PMP25: What If There's No Covid?

Two more Pick My Post articles to write after this one and then I'm caught up. And this one is an interesting thought exercise. It's a Butterfly Effect question. A Sliding Doors question. Perhaps we can even call it a time travel question. How does the Illini world look if Covid never happened?

This is a football-specific question from John, so I'll honor that and stick to football. Here's the full (long) question sent to me along with his donation:

Without Covid, how long does Lovie last as the Illinois head coach? Let me set the scene (or you can do it for the readers if you have a better way of putting it). I apologize for the length.

Winter 2019. Illinois football finally seems to have some momentum. After opening wins against Akron and UCONN (on the road!) we Illinois our way to a loss against Eastern Michigan. Losses to Nebraska, Minnesota and Michigan have us at 2-4 (0-3) and the Smith era seems to be all but over.

But then we pull off the miracle against Wisconsin. Then we beat Purdue in a monsoon. Then we beat Rutgers by four touchdowns. Then we pull off an even bigger miracle with the comeback against Michigan State. Suddenly we're 6-4 (4-3) and I think we actually got a vote or two in the AP poll. 

Of course, we then lost to Iowa and Northwestern (absolutely miserable game in the rain where they just ran the ball down our throats). But we still made a bowl game. And I distinctly remember you talking up 2020. That we had the easiest schedule in the history of the world and that we were a shoe-in for seven (maybe even eight?) wins.

Then, of course, Covid happened. The world shut down. The 2020 NCAA tournament was cancelled and the football season was delayed until October. The non-conference was cancelled and the conference schedule was revised. And we promptly went out and got destroyed by Wisconsin and a freshman quarterback. After losses to Purdue and Minnesota, Lovie was a dead man walking. He got fired after losing to Northwestern and Coach Bielema was hired less than a week later.

So I am asking you to play 'what if?' If there is no Covid, how does the 2020 season go? And where is the Illinois football program in May 2026 in that alternate universe?

Here's where I'll start: the schedule. I'm not sure most people remember that there were three schedules for the 2020 season: the original schedule, the revised schedule when non-conference games were dropped (before the season was out-and-out canceled), and a third schedule once the season was resurrected.

Here's the original schedule which came out years before 2020. The one I was so excited about. The one that had me saying we might be bowl eligible before our bye week. If Covid had never happened, here's the schedule we would have played:

So now fast forward. In the season that was played (we'll get to that in a bit), Illinois won two games: at Rutgers and at Nebraska. Which just so happened to be the original first two games on the Big Ten schedule. Illinois football, bad as it ended up being in 2020, would have beaten Illinois State, UConn, and Bowling Green in Champaign. And we know that that team, bad as it was, won at Rutgers and at Nebraska. So I can begin my answer with this very simple statement:

Illinois football, had Covid never happened, almost assuredly would have started the 2020 season 5-0. Would we have finished 0-7? Maybe. Let's keep digging.

The second schedule that was released was the "conference games only" schedule. Most forget about this phase because it didn't even last a week before the Big Ten called off the season (and then it was another month before they brought back the season). Fun times, weren't they?

The revised schedule released on August 5th, 2020 had the nine conference games listed above + Penn State in Champaign. There would be ten games, zero non-conference games, and then a Big Ten Championship Game. So we had added a game against Penn State and dropped Illinois State, UConn, and Bowling Green.

Six days after that, Covid numbers started to spike again and the Big Ten canceled the entire season. And then five weeks after that – after other conferences like the SEC had been playing football for a few weeks – the Big Ten reversed course again and scheduled a mini-season. There would be eight weeks of football, starting in late October, and then a Big Ten Championship Game.

For those eight games, the same original schedule was used but Indiana was dropped off the schedule (as was Penn State, the team added to our schedule five weeks earlier). So if you're scoring at home, here's every version of the 2020 schedule:

1. The original schedule with Illinois State, UConn, Bowling Green, Rutgers, Nebraska, Purdue, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio State, and Northwestern.
2. In early July, the non-conference games were eliminated leaving just the nine conference games listed above.
3. In early August, a 10-game conference-only schedule (starting in early September) was announced and Penn State was added to the Illinois schedule. This schedule was tossed in the trash six days later when the season was canceled.
4. In mid-September, the season was resurrected as an 8-game season. Penn State (added a month earlier) was removed and Indiana was removed as well.
5. And then, technically, the schedule had one more change because during the week of the Big Ten Championship Game, "bonus" games were added. Illinois was paired with Penn State for a game in State College. We lost as new head coach Bret Bielema watched on from the AD's suite.

I know that doesn't get to the point of the question but this history is important (at least to me) when answering this question. Mostly because had their been no Covid, Illinois under Lovie Smith would have been 5-0 with this schedule remaining, needing one win to gain bowl eligibility:

Purdue
Minnesota
at Wisconsin
Iowa
at Indiana
Ohio State
at Northwestern

Given that A) we did lose five of those seven games listed there and B) the other two games were Ohio State (went to the national title game) and Indiana (went 6-2 that year), it's highly likely we would have started 5-0 and then finished the season with a seven game losing streak. If that happens, Lovie is definitely fired.

But what if we beat Purdue? Remember, we played Purdue that year with our fourth string QB (Coran Taylor) because our top three quarterbacks were out (two in Covid protocol, one injured). And we only lost 31-24 with Taylor starting. If Brandon Peters or Isaiah Williams didn't have to sit out because of Covid protocols, would hypothetical non-Covid Illinois have beaten Purdue and moved to 6-0 on the season? Would we have been talking about a Zook-like 6-0 start followed by an 0-6 finish?

And while we're at it, what happens in the Minnesota game if we don't have 16 players out due to Covid protocols? Would full-strength Illinois have beaten full-strength Minnesota? Before you answer with your Lovie angst, please remember that this was our secondary that season:

Nate Hobbs (now with the 49ers)
Devon Witherspoon (Seahawks)
Tony Adams (just signed with the Titans)
Sydney Brown (just traded to the Falcons)
Quan Martin (Commanders)

I say all of this to get around to answering John's question. Because the original 2020 schedule began with Illinois State, UConn, Bowling Green, Rutgers, and Nebraska – and given that we did win at Nebraska and at Rutgers that very season – I can see a world where without Covid, Illinois goes 7-5, Lovie is retained, and the last five years do not happen.

Now, I can also play it out another way – the "we did eventually lose to these five teams that season so we would have needed to beat Ohio State or Indiana to get to six wins" scenario outlined above – and say with a lot of confidence that the 2020 team, coached by that coaching staff with those schemes, would have gone 5-7 at best and Josh Whitman still would have pulled the trigger. My dream of 2 wins in 2017, 4 wins in 2018, 6 wins in 2019, and then 8 wins in 2020 was not going to come true. I can say that with absolute certainty.

But it's still an interesting hypothetical because of the start to that original schedule. Three extremely winnable games at home followed by the two road games against teams we did beat that season (Rutgers and Nebraska). A 5-0 start – again, with no Covid, we absolutely start that season 5-0 – changes the picture a lot, right? We would have been ranked and my "just wait until 2020!" prediction would have seemed like it was coming true.

(And then it would have disastrously fallen apart with a 5-7 record and my cries of patience with Lovie would have disintegrated after he'd have one-upped Ron Zook with a seven game losing streak.)