Bret Bielema is incorrect when he complains that his Illinois football team has yet to establish an identity.
Sure, it has an identity. It’s a real doozy of an identity, too. The Illini, 2-3 after a 44-19 loss at Purdue, are the most disappointing team in what arguably is the worst Big Ten West division ever.
That’s it — an identity nobody would ever want, and one that will be extremely hard to shake even with a little over half a season remaining.
At this point, we have to be deeply concerned about the bumbling, stumbling Illini. If we aren’t, who wil bel? Coming off an eight-win season that strongly suggested Bielema was building toward actual success in Champaign, the Illini have all but erased themselves from the national consciousness.
They needed fourth-down heroics on a last-ditch drive to survive Toledo and got blown out at Kansas. They made every mistake imaginable in a hideous loss to Penn State and were only marginally better than Florida Atlantic. And now, a lopsided loss to the Boilermakers, who looked like an even worse team than Illinois until Illinois came calling.
“To have that thing fall apart the way it did is just very disturbing,” Bielema said.
In 2022, the Illini were rip-your-face-off good on defense and prolific at running the football. That, folks, is identity. This team excels at, seemingly, nothing. Not fun.
The West’s lone winless teams, Illinois and Nebraska, meet Friday at Memorial Stadium. One of them will leave with an 0-3 league record and the dreaded distinction of being the worst team in the Big Ten. But, wait, there’s also Michigan State and Indiana. Let’s just call it a four-way tie.
Irish still in the mix
The line between jubilation and despair — between keeping a potentially special season alive and having it go up in smoke — is incredibly thin.
One fourth-and-16 run, people. If Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman doesn’t find the first-down marker on the final drive at Duke, the Irish season is a disaster. Instead, he gets there, they then score a winning touchdown and we’re talking about all the great things that might develop for the Irish. A Hartman Heisman. A playoff berth. And so on. Until Saturday at newly ranked Louisville, anyway.
Kelly miserable at LSU
The line between being loved and hated if you’re the coach at LSU is even thinner. Brian Kelly was the man coming into the season, the edge, even, that could push the Tigers past Georgia, Alabama and anyone else. But now? Kelly’s team ticked fans off badly by failing to keep up with Florida State in a Week 1 revenge game, and those same fans are ready to burn Kelly’s contract with the Tigers just having allowed 55 points and over 700 yards in a humiliating loss to Ole Miss.
But that’s what the man signed up for, is it not?
“Angry. Disappointed. I can’t think of all the adjectives,” he said. “We need to be pissed off about what happened and have some resolve about our circumstance.”
