The Illinois Fighting Illini announced several additions to their future football schedules this afternoon.
Illinois has completed their 2013 football schedule with a home game against Miami (OH) on Sept. 28, 2013. In addition, they have confirmed the earlier report that they will face Washington at Soldier Field in Chicago on Sept. 14.
Other non-conference games for Illinois in 2013 include home contests vs. Southern Illinois on Aug. 31 and Cincinnati on Sept. 7.
Illinois also confirmed today that they have scheduled future football games against Youngstown State (2014), Western Illinois (2015), Kent State (2015), and Western Michigan (2016).
The Fighting Illini now have two non-conference games scheduled in 2014 and 2015 and one scheduled in 2016. Big Ten teams play four out-of-conference games and an eight-game conference slate.
Listed below are Illinois’ future non-conference opponents through 2016. Click on the year to view the full schedule with Big Ten games.
- 08/31 – Southern Illinois
- 09/07 – Cincinnati
- 09/14 – Washington (at Chicago, IL)
- 09/28 – Miami, OH
- 08/30 – Youngstown State
- 09/13 – at Washington
- 09/05 – Western Illinois
- 09/12 – Kent State
- 09/10 – at Western Michigan
Some pretty tasty games on this schedule…..2013 is going to be a real test…
I agree – not a bad OOC for the 12 game era.
Not bad playing two bcs schools!
That’s the way it should be. In an attempt to encourage strength of schedule (and discourage too many weaker opponents) I’d like to see a rule mandating that BCS schedules should always meet the following standard:
– Minimum of 10 BCS conference opponents, or…
– 9 BCS schools plus at least 1 non-BCS road game or neutral site game (Examples: IND @ UMass; IOWA v. N. Illinois @ Soldier Field).
Of course I realize this will never happen b/c one-off money games (vs. FCS or MAC/WAC/Sun Belt) are too ingrained into the fabric of scheduling in the 12 game era.
Also:
– Prevent copouts in BCS scheduling by limiting # of games scheduled vs. the same conference. (Example: An SEC/B1G/B12/P12/ACC team shouldn’t be allowed to always play Big East teams.)
– Teams w/ 9 conference games would be mandated to play just 1 BCS OOC or a neutral/away game vs. non-BCS.
– The other 2 games/spots would be “free” for the BCS schools to do whatever.
You need to have the AQ teams play non-AQ teams to find out exactly what the non-AQ teams are. A 12-0 non-AQ team might not make the impending playoff if they are limited to playing other non-AQ schools. They need more scheduling options, not restrictions.
this could be the schedule that breaks Tim Beckman. This schedule looks easy but Tim knows how to screw it up.