Yesterday marked the final Saturday without college football in 2025. Yes, week zero, and thus the new season is indeed almost here! We’ll get to enjoy the sport on every Saturday from here on out until mid-January. And with the new campaign so close that you can sense it, the time is now to talk bowl projections and season win total futures. The outlook is bullish, on both fronts, for the 2025 Illinois Fighting Illini football team.
Expectations in Champaign, IL are as high as they have been in a generation; deservedly so.
Let’s start by talking futures on win totals. The best sportsbooks in massachusetts have set an over/under on Illinois’ projected win total at 8.5, with most of the money, according to reports, taking the under. In other words, more bettors seem to believe the Illini will finish 8-4 or worst, instead of 9-3 or better.
Seems fair right? Well, they did go 9-3 last season, 10-3 including the Citrus Bowl win over South Carolina. And this team returns 16/22 starters including star quarterback Luke Altmyer.
Plus, their conference schedule works to their favor, as they will face only three (Ohio State, USC and Indiana) of the eight teams with better odds to win the league than they currently possess.
Yes, the idea that eight teams have more favorable odds than Illinois, when it comes to winning the conference, is absolutely ridiculous.
So basically, 9-3 or 8-4 seems like a very reasonable and normal expectation. If you’re predicting 10-2, then you’re an optimist. If you’re thinking 7-5, well, then you must be a pessimist.
11-1 or better and likewise 6-6 or worse seems extremely unlikely, but hey, college football is strange.
Which brings us to bowl game projections- never too early to start publishing those! ESPN has just posted their first edition for 2025, and it’s a “mixed results” kind of situation for Illini football. Mark Schlabach has the Illini going right back to Orlando, to play in the Citrus Bowl (Dec. 31, 3 p.m. on ABC) in back to back seasons.
This time the opponent would be Texas A&M.
Meanwhile Kyle Bonagura believes that this Illini football team will end up in the Bronx, at Yankee Stadium for the Pinstripe Bowl (Sat Dec. 27, noon on ABC).
The opponent would be Jordon Hudson’s North Carolina Tar Heels. That series was renewed in recent years, and the results were not good for the Illini.
We’ll see where it all shapes out, but looking at the Illini football schedule for 2025, the three hardest games are strikingly obvious. That trio would be- the visit from reigning national champion Ohio State on Oct. 11, the homecoming date with USC on Sept. 27 and the trip to Washington on Oct 25.
While UW is obviously not at the level they were in 2023, when they finished national runner-up, they are still formidable, and having to go all the way out to the Pacific Northwest can be challenging.
USC might be overrated, and having them at home will help. The trip to Duke on Sept. 6 could be tricky, to say the least while playing Purdue is always a serious problem for this program.
Regardless of talent and depth disparities (in Illinois favor mind you), this Illini football program just always seems to have issues with the team brandishing a P in old gold and black. The talent and depth on the Illini front seven should easily manhandle both Westerns (WIU and WMU) while Altmyer’s clutch gene should be good for an extra victory here and there this season.
The Illini should be favored against Maryland, Northwestern, Rutgers and Wisconsin.
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to USA Today’s NFL Wires Network. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Post and ESPN. You can follow him on Linked In and Twitter