assistants. They have won 54 percent of their college games. But take away Kirk Ferentz at Iowa, David Shaw at Stanford and Les Miles at Louisiana State, and that drops to 46 percent.
#Illini football back to Sunday Feature in "the paper of record" status, the @nytimes. what a difference a yr makes https://t.co/zUSn5fkYWN
— Paul M. Banks (@PaulMBanks) August 28, 2016
A few major preseason talking points, and links to consider as you prepare for Illinois to open the season at home versus Murray State on Saturday (BTN, 2:30 PM)
–Quarterback Wes Lunt has had several different quarterback coaches and offensive coordinators; so there’s been a lot of turnover for Lunt to adjust to.
“The difficult part is you build a relationship with every coach, you spend a lot of time together, in the film room, talking about football and talking about life,” Lunt said.
“He’s poised, he’s under control,” said Lovie Smith of Wes Lunt.
“He’s had success in our conference. It’s meant a lot to have a veteran player like him coming back.”
-Another obstacle for Lunt to overcome is the loss of the team’s best wide receiver, and probably best player, Mike Dudek, for yet another season. Dudek tore the same ACL again this spring, and he’ll miss all of 2016 just like he missed all of 2015. Now it’s on Lunt, Malik Turner, Desmond Cain, Justin Hardee and everyone else to try and regroup in fall camp. The wide receivers are arguably the team’s biggest question mark, and they’ll be under the microscope all season long.
-Lunt is a very interesting guy. He is not moved by football sloganeering, nor by the fact that someone made a Twitter parody account of him. Lunt also aspires to be an Athletic Director someday, after he’s done with football.
-Hardy Nickerson the Elder, and Hardy Nickerson the Younger are both huge gets for Illinois this season.
-As we said before, the DL is strength of the team.
–Charles Peanut Tillman stopped by to visit Lovie this summer and talk to the team. He also inspired Illini CB Jaylen Dunlap.
–Credit @MaximusRadio for the Lovie meme/featured image in this post. You can read this Illini football Media Day recap for an explanation, and/or watch his presser, paying close attention to the 10:00 mark.
-To borrow one of the two biggest Lovieisms, Ke’Shawn Vaughn will get Illini football off the bus running this year.
The Illini ran the ball on just 43 percent of their snaps in 2015. They ran just 44.9% of the time on “standard rushing downs” (first downs, second-and-7-or-less, third and fourth-and-four-or less). That ranked 126th in the nation. (There are only 128 teams in the country!)
Quarterback Wes Lunt was 14th in the nation with 481 pass attempts.
-I tend to agree with some of the season forecast and predictions at SB Nation’s Illinois site, The Champaign Room. If Illinois can get Lunt’s completion percentage up from 56% into the mid to low 60s, they should go bowling. Provided of course that the Illini improve from last in the B1G in rushing to at least 10th or higher. Get that done and Illini football should have a postseason destination. Fall short of both goals and they’re home for the holidays.
Illini football Bottom line: You look at the schedule, and it seems reasonable that this Illini football team will be favored in three games (Murray St., Purdue, at Rutgers), and underdogs or a push in the rest. (Western Michigan is picked to win the MAC West, they’re really good and I would guess that Vegas will have that game as a push.
Four wins is certainly nothing to get excited about, but I think they’ll definitely surpass that.
Yes, the situations are completely different but if Jim Harbaugh can take a 5-7 Michigan team to 10-3 the next year, why can’t Lovie Smith take a 5-7 team to 6-6 or 7-5? I don’t know where the other wins will come from, I just know that Smith will get this team bowl eligible.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.
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