Game-by-game prediction for the Illinois football 2024 season (Game 11: Illinois Football at Rutgers Scarlet Knights)
- Thread starter Tango Two
- Start date
The author of the article did a generic run down of Rutgers. Rutgers didn't need to rely on transfers to make the team great. That fact was lost on the author believing it is the difference in the quality of teams these days. It's a complete lack of knowledge and research on Rutgers. What exactly did Illinois do to improve its team to the point they are superior to Rutgers?
I didn't expect him to go too in depth and the AK criticism is fair given his personal experience watching him play, but he doesn't mention Kyle and the run game at all. I think you may want to mention the league's leading rusher in passing at least. Also, when he says we didn't do much to improve, we did add the FCS' top receiver through the portal - a position of need.
Let’s send him the Rutgers Al projection 
Look it’s an Illini beat writer. Looking at their schedule, the RU game would rank up there as a game they need to circle as a win. I get it. The Illini play D and are historically strong with stopping the run so that could make this one a sneaky tough game for us on paper in my opinion.
He also picked Illinois over Michigan & Michigan State.
If you watch the Ill vs Minnesota game, Minnesota's 2 minute defense at the end of the game is mostly responsible for the loss, Kaliakmanis played a pretty solid game.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. He was throwing at over 57% before that last possession which in his defense left him in a very tough spot. After a gut wrenching go ahead score by the Illini - AK was thrust back onto the field with 50 seconds to work with. He threw 3 incompletions to close out but he threw 3 TD passes in the game on only 22 pass attempts. No picks. Gavin never threw 3 TD passes in a single game in his whole college career. He had 9 passing TDs on the whole season.
How good is UM going to be this year? They lost a ton of talent and it’s coach replaced by someone well regarded but completely unproven as a HC
