Three-Dot Dash: Where will surging Illinois be in Top 25 on Sunday?

Illinois’ football team, still buzzing from its 31-24 win in overtime at Nebraska on Friday, is sure to move up from No. 24 in the new AP Top 25 that’s released early Sunday afternoon. Now 4-0 with a pair of wins against ranked teams, the Illini have earned a good bit of respect from voters.

So where will they be?

My prediction is the Illini will come in at No. 20, jumping four teams that lost — Northern Illinois, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. It’s very unlikely that USC, which lost a tight one at Michigan, will tumble far enough from No. 11 for the Illini to move up into the teens.

On the other hand, 13th-ranked Kansas State had just kicked off at BYU as this was being written. So there was potential after all, with a Wildcats loss, for the Illini to rise to No. 19.

Does any of this even matter in September? It feels a lot more like it does after the thrilling upset of the Cornhuskers than it did before it. A 4-0 start — Illinois’ first since 2011 — makes it a lot more tempting to begin thinking about how many wins this team can pile up in a season that began with modest expectations, most of the Big Ten previews out there having pegged Bret Bielema’s fourth Illini team for only five or six wins.

I predicted 7-5, which might end up short in the win column. Certainly, 8-4 seems achievable. Better than that? Sure, though I wouldn’t bet on it yet. Still, this has been the step forward Bielema needed for the sake of his reputation more so than for job security.

By the way, the 2011 team started out 6-0 before losing six straight, leading to Ron Zook’s dismissal. And the 2022 team was riding high at 7-1 before messing the bed in back-to-back games at home against seemingly inferior Michigan State and Purdue. As any Illini football fan knows, there is to be no taking anything for granted, not now, not ever.

THREE-DOT DASH

• IT WAS NICE KNOWING YOU, Northwestern. The Wildcats went to Washington for the Huskies’ first-ever Big Ten game, were held to 112 yards of offense and finished on the business end of a 24-5 beatdown. The total dud in Seattle was a throwback to the lost seasons of 2021 and 2022, and nobody cared to revisit those. My preseason prediction of 5-7 for the Wildcats (2-2) is looking rather generous. …

• YOU, TOO, NIU. How crazy is it that Northern Illinois lost at home to Buffalo in its first game since winning at Notre Dame? This, folks, is why God invented college football. …

• MICHIGAN BEAT USC 27-24, and the contrast in styles was delectable fun. The Wolverines can’t throw the ball and might never again try, but they sure can run it physically. The Trojans can throw it all over the yard when their offensive line holds up, and they can beat anybody in the conference if their defensive line holds up — clearly, though, Lincoln Riley’s roster is still a little too soft where it counts. Michigan had almost no business winning that game but did anyway, toughness being the difference in the end.

• WHAT MUST MACK BROWN have said to his North Carolina team after it gave up 70 points to James Madison? What must it have felt like for Tar Heels defensive coordinator Geoff Collins? If Collins ever interviews for another head coaching job, the first thing any athletic director will ask him is, “How did you give up 70 to JMU?” If I’m UNC, I seriously think about scheduling Dolly Madison instead next time. …

• IMAGINE THE HORROR of being a Nebraska fan. The Huskers have lost 25 straight games against ranked teams. Even more painful, they’re 8-31 in one-possession games since the start of 2018. And they’ve played overtime seven times over the last decade without scoring a point in any of the extra periods. It has to be sheer torture to watch.

• IS IT NEXT SATURDAY YET? Georgia at Alabama at 6:30 p.m. Hallelujah and God bless America. …

• MY HEISMAN TOP FIVE entering Week 5 are (1) Miami QB Cam Ward, (2) Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart, (3) Alabama QB Jalen Milroe, (4) Colorado WR/DB Travis Hunter and (5) Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty.