With the 2019 college football season officially in the books, it’s time to look back on how the Big Ten did in bowl games.
As we go through all the bowls, in no particular order, we will focus on two main things:
1. How did the bowl performance end the 2019 season? Was it a fitting end or a poor performance, etc.
2. What impact, if any, will it have on the 2020 season.
2019 Redbox Bowl: Illinois vs California
The matchup
Like Indiana and Michigan, Illinois came into this game as an underdog. The Illini had a great season to get to six wins, and their reward was a talented but inconsistent Cal team. Cal was a very good team with Chase Garbers at the helm, but the Golden Bears struggled without him. Garbers was back for this game, which was good news for the Bears.
What went right
The first quarter was a solid one for Illinois. After an opening drive ended in a field goal, the Illini responded to a Cal touchdown with a 15-play touchdown drive of their own. Cal’s advantages in this game were obvious from the outset, but Illinois managed to mask it in the first quarter with a good offensive game plan that was well-executed.
What went wrong
Basically everything else after that. Garbers and the offense weren’t unstoppable, but Illinois couldn’t really get stops. The offense wasn’t explosive, but it did a great job of extending drives and keeping the Illinois defense on the field.
Illinois played well enough throughout the game to possibly keep it close, but the talent disparity was too much to overcome at the level that the Illini did play. It wasn’t a particularly exciting or compelling game, but it was definitely better than last season’s Redbox Bowl disaster.
Next… 2019 wrap-up and 2020 impact
2019 wrap-up
Illinois wrapped up its best season since the Ron Zook era. A bowl win would have been a great way to cap it off, but this was still a great season for the Illini, relatively speaking. Illinois has been slowly and steadily improving under Lovie Smith. The ceiling for this program is probably six or seven wins, especially with basically the entire Big Ten West improving as the schools hire top-level coaches. Still, Smith has done great to just to get Illinois to 6-6 this year, especially with a big upset win over Wisconsin. Beat the teams the should and get an upset next year, and the Illini could flirt with a ranked season.
2020 Impact
This game doesn’t affect the Big Ten at all for 2020, really. It doesn’t affect Illinois either. The Illini have a very easy nonconference schedule in 2020. Any half-decent Power 5 team (or any Power 5 team other than Rutgers or maybe Arkansas) should go 3-0 against this schedule.
Illinois is not at a point where it has a bigger goal than going 6-6 and reaching a bowl game. The three nonconference games can be penciled in as wins. Games against Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ohio State (and probably Iowa too) are almost guaranteed losses. That means that Illinois needs to go 3-2 against Rutgers, Nebraska, Purdue, Indiana, and Northwestern next year to go bowling.
Would it have been easier to get back to six wins with a bowl win this year? Maybe. It’s hard to gauge the recruiting impact that could have on a school like Illinois. It’s definitely a missed opportunity, but how much of an opportunity it ever was we might not really know. Still, if Illinois can play anywhere near as well this coming year as this past year, the Illini will get another chance to rectify this missed opportunity.
