How You Might Be Missing It

The people in that photo aren't missing it. The people in that photo are locked in. They understand how much fun it is in Champaign right now and what was accomplished this season.

Other Illini fans – especially those online – appear to be missing it a bit? Maybe it's Indiana winning it all, maybe it's just general negativity, but there seems to be this misunderstanding out there. I'd like to correct that in the final NERDstats post of the season.

The rankings are out and Illinois is #25 in the coaches poll and #26 in the AP Poll (which means Illinois isn't in the final AP Poll). I thought about going to find the voter who had obvious Illinois bias and cost us the two votes that would have put us ahead of TCU and in the final poll, but I'm gonna try to stay away from negativity in this one. This will purely be a check on Where We Stand after the 2025 college football season.

First the I-N-I, then the evaluation. If you don't care about the NERDstats, just skip to the "Smith Barney" subhead below.

The IlliniBoard NERDstat Index

A slight change here, and it's an "I hope everything is OK" change. I use four predictive metrics for the I-N-I; three have updated now that the season is over and one has not. And that one that has not (K-Ford) has gone radio silent since the beginning of December. No tweets, no weekly updates to his numbers after conference championship weekend, no updates to his college basketball metrics, nothing. So this final I-N-I won't include the K-Ford numbers because... there are no current K-Ford numbers.

My guess here (and it's only a guess): Kelley Ford's day job is working for the Horizon League as Associate Commissioner. The NERDstats website is his side project. The Commissioner of the Horizon League left in November to become EVP for the Indiana Pacers. So perhaps he's under consideration to replace her and, as a result, has paused his side project? That's my only guess.

Either way, there isn't any updated K-Ford data. No boost from our victory over Tennessee. And so I'm just going to use three metrics for the final 2025 I-N-I.

Here it is:

Not much changed by removing K-Ford. The last I-N-I of the regular season had Ohio State 1 and Indiana 2 so they swapped spots but other than that, for the teams finishing in the top-25 here, the only change was that Iowa jumped up to #5 in the Big Ten (#15 overall) after beating Vandy in the ReliaQuest Bowl.

And this final I-N-I reveals a clear line between the haves and have-nots. There were three Big Tens this year. Three teams competing for a national title, seven teams also in the top-25, and then a massive gap before "the rest" without a single team anywhere near the top-25. Let me show this visually. The ten best teams in the 2025 Big Ten:

1. Indiana
2. Ohio State
3. Oregon
14. USC
15. Iowa
16. Penn State
17. Washington
22. Michigan
25. Illinois
46. Nebraska

It's also a significant leap for the Illini from last season. Yes, from last year's 10-win season. Last year we finished 37th in the final I-N-I. This year, a big jump up to 24th. Last season, as we've discussed ad infinitum, was a "pulled out a few miracles" season. The Pat Bryant fourth down touchdown at Rutgers after the field goal attempt. Nebraska missing the go-ahead field goal with 2:50 remaining and the Illini winning in overtime. Purdue failing on the two-point conversion in overtime which would have won the game. Could have been a 7-win season; was a 10-win season.

This season wasn't like that. This season was seven solid wins + last-second field goals to beat USC and Tennessee. And then four losses where we didn't really have a chance in the fourth quarter. Three of those losses were to #1, #2, and #17 (two of those on the road), so those fall under the "understandable losses" category. So I feel like the 2025 regular season (leaving the bowl out of this for a moment) can be summed up like this:

• Ten games where we were either clearly the superior team or clearly the inferior team. 7 wins, 3 losses.
• One game where we were the better team but played terrible and lost (Wisconsin).
• One game where we were not the better team but played our tails off and won (USC).

The end. Add a bowl win on a walk-off field goal and presto, 9-4 and the 25th-best team in the country.

The Comp

I just tweeted this so I should maybe write about it real quick before we get to the real point I want to make in this post. Using the final SP+ score, here's the best five seasons for Illinois football this century:

As I said there, the comp is the 2007 Rose Bowl season. And it makes sense, right? Both teams were 9-4. The big difference was the Ohio State win in 2007, obviously, but this 2025 team didn't really have moments like "first and goal for Ball State in the fourth quarter where they're trying to take the lead in Champaign" either (the Illinois defense held, Ball State missed a FG attempt, Illinois went on a long TD drive powered by Rashard, and we won 28-17).

And while we're discussing yearly SP+ charts, I should bring this one back out. Here's the yearly SP+ rating for Illini teams as charted by Bill Radjewski:

I usually only show this chart from 2000-forward because Bill Connelly admits that his data before 2000 is a bit incomplete. Box scores from back then don't carry the data that box scores from today contain (all of the yards-per-play stuff and such), so he's said that he built those pre-2000 ratings from scoring margin data and other stats that were available. I still agree that 1994 was our best statistical season (the defensive numbers were off the charts and that team lost five games by a total of 22 points), but the ranges there are probably a bit exaggerated with the incomplete data.

After 2000, though, it's pretty much a year-by-year look at his SP+ formula. And four of Bret Bielema's five seasons are better than anything that happened from 2011 to 2020. The only seasons as good as 2022, 2024, and 2025? 2001 and 2007 (duh).

One more note there and then I'll move on to the good stuff. Another good comp for two seasons on that chart is 2008 and 2024. Very similar seasons statistically (2008 was 8.9; 2024 was 9.6). Those were seasons where the little things mattered. Both were seasons with solid enough statistics where 7-8 wins should be expected. Bret Bielema won 10 games. Ron Zook won 5.

Now let's get to where people get lost (and why some of you might be missing it). Here's that same chart with Indiana's rollercoaster added:

This has thrown off everyone's contentment meter. Not just Illini fans - everyone across college football. The new standard according to "pound your first on the table and demand excellence" fans is Curt Cignetti. Auburn fans will greet Alex Golesh with "win a national title your second season or be fired."

For Illinois fans, it hits a little more close to home since we used to share a basement apartment with Indiana. Seeing them in the penthouse has our 25th-floor apartment with a view looking a little small. Comparison is the thief of joy.

So I want to go in a different direction here. We'll still talk Indiana, but... please stay with me here.

Smith Barney

We've established that finishing top-25 in the I-N-I is an incredible feat. This season didn't match 2022 on the individual NERDstat ratings, but it was also a significant step up from 2024. Last year, the polls and the NERDstats disagreed about Illinois, but this year, they're in lock step. Illinois was right around the 25th-best football team in the country.

As discussed above, seeing Indiana at #1 tempers the excitement over that. Basement apartments and penthouses and all that. Some regular Joe married a supermodel and now everyone wants to dump their girlfriend and shoot for a supermodel. Everyone's view is cloudy, so let me clear it up for you.

Indiana found top-5 talent and won a title. Illinois found... talent that would be maybe 50th nationally and has won 19 football games the last two seasons. It's a phenomenal coaching job and nobody is talking about it. Probably because of ol' Supermodel Joe over there.

The brilliance of Curt Cignetti is the talent identification. If you want to hold that over Bielema's head, go ahead. Every other fan of every other program will be doing the same. Cignetti found NFL talent both in the players he brought with him from JMU and the players he found in the portal. That's how he won a title.

The rebuild at Illinois has been handled differently. Bielema and staff have Smith Barney'd this rebuild. I hate that I'm so old that I'll have to explain this to 75% of you but... "they make money the old-fashioned way - they earn it."

I know what you're going to say. "While they were doing this, they could have been attacking the portal for all these NFL guys that Cignetti found." Yes, I get it. Every Auburn fan and Syracuse fan and USC fan and Colorado fan and Michigan State fan and Baylor fan and North Carolina fan and Florida State fan and Wisconsin fan and every other fanbase's fans are screaming "why didn't we do what Cignetti did?!?!?" right now. We can all try to develop unicorns in our labs, too. Just let the record show that it's only ever been done once.

Again, this is going to be one big stay with me here. You're going to have these urges to scream "JUST RECRUIT BETTER!" because college football fans always sit on their thrones and scream those words. I just need you to promise that you'll hear me out here. Hear me when I scream these two sentences:

Illinois won 19 games in two seasons for the first time ever. Illinois did this without much NFL talent.

Yes, Pat Bryant was drafted last season. Yes, Gabe Jacas and JC Davis will likely be drafted this season (although I'm guessing it's only those two). The 2022 Illini team was successful based on having 12 NFL players contributing. The 2024 and 2025 teams... didn't have that.

There hasn't been a draft yet, so we don't know any of these numbers for certain, but here's some research. I'm using NFL Mock Draft Database for all of this.

Indiana? Yes, Indiana has ridiculous amounts of talent (somehow). Players projected to be picked in this draft:

Illinois? For Illinois it's two:

Yes, three are listed, but Xavier Scott has announced the he will return for a fifth season, so the Illini total is two. Three Illini drafted in the 2022 draft, four in 2023, four in 2024... and now one in 2025 and likely only two in 2026.

There were only three upperclassmen headed to the NFL these last two seasons. We won 19 games anyway.

I don't know why that's not a bigger story. It has to be the shadow of Indiana looming over everything that has prevented fans from seeing it. That's the only thing I can think here. Let me put it very simply in one paragraph here.

After the Johnny Newton - Tip Reiman - Isaiah Adams - Casey Washington draft class (which also included Isaiah Williams as an undrafted free agent, a kid who was just voted the Jets MVP this season), there was a big concern that those players represented the end of the Lovie talent spike. Lovie's 2020 class and 2021 class were a big step back from 2018 and 2019, and so Bret Bielema had been saddled with a talent dip. Meaning, after the 2023 season, the lack of much talent in Lovie's final two classes meant he'd need to rely on transfers plus his first two recruiting classes (2022 and 2023) to maintain momentum. And your first recruiting classes are always your worst.

OK, yes, I hear you grumbling about needing numbers. Here's the numbers regarding the Lovie recruiting drop-off. NFL players in these Lovie classes:

Class Of 2017: Kendrick Green, Del'Shawn Phillips (just made 2nd Team All Pro with the Chargers), Tony Adams, Alex Palczewski, Vederian Lowe, Nate Hobbs
Class Of 2018: Quan Martin, Sydney Brown, Chase Brown, Kerby Joseph
Class Of 2019: Devon Witherspoon, Isaiah Williams, Casey Washington, Tip Reiman (walkon)
Class Of 2020: Johnny Newton
Class Of 2021: Pat Bryant

We don't really know where the numbers go from there yet, so anything else would just be projection. I'm pretty sure Bielema's first class (2022) has five NFL players (Isaiah Adams is on the Cardinals, Tommy DeVito is on the Patriots, and then I'm assuming Gabe Jacas, Xavier Scott, and Matthew Bailey will all end up in the NFL) but those last three are projections. Still, I think five from Bielema's first recruiting class is a safe bet.

I'm starting to wander away from my point so let me bring it back. The recruiting dip in Lovie's final two classes would mean that the 2024 and 2025 teams would be light on junior and senior talent. Bielema (and he noted this at the time) actually inherited a ton of talent from Lovie – just look at those three classes listed above – but all of those players (plus Johnny Newton who left after 2023 with eligibility remaining) were gone by the time 2024 rolled around.

Remember my 4-8 prediction for 2024? Go back and read my words from that time. There's a lot of "guys, Pat Bryant is the only guy from those two classes who has a professional future" in there. Bielema's first recruiting class would only be true juniors and redshirt sophomores that season (2024), so I thought we'd be way too young to win more than four games. We had the fewest senior starters in the Big Ten... and we won 10 games.

Yes, some was mitigated by the portal. And in 2026, I wouldn't be evaluating these "dips" the same way (right now, French onion gets the bronze, garlic ranch the silver, and pimento cheese dip the gold). But again, I'm evaluating how this staff has gone about rebuilding Illinois football, not how Texas Tech (successful portaling) and Colorado (already failed) have gone about it.

And I figured that there would be a dip because the 2020 and 2021 classes were so bad. There was certainly a talent dip as we've gone from eleven NFL draft picks in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 drafts to likely only three in the 2025 and 2026 drafts. What I feared (are there many NFL players in these junior and senior classes?) came true.

And we won 19 games in two seasons.

I mean, look around at the teams we beat. USC?

Tennessee?

And don't talk to me about opt-outs either, Tennessee fan who stumbled on this post. We had only two projected NFL draft picks on this roster. Both opted out of the bowl game. There are two projected for next year (Scott and Bailey) and both were injured and missed the Music City Bowl. And we beat you.

Just pause on that for a moment. Two projected draft picks this year, two projected next year (might be more), all four of those players missed the Music City Bowl, and we beat Tennessee. Amazing. OK, back to the show.

There might be a fair number of players on this roster who are eventual NFL players. We might look at the 2027 NFL draft class and say "you know, Bailey, Henderson, Valentine, McCullom, and Clarke all getting drafted tells us that there was still a lot of talent on that field in that Music City Bowl. Those are evaluations we can make in the future.

For now, it's this: Lovie left a lot and then he left a little. Bret Bielema inherited 12 future NFL players when he took over in 2021. But 11 of the 12 were gone after the 2023 season, leaving a very young roster for 2024 (youngest in the Big Ten). He'd have to lean on his first recruiting class (2022), only juniors and redshirt sophomores at the time, plus transfers.

The result? He went 10-3 and then 9-4 with two rosters that only produced one NFL draft pick in 2025 and (likely) only two in 2026.

It should (I can only go as far as "should" because they're just projections) pick up from here. I explained above that Bielema's first recruiting class already has two NFL players and likely has three more to be drafted in the 2026 and 2027 drafts. Five is a great start for his first class. We'll have to see what the 2023 and 2024 classes produce in the future before we can evaluate this further. And hopefully some of these 2025 and 2026 transfers find themselves on the NFL radar as well.

But for now, let's all just acknowledge one thing:

Bret Bielema went about this rebuild the old fashioned way. He earned it.