Indiana Football Opponent Preview: Illinois

Indiana Soccer opens its 2022 marketing campaign on a Friday night time in Bloomington, when the Illini come to city on September seventh.

This shall be 12 months two of the Bret Bielema experiment at Illinois, however he undoubtedly did flip some heads final season with an up and down 12 months that featured wins over Penn State (in probably the most Huge Ten soccer recreation of all time) and Minnesota subsequent to losses to Rutgers and UTSA.

Illinois had been in such a low place previous to Bielema’s arrival that the 5 win 2021 marketing campaign was a marked enchancment over the Lovie Smith period, which was simply getting began when Indiana final performed Illinois in 2017.

The Combating Illini really open their season with an August 27 matchup with Wyoming, a really respectable non-conference opponent in a recreation that ought to give us a reasonably good thought of how aggressive Bielema’s group shall be this 12 months.

Right here’s what we all know now:

Like Indiana, Illinois can have a brand new offensive coordinator this 12 months, as Bielema reunites with Barry Lunney Jr, who served as his tight ends coach at Arkansas earlier than a stint as an offensive coordinator for UTSA. In case you can’t beat ‘em, rent ‘em!

Lunney additionally served as affiliate head coach and quarterbacks coach in his time at UTSA, the place his offenses averaged 442.9 yards and 37.8 factors per recreation. Illinois followers will doubtless be comfortable if he may even come near replicating these stats in Champaign, after the Illini averaged simply 19.8 factors per recreation final 12 months, forward of solely Rutgers, Northwestern, and Indiana within the Huge Ten.

The Illini will carry again Chase Brown, who rushed for over 1000 yards final season and was named to Athlon Sport’s Second Workforce All Huge Ten Offense, and offensive lineman Alex Palczewski, who performs each the sort out and guard positions and was named to Athlon’s Third Workforce All Huge Ten Offense.

At quarterback, Illinois introduced in switch Tommy DeVito, who had a formidable season in 2019 as a sophomore starter for Syracuse, finishing 63.2% of his passes for two,360 yards and 19 touchdowns versus simply 5 interceptions. His 2020 season was reduce quick on account of harm, and he then misplaced the beginning job at Syracuse in 2021 to Garret Shrader.

Some Illini writers imagine that Artur Sitkowski can be in competitors for the beginning spot, after seeing restricted motion final 12 months at Illinois, finishing 50% of his passes for 704 yards, six touchdowns and two interceptions in 5 video games.

Illinois’ protection was about center of the pack within the Huge Ten final 12 months in yards (151.1) and factors per recreation (21.9) allowed. They’ll be returning important items from final 12 months’s group, together with security Sydney Brown, who was second on the crew in tackles final 12 months, and linebacker Calvin Hart Jr.

Hart Jr. is a little bit of a troublesome one to venture since he performed in only one recreation final 12 months earlier than taking place with a season-ending harm, however he shined in Illinois’ 2021 opening win over Nebraska with 6 tackles, two fumble recoveries, and a sack. Athlon Sports activities has him tabbed as Fourth Workforce All Huge Ten, regardless of how little he performed final 12 months.

Up entrance, Keith Randolph Jr. and Jer’Zhan Newton, who have been each within the high ten in tackles for Illinois final season. They completed with 4 and three.5 sacks final season, respectively, which ought to be a take a look at for an Indiana offensive line that struggled to dam a lot of something final season.

Frankly, I’m loads much less assured about this recreation than I used to be earlier than writing this text, particularly since this received’t be the primary recreation for Illinois this 12 months, and their energy on the defensive position is a little bit of a nightmare matchup for an offensive line that gave up 29 sacks for -169 yards final season.

If Taiwan Mullen is absolutely wholesome when the season rolls round and returns to his peak type, he and the remainder of the Indiana secondary might give Indiana’s protection a little bit of an edge, for the reason that Illini don’t boast a very spectacular receiving core. Nonetheless, they’re bringing again a man who rushed for over a thousand yards final 12 months and Indiana will not have the providers of Micah McFadden to single-handedly bottle up nice rushers.

Bizarre issues occur in Memorial Stadium, on a regular basis, so the primary Friday night time recreation in stadium historical past guarantees to be a spectacularly weird occasion, which might favor Illinois, because it had a bit extra of the chaos issue going for them final 12 months in comparison with an Indiana crew that was form of simply unhealthy.

Buckle up, people! This season is occurring, whether or not we prefer it or not. You wish to enable room for development over the season, however we might be taught loads from this week one match up with an Illinois crew that seems to be on an upward trajectory out of the Lovie period.