Big Ten West favorite emerging and it’s a surprise to everyone
By John Buhler
Bret Bielema has his Illinois Fighting Illini dominating and possibly winning the Big Ten West.
It comes as quite a shock that Bret Bielema has turned his Illinois football team into a total wagon.
With a 26-14 home win over the Minnesota Golden Gophers, the No. 24 Illinois Fighting Illini have improved to 6-1 on the season and 3-1 in Big Ten play. This is only his second season at the helm, but the Illini are starting to play like, guess what? The Wisconsin Badgers from yesteryear and the few good seasons of Arkansas Razorbacks football before it really hit the fan under Chad Morris!
Illinois’ only loss on the season so far was by three points on the road at … the Indiana Hoosiers.
Illinois Fighting Illini are the Big Ten West favorite we did not know we needed
While they did drop their first game in conference play to the Hoosiers, the Illini won all three of their games in the non-conference (vs. Wyoming, vs. Virginia, vs. Chattanooga). Although they still have five Big Ten games to play, it should be noted that all three of their conference victories so far are over divisional opponents (at Wisconsin, vs. Iowa, vs. Minnesota). Here’s why that is important.
Even though Illinois still has to host Michigan State and play at Michigan later this season, the Illini will be favored over all three of its remaining games against Big Ten West opponents: at Nebraska in two weeks, home vs. Purdue on Nov. 12 and at Northwestern on Nov. 26. With Michigan State having a rough year, there is a very strong possibility that the Illini go 10-2 (7-2) on the season.
That should be more than good enough to get Illinois to the Big Ten Championship Game. Most importantly, they would have the head-to-head tiebreaker over seemingly every one of their division rivals who will be competing for that trip to Indianapolis. Although no Big Ten West team has won in Indy before, Illibuck is about to be off the chain. A turtle trophy to win the Big Ten, yes!
Yes, Michigan is good too, but for Illibuck reasons, why would you not want Illinois vs. Ohio State?
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