In effort to prove its a real contender, Illinois blew out a solid Duke team on the road

With less than a minute left in Illinois’ 45-19 win over Duke, the cameraman from the television broadcast zoomed in on Illini coach Bret Bielema. His headset was already off his head as the final seconds were ticking off. That beautiful North Carolina breeze was flowing through his hair and he had that patented Bielema smirk on his face.

The translation of this Bielema smirk?

“I knew it.”

If you were paying attention to any offseason college football discourse, there was a lot of hype around this Illinois football team. It was a popular sentiment to believe the Illini were going to be this year’s Indiana, the Big Ten team — not nationally known as a football power — that somehow crashes the College Football Playoff discussion.

There is one difference between this year’s Illinois team and last year’s Indiana team: the Illini weren’t going to come out of nowhere and shock people. People saw Illinois coming.

Why? Last year at Illinois, Bielema led the Fighting Illini to its first 10-win season since 2001. This season, Illinois basically brought back its entire roster, including quarterback Luke Altmyer. The Illini also added West Virginia’s leading receiver Hudson Clement in the portal. They also return their entire offensive line, cornerback Xavier Scott, safeties Dylan Rosiek, Matthew Bailey and Miles Scott.

If you’re an Illinois fan, you were simultaneously fired up about this season while also succumbing to fear. Past trauma of Illinois teams with expectations letting you down came bubbling back to the surface. That’s why you were uncertain about Saturday’s game against Duke.

Bielema was smirking at the end of the game because he knew those worries were pointless. If you listened to the way he spoke about his team this offseason, you knew he was confident he had something. What he saw in Durham on Saturday confirmed his optimism.

Illinois didn’t play its cleanest game. You could make the case that the veteran secondary had too many holes, the defensive line didn’t get as much rush as you’d want, and it didn’t do a good enough job running on offense. You could even nitpick Altmyer’s accuracy. Believe it or not, Duke out-gained Illinois.

The result was still a blowout. Illinois didn’t play a perfect game and it didn’t matter. Yes, Duke played sloppy, turning it over four times (including twice deep in the Illinois territory). But as the game went on, there was no question who the better team was.

Some may be wary about how viable Illinois is against “real” competition later in the season. Duplicating what Indiana did isn’t just about winning one game in the nonconference. It’s about winning week in and week out throughout the season. But the “real” competition part? Duke is real competition. The Blue Devils are really solid football team with one of the most exciting quarterbacks in the country in Darian Mensah. The Blue Devils had CFP fantasies heading into the season, too.

Illinois’ dream continues and Duke got a dose of reality. In the near future, the Fighting Illini have a really big matchup with Indiana, a team who is also currently ranked in the Associated Press Top 25. That’ll be another test for Illinois to prove whether it’s a real contender.

But until then? Illinois is really good and its fans should be fired up.

That deserves a smirk.