Before the new-look Big Ten’s first football season with 18 teams kicks off in 2024, 247Sports polled its deep roster of insiders for a program-by-program breakdown. The Big Ten Survey asked a handful of questions, including, “What issue keeps your fan base up at night?” Here’s a roundup of the answers.
Jeremy Werner, Illini Inquirer
If Bret Bielema can’t do it, who can? Bielema has been a successful Big Ten coach and had a few good years in the SEC. He’s a strong and organized CEO, great marketer and has hired some impressive staffs at Illinois. He’s a no-doubt improvement over the past three decades of Illini coaches, particularly Tim Beckman and Lovie Smith. His athletic director, Josh Whitman, also has poured resources into Bielema to make this work.
So far, Bielema has made strides to improve the program, taking it from overmatched in the Big Ten to frisky and competitive. But the Illini took a step back last season, so there’s still a question of whether the program can truly leap to a consistently successful Big Ten program similar to Wisconsin or Iowa.
The Illini have developed well, but their recruiting rankings have ranked toward the bottom of the Big Ten despite a sensible recruiting approach by Bielema and his staff. So can Bielema out-develop and out-coach his peers to get Illinois to the middle tier of the Big Ten and potentially more?
The program has always been called a “sleeping giant” given its stature in a talent-rich area. But if Bielema struggles to truly awaken it during the next…
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