Shout “31-23!” from the rooftops, Illinois fans. Use the numbers in your new vanity plates. Heck, why not get them tattooed across your foreheads?
Or, better yet, don’t.
The score of the Illini’s Week 2 victory at Connecticut was, more than anything else, disappointing. There’s nothing hyperbolic about saying UConn might be the worst team in the country.
Yes, it had been 12 years since Illinois last won a non-conference road game. A bunch of other losses that didn’t count toward that streak — at Soldier Field, or against Missouri in the former Arch Rivalry series in St. Louis — only made the futility seem worse.
But all one needs to know is this: The Illini (2-0) outscored the Huskies 24-0 in the second quarter and outgained them 212-18 — yet still had to sweat out the final result.
Seems to me that adds up to about 15 minutes of good football by Lovie Smith’s fourth Illini team. The standard has to be higher than that.
On to the rest of the “Big 10” (where 10 actually means 10):
2. Betiku, that’s who: On the other hand … get a load of Illini defensive end Oluwole Betiku Jr., will you? The grad transfer from USC had 3½ sacks Saturday to bring his early-season total to five. Is it too early to start the countdown to the school-record 16 shared by the great Simeon Rice (1994) and Whitney Mercilus (2011)?
3. He earned it: I can’t be the only one who watched Texas A&M quarterback Kellen Mond limp badly all game as he was terrorized by No. 1 Clemson’s defense, then got an eyeful of the cuts and scratches on his face when it was over, and thought: Maybe just pay him a little?
4. Joey Ballgame: Did you see what LSU QB Joe Burrow did to Texas? He made his receivers look like the amazing Tigers unit — Reuben Randle, Odell Beckham Jr., Jarvis Landry — of early this decade. Or maybe it was they who made him look like a world-beater. Either way, this team could be 8-0 and in position to make a giant move when it visits Alabama on Nov. 9.
5. Hard Knoxville: Tennessee is 0-2 after losses to Georgia State and — in stunning-choke fashion — BYU. Florida State, meanwhile, avoided its own humiliating 0-2 start by hanging on against Louisiana-Monroe in overtime. We’re a heck of a long way from the Vols-’Noles title game of January 1999.
6. By the way: Also in the top 10 of the polls to cap the ’98 season: Arizona, Tulane, UCLA, Georgia Tech and Kansas State. Clemson and Alabama? They finished a combined 10-13.
7. Kedon Slovis, your table is ready:The USC true freshman played essentially a perfect game in a blowout of Stanford, throwing for 377 yards and three touchdowns and posting an absurdly high QB rating of 210.8. Remember what that same Cardinal “D” did to Northwestern in Week 1?
Slovis — an instant star — was in the game only because starter JT Daniels injured his ACL and is out for the season. That QB competition in 2020 will be one of the most talked-about in the country.
8. Shakiest 2-0 start ever? I’m not feeling Minnesota after it needed a fourth-quarter comeback to nip South Dakota State and then, in Week 2, needed a fourth-and-12 conversion in the final minute to force overtime at Fresno State. Then again, I could be missing the point. Clutchest 2-0 start ever?
9. That’s what he said: “We just came here and took them to overtime with a bunch of guys that, frankly, nobody at this level recruited.”
That was Army’s outstanding coach, Jeff Monken, after the tireless, steely Black Knights fell 24-21 at seventh-ranked Michigan. It was a lot like their stirring 2018 performance in an overtime loss at then-fifth-ranked Oklahoma. Hopefully, Jim Harbaugh and all the Wolverines’ coaches and players learned a thing or two.
10. And another thing: Just two years ago, Jim McElwain was still coach at Florida, with a Top 25 team coming off 10- and nine-win seasons. Now he’s at Central Michigan, which lost 61-0 at Wisconsin and had three first downs all game, to the No. 17 Badgers’ 37. College football sure is a fickle mistress.
