COMMENTARY: Expectations bar subtly lowered from ‘we will win’ to ‘we were so close’
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- On March 7, 2016, Illinois athletics director Josh Whitman and Lovie Smith both held up a sign that said three words: ‘We will win’.
Just 1,314 days after that three-word declaration, the bar of expectations has noticeably been lowered again at Illinois to “we will get close”.
Following his 26th Big Ten Conference loss in 30 attempts Saturday, Illinois head coach Lovie Smith wanted to stress the positives of his team’s comeback effort of a game heading into the direction of another 63-0, 63-24, 46-7 and 48-3 abyss that has been seen during his era of Illini football. And unfortunately, what other option does Smith have now?
“I think it absolutely was a gut check,” Smith said. “We had to decide what we wanted to do. We chose to fight harder.”
Illinois players, one after another, spoke to the media about the hope that exists in being close as a building block for this program nearly four years after players, recruits, boosters, media and fans were all told ‘we will win’.
The idea of being able to get within three points of a Michigan team in a version of its own turmoil of Jim Harbaugh’s fifth season was hailed as a purposeful bright spot. This supposedly uplifting concept was designed to outshine the fact that this same Illini team got out its hard hat and shovel to dig itself a 28-0 crater before halftime.
But none of that embodies the mantra of ‘we will win’.
In an alternate reality universe that exists in Champaign County, Illinois, what we had at Memorial Stadium around 4 p.m. Saturday was a real sense that the team who lost by 15 is a more encouraged bunch.
And when you look at this Illini program - that idea might just be the whole problem.
“When you look at that (second half) moment, and to be able to be able to play that type of football here for 60 minutes, then we’ll be able to have something here,” Smith said.
Don’t misunderstand me, you’d be hard to find a large number among the announced attendance of 37,275 at Memorial Stadium who left satisfied.
Michigan faithful left with a bad taste after racing out to a 28-0 lead but nearly seeing it all tumble apart against a team they clearly should’ve overmatched in every way possible. The Wolverines’ problems are the product of being the winningest program in college football history and an underlying narrative of wanting more in the present.
Illinois fans, who certainly didn’t outnumber their counterparts in the maize and blue Saturday, left with a 24th straight loss to a ranked team and the dreaded ‘what if’ thoughts following a frantic comeback all go for naught.
Following this loss, which was honestly expected by those in orange and blue with a working brain stem and a healthy grip on logic, Lovie Smith wants to hang on to hope. This hope is the second half of this season being salvaged similarly to the way the result of Saturday’s loss was restored back to acceptable.
“Just like how we’re talking now about how we changed it up in that third quarter, that’s what I think we can do with our football season too,” Smith said. “When you’re down 28-0 and you come back, that has to say something about who you are. I think the guys that are feeling that. I’m under the belief that we’re going to take that effort right then and start the game against Wisconsin this week.”
Illinois linebacker Jake Hansen talks about the shortcoming of the Illini defense following a fourth straight Big Ten Conference loss.
The eighth-ranked Badgers (6-0, 3-0) will roll into Champaign with a 6-0 record and the 10th-best rushing attack in college football next weekend. Before that Homecoming contest kicks off, the obvious question exists: what is an acceptable result then?
The most crucial question for Whitman, Lovie Smith and other U of I athletics officials need to ask is simple: When is the public relations effort of trying to turn the pumpkin of what happened Saturday vs. Michigan into magic carriage not worth it?