The 90 Illini #14: Alex Pihlstrom

"Returning starter" is an interesting thing. I live by the statistic - if some team has 19 returning starters, I'm automatically adding 1.5 wins to their expected total. College football, to me, is all about balancing returning starters so you don't

The 90 Illini #15: Calvin Hart Jr.

I'm always encouraged when I see the recruits of another non-elite program get the "just make him a low three-star" treatment. I'm not trying to say that 2022 NC State isn't an elite program. They're ranked #13 in the preseason coaches poll. They have

The 90 Illini #16: Art Sitkowski

If asked which Illini quarterback started the Penn State (9 OT) game, I'd be willing to bet that 85% of the Illini fanbase would say Brandon Peters. You think of the highlight - Peters to Casey Washington in the 9th OT for the win - and you just naturally

The 90 Illini #17: Seth Coleman

Here's the 9th different way to look at Covid waiver weirdness: Seth Coleman played in three games in 2019, eight games in 2020, and ten games in 2021. If this was 2015, he would be a senior right now with three years of eligibility already burned.

The 90 Illini #18: Isaiah Adams

The top eighteen players on The 90 Illini this year: 17% Canadian. Chase & Sydney Brown are from London, Ontario and Isaiah Adams is from Ajax (a suburb of Toronto). There's also a punter from Australia and an offensive lineman from Denmark, so

The 90 Illini #19: Taz Nicholson

It's 2022 and the 2020 Illini recruiting class barely exists. It was always going to be a small class, given that there were only 11 seniors on the team in 2019. That Senior Day took about 12 minutes. So it wasn't really unexpected that the 2020 signing

The 90 Illini #20: Luke Ford

I've done the "Covid year" math on dozens and dozens of players at this point. And I still get tripped up. It's so difficult to get the math correct. Mostly because of the "years in which to play four seasons" thing. I just covered Calvin Avery last

The 90 Illini #21: Ezekiel Holmes

Ezekiel Holmes was the last player added to the 2018 class. It all happened within the month of February. He visited the weekend of February 2nd & 3rd, verballed on the 4th, and signed on the 7th. One spot left in that class and the staff added a

8-6-22 Practice Notes

Feels good to write the words "practice notes" again. We don't get to see much anymore, but today's practice was three things. 1) The BTN crew was in town watching (and filming) practice. 2) I-Fund donors were allowed to watch practice from the north

The 90 Illini #22: Josh McCray

"There's no way he's a running back", I said. "He'll be an outside linebacker. Two Cruises." I've referenced that so many times over the last year because it's very important to acknowledge WHY I was wrong. McCray was the first Bielema recruit, and