If Illinois Football Can Be Saved, Anything Is Possible

By Johnathan Hettinger

I don’t want to be too dramatic about this, but something unnatural is happening in Champaign. This something has been looming in the background for a few years, threatening to emerge, but right now, it feels real. It feels like it could stick. It may not be an illusion in the night. Illinois football is good?

And like, they’re going to continue to be good for the foreseeable future?

I know, I know. It’s 9-3, not 12-0. It’s the Citrus Bowl, not the College Football Playoff. But when I was a 13-year-old playing NCAA Football 2006, I didn’t go win national championships with Illinois. That was too unrealistic. I went 8-4 and to the Outback Bowl. I went 9-3 and to the Capital One Bowl or the Citrus Bowl.

That was the best I could possibly imagine.

Sometimes I say things that I don’t quite believe. Some people call it being an optimist. Others call it delusion. In my season preview column this year, I predicted this:

“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.”

Astoundingly accurate if I do say so myself, except Illinois went 9-3 instead of 8-4, and Gibson City’s Aidan Laughery ran the hell out of the damn ball instead of Atwood's Kaden Feagin. Even my delusional hope couldn’t imagine the success of this season, which is insane because (if i'm being honest) I truly just hoped we would go 6-6.

I have lived on this earth for nearly 32 years, and the one thing I could pretty well count on was Illinois football disappointing me.

But this year, I went to Illinois’ game against the defending national champion Michigan Wolverines, and the result — an Illinois win — was never in doubt. I listened on the radio as Pat Bryant caught the ball on fourth-and-13 with seconds remaining and run it into the end zone to beat Rutgers. I stood in the West Balcony as Illinois stopped Purdue on a two-point conversion to win a game that any other Illinois football team of my lifetime would’ve blown.

So don’t mind me if I take a bit of liberties with reality for the next little while. I’m not sure we’re living in it.

What’s next? The hotel in Lincoln Square Mall will open? Country Fair will be demolished? Midtown will become a thing? Carle will pay its fair share of property taxes? They’ll finish the Six Pack? Willard Airport will get more flights and free parking? They’ll build a hockey arena at Illinois Terminal? Or a cross-town bike path? Or the hotel next to Wedge (I mean… Sticky Rice)?

Why stop there? Don Gerard’s Minor League baseball team will come to town? The South End Zone will be renovated? They’ll turn Springfield Avenue into a Lazy River? The University will once and for all replace the Chief? All those who have wronged me will realize the error in their ways?? The maintenance man will finally fix my sink???

OK. OK. OK. I should slow down. My heart is racing just thinking of the possibilities.

But do you get it? Do you? Do you understand that Bret Bielema is out here turning water into wine? He’s turning the school with the 15th best recruiting class in the Big Ten into the 5th best team in the conference — the football equivalent of feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish.

Not to be sacrilegious but do you know what type of collective exorcism was needed to forget the Tim Beckman era? As far as I’m concerned, it’s a miracle every time a fan comes through the turnstiles at Memorial Stadium, and it’s happening more than in a long time.

The thing is, Bret Bielema just did it by being mostly competent. He hasn't established a dominant line or run game like he had at Wisconsin. Illinois had more NFL talent than it has since the Zook era, but it’s not like we have one position where we’re especially dominant. Illinois has competent – and oftentimes even really good – players across the field. And most of those players are coming back next year. And Illinois added three(!) Wisconsin starters in the transfer portal. Inconceivable.

Is Illinois football back? I don’t know. Back from what? The 1950s? The 1920s? Former Illinois coach Bob Zuppke may have invented the forward pass, but for most of my life, Illinois has barely been able to complete one.

Will we beat South Carolina? I doubt it, but wouldn’t that be cool? It’s December, and I’m still thinking about Illinois football.

Let me put it this way: When Illinois basketball hosted No. 1 Tennessee a few weeks ago, Luke Altmyer came out at the first media timeout and announced he was coming back. State Farm Center cheered the loudest it did all game — in a game where we almost beat the best team in the country. When I walked out, we weren’t talking about the heartbreak of the last-second loss, we were talking about how good Illinois football is going to be next year. 9-3 again? 10-2? 11-1? Hell, Indiana is gonna regress to the mean, and Ohio State is going the way of Michigan, so we might just be undefeated.

Is it possible I’m getting ahead of myself? Yes, certainly. But that’s OK. I do that all of the time. But usually my dreams are of going to a bowl game in Detroit (whatever they’re calling it now). Now, they’re of Pasadena.

And by God or by Bret Bielema, they just might come true.

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