Here We Go Again: Illinois Football, Delusional Hope and Unimagined Horrors

By Johnathan Hettinger

At the tops of mountain peaks, you generally get really good cell phone service. After a long day of hiking through rolling hills that block out the rest of the world’s ability to talk to you, the return to service is largely something I’ve found to be annoying. You accomplish a really hard hike, you get to the peak, and you’re excited and giddy and want to just eat your cheese and take a selfie in peace.

But “ding ding” goes your phone, bringing you back into the real world.

Early fall is the best time to climb mountains, the old snow has melted but the new hasn’t fallen yet, but it’s also the time when you’re most likely to be upset by Illinois football. And far too many times over the past six years living in Montana, I’ve been brought back into reality by Illinois football losing a game they shouldn’t in a way that most normal teams could only dream of.

I moved back home to Central Illinois from Montana this June for a number of reasons, but mostly because I think this place deserves to be loved. And for some probably insane reason, that mindset extends to Illinois football.

I feel like the Northwestern game, the last time we all saw this team take the field, is the perfect encapsulation of why Illinois football is potentially the least-fulfilling hobby that I have in my life.

I was home for Thanksgiving and excited for Illinois to make a bowl game. I bought tickets, went to a tailgate and sat in the East Balcony with hopes that John Paddock and his cannon of an arm could recreate magic and we would make two bowl games in a row for the first time since my freshman year of college, more than a decade ago.

What was especially frustrating about this specific outing, like many others, was that it went pretty well, until it didn’t. In the fourth quarter, two muffed kick returns soon turned into two Northwestern touchdowns in nine seconds to lose out on a bowl game, almost the pinnacle of heartbreak. Except – because it’s Illinois football, I wasn’t crushed. I was just like, “Oh well. So it goes. The sky was really pretty this evening.”

Just in terms of raw volume, the amount of joy that I get from Illinois football pales when compared to the amount of sorrow.

I don’t even particularly like the game-going experience. I feel extremely weird about rooting for student-athletes that are giving each other brain damage under the guise of “higher education.” I’m not a big fan of the plastering of industrial agriculture propaganda all over the stadium and on the radio. As much as I think Oskee Light sounds better than ICON beer, I wish that they would just sell one from Riggs or Triptych. Every time I see a chief shirt and hear the fake Native music, I don’t feel nostalgic, but sad and angry, and trapped in a shared fandom with people who think this silly mascot/symbol/minstrel show is more important than like, making our diverse student body feel welcome on campus. We could just make the mascot a really pretty and cool bird, and be done.

Maybe with a more welcoming environment, more students would feel comfortable coming to a game or two.

But I guess when the on-the-field product is uninspiring, the fans resort to talking about something tertiary, beyond the borders of hash marks.

But it’s not just the tired, inaccurate fan accouterments that has Illini fans like me down, and it’s not just past performance on the field either; it’s also because of the future. Now that the Big Ten has expanded to 18 teams spanning coast to coast, it feels even more difficult to have some hope. It's hard to imagine that we'll ever be able to win a Big Ten title or go to a Rose Bowl (if that even still exists with the playoff?) when we are in the same conference as Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, USC, UCLA, Oregon AND Washington? We may never be good again. For the rest of our life, the best it seems that we could reasonably hope for on a consistent basis is 14th of 18. And just to be fair, that might be better than where we’ve been for most of my 31 years on this earth. I’d rather just play Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin.

Despite all this, I’m excited about this season. I truly think we’re going to beat Michigan. Boswell (who runs this site) likes to tell me I’m delusional - and maybe I am?

But that collective delusion is the best part of being an Illinois football fan. If things just go a little differently, maybe we win that Ohio State game in 2002 where I didn’t want to leave when we were tied in the Fourth Quarter even though I was supposed to walk with the Cub Scouts in the Veteran’s Day Parade in Monticello. Or the Ohio State game in 2008 that led me to ghost my job at Dairy Queen after only a couple months because I asked to not be scheduled during it, and they scheduled me anyway (We really did have a chance). Or the 2010 Michigan game that ended 67-65 and went into three overtimes that I listened to in the parking lot of Marketplace Mall while getting ready to go hang out with friends.

We’re always just close enough that when those moments finally come, they make it all worth it. Even if they are few and far between. This payoff is, among other reasons, why we are fans in the first place.

This year, we’re going to go 8-4. We’re going to beat Michigan. Luke Altmeyer is going to be the best quarterback we’ve had since Nathan Scheelhaase (or maybe Juice). Kaden Feagin (who I claim as my fellow Piatt Countyian despite him allegedly being from the Douglas County side of Atwood), will be the most exciting player on the field. Feagin will follow in fellow central Illinoisian Mikel Leshoure’s footsteps by running the hell out of the damn ball at Wrigley Field.

We also might go 5-7, and lose a bowl game on two muffed kicks that turn into two touchdowns in nine seconds. Or some other yet-to-be-imagined horror.

I think Bret Bielema is a very good coach, I wrote about it at length in last year’s football preview. Like I said, I am truly excited about our offense. I think we will be largely competent, but this is college football, and stupid things happen often.

So I’ll be there Thursday. I’m gonna walk over from my office after work and go to my future brother-in-law’s family tailgate.

Then, I’ll go over to the East Side of Memorial Stadium, where I got $10 tickets to sit in the 16th row off the 50-yard line because apparently a lot of other fans share the thought, “um, why did we schedule a game at 8 p.m. on a Thursday?”

Maybe we’ll be OK this season. Maybe we won’t. But I’ll be able to drink an Oskee Light in Lot 31 with my friends, find some insane people to argue with on Twitter and believe, truly believe, that the Rose Bowl is just a play or two or 10 away.

For that reason, I keep coming back. Or at least checking the score when I get back into service.

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