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Actually, I’m a Northwestern fan, so I’m not sorry at all. But here’s the not-so-dispassionate truth: A year removed from its Rose Bowl run, Illinois came into this season expecting to compete for the Big Ten title. After a 2-1 start, it’s hard to see how they’re up to it. In their opening game they moved the ball and scored six touchdowns against a really good Missouri team, but they also surrendered 52 points. Their defense was a bit tougher against the slightly-less-mighty Eastern Illinois Panthers, but the whole team looked like it went home at halftime in a 20-17 win over Louisiana-Lafayette two weeks ago.
Last week I went a pretty average 6-2—Iowa fumbled away the upset at Pitt I’d anticipated, and while I saw Indiana having a little trouble with Ball State, I didn’t imagine the ass-kicking that ensued. It gets more interesting this Saturday with the start of conference play—the league looks pretty average, but no one’s awful, so over the next few weeks there’ll be lots of close games between teams fighting for the right to spend the holidays in Detroit.
