PMP25: Favorite Away Game

This one is the easiest PMP question I've ever answered. I knew the answer before I even finished reading the question. I feel like this is one of those topics where I'll be able to write 1,800 words in an hour. I'm gonna do this from memory, and my memory of this day is quite photographic. This will probably be 3,000 words but I think I can get it done in less than two hours.

Here's the PMP question:

What is your favorite regular season away Illini football experience?
~Randy D.

Without question it's the Michigan State game in November of 2019. And first you need the backstory. It's a very long backstory but I promise to eventually land on November 9, 2019.

As you may know, I put a lot on the 2019 season. I put... 10 years of writing into the 2019 season. I had established my blog, I had written the 19 Point Plan For Fixing Illini Football, and, after the absolute low point of the interim coach being extended for two years at the end of the 2015 season because we didn't have an AD to hire a coach, I had walked people through the beginning of the Lovie era saying that it would take years to rebuild the mess. Years.

To build a focus point for the future, I established October 12, 2019 as the day. We'd play Michigan that day (it's always Michigan), and THAT'S when Illini football would return. Those who have followed me for a long time know that I talked about October 12, 2019 literally hundreds of times over three seasons. I urged patience and more patience and more patience (against a massive flood of "we already know Lovie isn't the guy" responses).

That all changed on September 14, 2019, exactly four weeks before the declared date. The moment we lost to Eastern Michigan (in year four for Lovie), I was the last human on the Lovie Express. I couldn't hop off – I had declared October 12, 2019 for more than 1,000 days and I couldn't jump off with 28 days to go – so I stayed the course. I actually did more than that. Two days after the EMU loss I tweeted this:

The next six weeks are pretty much the reason I'm sitting here in my home in Champaign in July of 2025 having quit my job to cover Illinois full time. I know I haven't started answering the question yet but... stay with me.

The morning of the Michigan game (on October 12, 2019), I was pretty down. The entire fanbase was absolutely out on Lovie and there I was, rolling up to Memorial Stadium for the game I'd talked about for years, alone on an island. It's not how October 12, 2019 was supposed to go.

When I leave the tailgate to go into the stadium and head to the elevator to go up to the pressbox, I run into a group of guys – some of them students, some recent graduates – who had tweeted me about October 12, 2019 each year as the date got closer. I had met a few of these guys before, but I met the full crew that day. We fist-bumped, they said stuff like "we still believe!", and I got on the elevator with renewed vigor. I told them then and I tell you know - they'll never know how much that support that day meant to me. I was at a low point.

We lost to Michigan that day. When we cut their lead to 28-25 in the second half behind a finally-healthy Dre Brown (the QB that day - Matt Robinson!), I honestly thought we were going to pull it off. But we lost to Michigan. October 12, 2019 had come and gone and Illinois football had not turned the corner. So my wife and I did what anyone would do. We went to KAM'S.

KAM'S was closing in 10 days. Not closing, but moving. So I told my wife I needed to take her there one time before the sticky floor wasn't the sticky floor anymore. We rolled up to KAM'S and ran into the same group of guys. Well, we ran into three groups of guys. And all three defined IlliniBoard's future.

The first group – they're all reading this right now and will laugh when I define them as "the group with the guy who asked me to come to his wedding even though he wasn't engaged which really shocked his girlfriend at the time" guys – they're the Braggin' Rights Crew to me. I've had beers with them before and after Braggin' Rights games before.

The second group included Antonio and Jack. And the third group you now know as The BoardRoom podcast. Again, this one night defined the future of IlliniBoard. Who knew that October 12, 2019 would turn my world on its head?

At KAM'S that night I had the Reap The Fruit conversation with Jack. It's what I wrote about that night. I had known Antonio because he was one of the student managers I'd interviewed at Camp Rantoul six years prior. But that was the night we first had that conversation about olive trees.

You can see parts of all three groups in this short video. It remains one of my favorite videos on my phone. We were doing the blue guy thing, and my wife took a video which most of us thought was a photo. Here's the vibe of that night at KAM'S. After an Illini football loss on October 12, 2019:

My wife and I stayed in downtown Champaign that night at the Hyatt. The next morning, at breakfast, I told her that a lot had changed for me. I told her I was pretty sure that I wanted to do this full time (which is why, when her former boss called her 10 weeks after that hotel breakfast and asked her, without knowing my hobby, "is there any way you'd consider a job in Champaign, Illinois because something just opened up", we were both floored). I told her that morning that I was going to stop posting on Illini message boards and stop with a few other hobbies because I needed to focus on making this my career. October 12, 2019 was a monumental day. Just not for the reasons I once thought.

Come to think of it, I wrote about it that night. I just linked the post above, but let me go clip the part where I talked about my Reap The Fruit conversation with Jack.

Here you go:

He talked about olive trees, and how they sometimes take years (more than a decade) before producing fruit, and his family's rich history with olive trees (and their patience waiting for the fruit). And his statements were completely disconnected from what we spend all of our time thinking about ("is the coach the right guy?" "will this ever turn around?"). It wasn't "just wait, the Lovie hire will bear fruit". Nothing of the sort. It was very simple: Illini fandom is in our blood, and for some of us (like him and me), it was passed down from our fathers, and we'll never, ever stray from it.

That can be taken advantage of, obviously. If Jack and I are going to show up for games year after year, decade after decade, why is there any incentive for the powers-that-be to build a winning program? Wouldn't it be better if we spoke with our wallets? Shouldn't I use more words here to put pressure on the administration?

I can't speak for you (and perhaps I'm making a big assumption by saying I can speak for Jack), but we can't do that. This is college football, and the players are there because they want to attend my school and wear our colors (OUR colors), and I want to watch them every chance I get. It absolutely sucks that we let them down time after time with bad administrative decisions, but the reality is that Jack and I will simply wait to reap the fruit. If it takes ten years for the tree to bear any fruit, man, that's so unfair, but we're in.

So I feel like I sit here a changed man. A re-focused man. Like I lost my way but just found the road I was looking for. I'm not a reporter nor am I a prognosticator. I'm a fan first and foremost (and, perhaps, only), and we're all in this together. Tonight, you all helped me remember that.

And when it does happen? I'll see you all at the Rose Bowl.

Please come say hi.

Everything changed for me on October 12, 2019. The pivot I made the night led me to where I am today. And I was so grateful to each group of guys who I had chatted with at KAM'S that night. It sounds dramatic, but that night helped me focus in on the role I was supposed to play on this earth.

I need to fast forward to the Michigan State game here. So, in that breakfast conversation, my wife told me that the group of guys in the video above told her they had waited for me by the elevator "for quite some time." I hadn't known that the previous day. And I put in the back of my mind that I needed to do something to thank them because it meant a lot to me.

We then beat #6 Wisconsin the following week on James McCourt's last second field goal. I thought, at the time, that I had simply missed identifying the turnaround point for Illinois football by one week. The following season (2020) quickly proved that this wasn't the case.

But after the Wisconsin win I had an idea. The guys who waited by the elevator should join me and my friend Carmen on our trip to the Michigan State game in November. I had DM'd with one of the guys before, so I sent him a message asking him to join us. He agreed and brought the group.

Now we're FINALLY to November 9, 2019.

It's a month after the Michigan game. It's two months before my wife's former manager will offer her a job in Champaign. And Illinois, on a 3-game winning streak since the Wisconsin game, is headed to Michigan State needing one more win to qualify for a bowl. I purchased seven tickets; two for Carmen and I and five for Josh, Jonny, Matty, Sam I, and Sam II.

But that wasn't the only KAM'S reunion. Tonio and Jack were there as well, having planned to go to that game months prior. So our tailgate that day was basically most the people who helped pivot my entire career at KAM'S. And what I consider to be one of my best 10 tweets ever was made from that tailgate. (It would be top-3 all time but I forgot the word "tent" after "MSU.") After a Michigan State tent blew over near us...

(I'm especially proud of the fact that I worked in the full "you know we have sand" and not just "we have sand.")

We tailgated, we froze, we dealt with the wind, we crashed the alumni tent, and then we headed into the game. We were... that tiny little pocket of orange in the corner of a stadium filled with green.

And those green people were not nice. We got in some, um, verbal altercations in the first quarter when someone in our group might have mentioned something about a certain scandal that Michigan State might have tried to bury for decades. Maybe. That might have happened. Allegedly.

Which meant that as Michigan State went up 28-3, they, uh, let us hear about it. We were completely surrounded by green people as this Michigan State drive approached the endzone:

2nd and 5 from the Illinois 8, Michigan State driving to go up 35-3, total yards 317 to 87... and Illinois won the game. If you ever want to attend a road game where you're just this tiny pocket of people cheering for Illinois surrounded by 70,000 cheering for the other team, that's the kind of game to attend. An entire half of abuse – three quarters of abuse, really – and then......

In case you don't remember the game, Michigan State had that 28-3 lead with three minutes left in the half. They didn't score on that drive, though, because a deflected pass in the endzone was scooped up by Stanley Green just before it hit the turf and we prevented another score. We then threw a prayer to Josh Imatorbhebhe – a prayer that saw Brandon Peters stripped of the ball in the pocket but it deflected right back to him and he tossed the Hail Mary for the touchdown – and we went into halftime trailing 28-10 instead of 35-3.

Michigan State then kicked a field goal in the third quarter – the only scoring that quarter – and we entered the fourth quarter trailing 31-10 with our only touchdown being a Hail Mary at the end of the first half. The idea that our offense would come alive after three quarters where we put together basically one drive seemed impossible.

But then there was this fourth quarter roller coaster. Everyone remembers the comeback, but not everyone remembers the lows that accompanied the highs:

• Josh Imatorbhebhe scored on a long touchdown pass (short crossing pattern, long run) to make it 31-17.
• The very next play from scrimmage was a low and a high in one play. Michigan State hit a 40-yard pass play... but their receiver was called for offensive pass interference so instead of 1st and 10 at the Illinois 36 they had 1st and 23 from their own 13.
• Michigan State went 3-and-out, Illinois marched right down the field, Reggie Corbin scored, and suddenly it's 31-24.
• One the next drive - what an incredible high! A bad snap is fumbled by the Michigan State quarterback and we fall on it. We're going to score and tie the game!
• Nope - Brandon Peters throws an interception in the endzone.
• Wait, then Sydney Brown picks off a pass and returns it for a touchdown and we've ACTUALLY tied the game!
• No we didn't. James McCourt missed the extra point and it's still 31-30 Michigan State.
• Michigan State was then held to a field goal. 34-30 and there's still a chance!
• "We have first and goal at the one yard line!! This is going to happen!!"
• {Illinois fails to score on first down, second down, and third down.}
• "Oh my god the 4th down pass was incomplete. We got all the way to the one yard line and failed on four attempts."
• "WAIT. There's a flag! What was just 'Michigan State wins' is now another first and goal from the one for Illinois."

The actual winning touchdown – the touchdown pass to Daniel Barker – was something I could not see. We were in the corner of the opposite endzone so I really couldn't make out what happened on the play. I simply saw our sideline celebrating and slowly came to the realization that someone in orange caught the pass that I just saw Brandon Peters throw.

We then lost our minds. You might have seen us on the broadcast.

Carmen falls off the bleacher and lands in the aisle. I'm in the orange hoodie next to him swinging my arms and every member of The BoardRoom trying to double-up on the high fives (I caught Sam II in the nose, I think.) There is nothing (and I mean nothing) in all of fandom like the road game comeback celebration. 70,000 people falling dead silent and 200 people losing their minds.

The next few hours are a blur. Things I remember:

• I immediately started recording From The Stands and that one remains the most listened-to FTS to this day.
• I hadn't been to the pressbox but I did get a credential for that game so I put it on and went down under the stadium for the press conference. I forgot to take off my orange hoodie, though (I always remove all team gear if I'm attending a presser) and so I looked like the biggest fanboy entering the press conference. (Hint: I am a fanboy).
• Speaking of fanboy, I fist-bumped Josh Whitman in the hallway. But I gave it a little too much juice (I was pretty fired up) so I was worried that I bruised his knuckle or something.
• I couldn't find my way out of the stadium (all the gates were locked by the time the press conferences were over) so I just wandered around until I found the gate where the concession stand employees leave.
• I met up with the crew and we hit two bars on Albert Ave. I want to say Hop Cat was one of them?
• I left the bars around midnight to go back to the hotel to write. I want to say I didn't go to sleep until around... 4:00 am? With that much adrenaline, it's impossible to sleep.

So when you listen to The BoardRoom podcast and wonder how I know those guys, there you go. When I talk about the things that happened which led me to quit my job and do this full time, there you go. It all sources to October, November, December, and January that year. Mild-mannered Landscape Architect in St. Louis in September, quit my job and move to Champaign in March. With October 12, 2019 through November 9, 2019 being the key dates where my entire life pivoted.

The rest you know. Bielema was hired in December of 2020. A January bowl game by 2022. And by 2024, this is what Memorial Stadium looked like (and sounded like) on gameday:

October 12, 2019? October 19, 2019? November 9, 2019?

October 19, 2024.