Even though I am a much bigger Illini basketball fan than football fan, I’d be remiss if I did not mention somewhere here about the Illini football team. For the first time in many years, Illini football is relevant again. Yes, we have been relevant all year long, but our win over Ohio State this past weekend was our biggest win in a long time. I’m just glad to see some excitement in Champaign at Memorial Stadium. It is too bad we had too many mind-boggling losses this year, but we could have easily put together a BCS team this year if we played the way we played in Columbus. I’m hoping we take care of Northwestern this weekend and get a nice New Year’s Day bowl…then we can look forward to next year.

And basketball…yes, this looks to be a down year for Illini basketball, but it could also be very interesting and exciting depending on how well Weber gets this team ready to play. It sounds like we are going to have a lot of players in the mix. I’ve heard as many as 12 players could play every game. Either Weber does not know who the best players are or this is going to provide a lot of competition down the road. I think we are going to have a lot of ups and downs this year, but I’m looking forward to the new blood. This really feels like Weber’s “first” year. These are his recruits (I think) and it his solely his program. Though I expect us to miss the tournament this year, anything is possible. And, Weber has generated a lot of excitement for the program with the big in-state commitments and I think the Jeffrey Jordan thing will bring a lot of attention to our program. We are at point where we can surprise other teams…which certainly wasn’t true just a couple years ago. We will see what happens…