Unwrapping Presents

It's been a while since I just sat down and wrote out what's on my mind. The basketball preview is published, and this is a football bye week, so I think I'm in the frame of mind to frame my mind. And the number one thing on my mind this week is this: unwrapping presents.

I'm gonna leave the paywall down for this one and, for the first time in months, I might even tweet a link to an article I've written. I just feel like this is really important. I feel like other voices are urging you to maintain your vigilance, and that's going to ruin your enjoyment. I want you to enjoy this season.

It's no secret that the response to the Washington game bothered me to my core. I talked about it on Twitter (especially when that guy said we "had to be the dumbest Illini team of all time"), I shut down our Slack gamethread for ten minutes so that everyone could take a deep breath and realize the insanity of some of the things they were saying, and I wrote about it in the Stream Of Consciousness post before the Rutgers game on Friday night. A snippet from that article:

Tomorrow is a sold-out game where the 5-3 Illini can lock up bowl eligibility and yet everywhere I turn there are voices pushing Illini fans in the direction of angst. Mourning isn't allowed, only anger will suffice. Everything, and I mean everything, has an "OR ELSE" added once again, and it makes me so sad. 

I get the loss of the playoff dream. I'm sad too. My reaction post-Washington was to text my wife that I wish there was a redeye to Champaign so I could leave Seattle as soon as humanly possible. Every rain drop reminded me that the dream was over and I just wanted to leave the city immediately. That hotel room felt so cold and lonely Saturday night.

But that's the immediate picture. The big picture is that 9-3 is still possible. Hell, 7-5 is still possible and that's something I used to dream about. If you read the preview, you know that seven wins would mean this would be the fifth time in 100 years where we won eight games in a season and then followed that up with a winning season. Yes, you read all of that correctly. Since we went 8-0 in 1923 and followed it up with 6-1-1 in 1924, there have only been four times we've had a great season (8+ wins) and then had a winning season the following year. 

And so, big picture, we have a chance to do that again in 2024/2025... and everyone is angry. The prisoner has returned home after 35 years of eating porridge and is now complaining that the lobster bisque is "too salty." Everyone has lost the plot.

I realized this week that my "we used to dream about 7-5" point will never land. It's impossible to describe the emotion to someone. Unless you were fully invested in Northwestern games after Thanksgiving even though we were 2-9 or 1-10 (it happened in 2016, and 2012, and 2003), you can't fully understand how good 7-5 will feel. And because the pattern for Illini football fandom the last 35 years has been to switch over to basketball the moment the football season is lost (no judgement), my "7-5 and I'm dancing in the streets" will never truly land.

I don't say that as an insult. It's just part of our fan dynamic. Penn State basketball is just something to pass the time until spring football practice begins. Illini football, with only 5 winning seasons between 1995 and 2021, is typically placed on the back burner after the first tip of the first basketball game. Trying to accurately explain the emotion of a three-hour drive home after losing to Minnesota 40-17 is impossible unless you experienced it. And the vast majority of our fanbase had a football off-switch installed once basketball started up again.

So maybe I can explain it a different way. Maybe some of you can relate to this even if you're a "basketball first, basketball second, football third" Illini fan. Maybe you can picture each season like this:

With a rebuilt program, Illini football seasons are now a present to unwrap every fall.

You don't have to see it as a present. Maybe it's a scratch-off lottery ticket. Maybe it's like those videos of soldiers who film themselves sitting down with their wife to open up the "here's the next base where you will be assigned" email. But with a program now established in Champaign, it can be... fun (?) to unwrap each season.

I understand the emotions from 1995 to 2020. I lived it, too. The general vibe around Illinois football was "will it ever happen?" This was reinforced by these little sun spot seasons where everything went right and we found ourselves in a BCS Bowl (2001, 2007) followed by no bowl the next season. Just enough capacity to find ourselves at the top of the Big Ten; just enough volatility to find ourselves with a losing season the very next year.

Those immediate tumbles back down to where we started, in my view, developed a pattern for our fanbase. Chances for bowl seasons were met with "it HAS to happen now" like there were only a few days per year where the basement door was unlocked and if we missed those windows we'd be trapped in the basement forever. There was this vigilance to everything. We had to stand at the watch and point out every sign of impending failure. Iowa football fans as a parent? "Good job on the math test, buddy - I know you studied really hard." Illinois football fans as a parent? "I swear to God if you fail this math test..."

The difference now – and the reason the Washington reaction bothered me so much – is that we're no longer wondering if the door at the top of the basement stairs will ever unlock. It's Wisconsin and Michigan State trapped in the basement now. If we fall short, it can be "we'll get 'em next year", not "will it be 10 years before we have another chance?" And that provides so much comfort. And joy. (Comfort and joyyy.)

I first had a conversation with someone about all of this in July (and I kind of hinted at that conversation in the preview with the whole "Relevance" section at the end). The pressure of being #12 preseason hadn't become what I expected it to be. As the season approached, I didn't find myself with "this might be our one shot!" nerves. I found myself looking forward to finding out what kind of season we'd have. Opening the orange and blue gift and seeing what's inside.

That unwrapping takes 12 weeks. And all I can do across those 12 weeks is give you my unedited reaction to the season as it happens. I predicted 9-3 and am holding that as the standard (even though Vegas only had it as 7.5 wins). I was very excited about what I thought would be a getable schedule before the season and now we've played five of the top 10 quarterbacks in college football through nine games so I've gone out there and made the wildly unpopular opinion that the (un)luck of the QB draw is the number one reason for our defensive issues so far (and that we should see improvement post-Washington just based on the schedule).

Yes, that led to many people telling me after the Washington game that they "must have higher expectations for the program (than I do)." They see their "if Aaron Henry is allowed back into his office tomorrow, Bret Bielema and Josh Whitman have failed us" anger as righteous anger. When I mention that this stupid schedule gave us four of the top eight offenses in college football the first eight games of a single season, I'm an excuse factory who is letting everyone off the hook. In their eyes, my press credential means that I should be placing people on the hook.

But that just hasn't been my experience this fall. To me, this still feels like opening the present. And when I think of 2026 and 2027 (and 2028, and 2029...), I get so excited to see what's in those gift-wrapped boxes. I've been waiting my whole life to get a present to unwrap every fall.

And that knowledge – the knowledge that I'll get to do that every fall for the foreseeable future – is exactly what I mean when I say "because we endured 1995 through 2020, these days are so special." It's why I've not engaged in all of the post-Washington angst. It's why I shut down the gamethread on Slack during that game and it's why I wrote what I wrote this past Friday night. To me, this is simple: it feels so good to just leave the football to a coaching staff I trust.

Remember how I used to beg and beg and beg for one offense and one defense for five full seasons? I spent nearly 10 years writing about that. I once proposed that we put a bunch of offensive coordinators and their schemes on a dart board, throw a dart, and then extend that coordinator a five-year contract (even if he's Army's offensive coordinator running the wishbone). Recruit to his scheme, perfect his scheme, win.

Well, we're now in year five of the same defensive scheme (two coordinators but one scheme) and year four of the same offensive scheme. I can't tell you how satisfying that is for me. I can't tell you how relaxed I am. I wrote the words "we're Illinois football and we can't be trusted" for FOURTEEN SEASONS and then, after the Indiana game in 2022 (a game we lost, mind you), I put it to bed and haven't used it since. I finally have something I can trust.

It's just so pleasant to watch my team without all of the old "will it ever happen?" angst. Sure, I ride the highs and the lows. As I said in the snippet above, I was so sad in my Washington hotel room knowing that the playoff dream (fantasy?) was over. I couldn't even stay on my feet when David Olano was lining up for the field goal against USC. And I just wrote Saturday night about how nice it was to spend the fourth quarter on Saturday without a single anxious moment. I usually pace, even if we're up three scores, but Saturday was pure relaxation.

Which is why I view this whole thing as a gift now. Like, an actual gift. I'd open a Christmas present as a kid and sometimes be excited by a remote control car and other times disappointed by socks. But the anticipation was the same every time I grabbed a corner of the wrapping paper. And it would be the same the following Christmas, and the following Christmas...

That's how I view Illini football now. That's why what you thought might be a "oh man, there's trouble ahead" 2026 depth chart review a few weeks ago was more "I'm excited to see what next year brings." If things don't swing our way and we have a 6-6 or 5-7 season with a new QB next year, I'm still good. We'll just surge again in 2027. Maybe even into playoff position again.

We all endured only five winning seasons in 27 years between 1995 and 2021. We're now going to have three winning seasons in four years. For the foreseeable future, each autumn will be "maybe we're only 6-6, but maybe, just maybe, we can win ten or eleven and find ourselves..."

Happy birthday to us. Merry Christmas to us.

Hope you like your presents.