Analysis: Big Ten’s Conference-Only Schedule Plan May Hit Illinois Football The Hardest
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The conference-only 2020 schedule might arguably hit Illinois football the hardest.
The 2020 campaign was predicated upon getting off to one of the best starts in program history.
Lovie Smith’s program had been pointing toward a 2020 slate where a majority of starters from the previous season. This was the season Smith and everybody in the Illinois football facility had been point toward as the apex of this program that seems to be in a constant rebuilding phase.
Not in 2020. At least not until a global pandemic constantly changed all perspectives on numerous things.
“Before this virus started impacting our country, we were preparing to have the best football season we've had in a long time at the University of Illinois,” Smith said triumphantly in March. “Yes, building off of a bowl season, but also building off 15 starters that had their first action years ago that are now seniors. (The) optimism (is) based on just what has happened in our eight-week offseason program.”
The first month of the season with opponents such as Illinois State, Bowling Green and Connecticut was supposed to be grooved toward the Illini’s first 3-0 start since 2011 and only the third 3-0 start since 2001. “Optimism” as Smith put it was warranted. Then, Illinois was to open up Big Ten Conference play with Rutgers on Oct. 3. The Illini were likely to be favored in all of those first four games and the last Illinois won four games in a row to start a season was 2011 when they started 6-0 but lost their final six regular season games resulting in the firing of then-head coach Ron Zook. See, not even getting out fast results in anything but a bummer for Illini football. Before 2011, the last time Illinois started 4-0 in a season was 1951 when they ended up in the Rose Bowl.
By playing only conference games, Illinois is highly unlikely to have the similar jumpstart to its 2020 campaign, assuming that the season even gets played. And judging by the tone of both the Big Ten’s and Illinois’ media releases, the prospects of football being played in the fall becomes a more remote possibility by the minute, hour and day.
“Health and safety of our students, coaches and staff, and fans remain the first and foremost priority of both the Big Ten and our University, and as the conference made clear today,” the University of Illinois athletics department statement reads. “We will not hesitate to suspend, delay, or cancel competition should such a decision be dictated by community health concerns.”
By not playing these non-conference games, Illinois has likely angered the athletics directors of all three institutions and guaranteed itself a much more difficult path to the school’s first winning record in a regular season since 2007.
In the ultimate irony, the last time the nation was reeling for the biggest health pandemic forcing an all-conference play football schedule was a 1919 season that resulted in a Big Ten championship and national championship for the Illini.
Just 101 years later, Illinois now sees a global virus pandemic strips their football program of three likely wins they likely were desperate to need in order to consider this 2020 ride, if it ever gets off the ground, a successful journey.