Illini's Bowl Possibilities Remain Wide Open
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- With just one win needed for bowl eligibility and a four-year bowl drought for the program, the Illinois postseason options are wide open.
Illinois (5-4, 3-3 in Big Ten) stands one win away from its first postseason game since 2014 and that fact alone has Illini head coach Lovie Smith calling this Saturday’s contest at Michigan State (2:30 p.m., FS1) “the biggest game of my tenure here”.
“One of our goals to take steps as we continue to build our program. One of those steps is to get to a bowl game,” Smith said. “As we talk about being in the playoffs, this (game at Michigan State) is a playoff game for us. It always comes down to, with young people, that they want to see a better product on the field. All of this (recent success) helps.”
The first key for Illinois, which is trying to go bowling for the first time since Tim Beckman’s squad qualified for the 2014 Heart of Dallas Bowl, is the fact the Big Ten Conference may likely fill all of its 10 postseason commitments as long as an undefeated team wins the conference championship game to likely qualify for one of the four College Football Playoff spots.
Even if that happens, Illinois will still have a lot of possibilities for bowls.
Entering this week, the Big Ten has seven bowl-eligible teams (Ohio State, Penn State, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa and Indiana) and Illinois is the only team currently sitting with a 5-4 record. Michigan State and Nebraska each have four wins and have winnable games on its schedule to get to the magical total of six victories.
CBSSports.com analyst Jerry Palm just put Illinois in his latest bowl projections for the first time this season as he has the Illini in the Quick Lane Bowl versus Florida State. The Seminoles, which currently stand at 4-5, terminated head coach Willie Taggart Sunday afternoon after less than two seasons. Both ESPN.com analysts Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach have Illinois in the Quick Lane Bowl vs. Duke. Stadium.com's Brett McMurphy has Illinois in the Quick Lane Bowl vs. North Carolina State.
Due to the fact Illinois has been absent from the bowl picture for nearly a five-year stretch, any of the bowls with Big Ten tie-ins can select the Illini without worrying about a contractual problem. Normally bowl committees are requested by the league to restrain from selecting a team twice in a five-year stretch to promote parity in its postseason games. For example, the agreement with the Big Ten Conference and the Citrus Bowl committee is for all possibilities to be exhausted to have five different teams to be selected for the game within the six-year deal. Therefore, Penn State, Minnesota or Michigan are restricted from being in this game unless the circumstances are unavoidable.
The bowl committees, which want to sell as many tickets and promote the hotel and dining options in the local market, also are always intrigued at new options to select from. This is how Purdue, which went without a bowl game from 2013-16 had several postseason options the last two seasons when Jeff Brohm took the Boilermakers, with a 6-6 regular-season record, to the 2017 Foster Farms Bowl and the 2018 Music City Bowl in his first two seasons.
“We've had traditional success with schools and fanbases that fit the profile of what Purdue looks like this season," Music City Bowl President and CEO Scott Ramsey said in November 2018. "You're looking at a program that is excited about being in a bowl game again and one that I think has shown the biggest jump in fan support maybe in the entire country."
A logical argument could be made everything Ramsey described one year ago about the Boilermakers is happening in Champaign-Urbana right now with this Illini program.
“I like it when there are positive vibes around a program and to me, there is no in-between,” Illinois offensive coordinator Rod Smith said. “You’re either uplifting a program or you’re tearing it down. To me, if we all get on this train together then we’re all going in the same direction.”
In the scenario charted below, Ohio State finishes undefeated and wins the Big Ten Championship Game and therefore puts the Buckeyes in the CFP for the first time since 2017 when they were shut out by Clemson in the Fiesta Bowl semifinal.
| <strong>BIG TEN BOWL TIE-IN (Restricted Teams)</strong> | <strong>PROJECTED TEAM AVAILABLE</strong> |
|---|---|
College Football Playoff spot | Ohio State |
Rose Bowl | Penn State |
Citrus Bowl (Penn State, Minnesota or Michigan) | Wisconsin |
Outback Bowl (Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan or Northwestern) | Minnesota |
Holiday Bowl (Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern or Wisconsin) | Indiana |
Taxslayer Bowl (Iowa or Penn State) | Michigan |
Pinstripe Bowl (Indiana, Iowa, Northwestern, Penn State or Wisconsin) | Michigan State or Illinois |
Redbox Bowl (Indiana, Maryland, Michigan State, Nebraska or Purdue) | Iowa or Illinois |
Quick Lane Bowl | Illinois or Nebraska |
Even if the Illini finish at just 6-6, where they’re likely to be favored in the season finale home game against Northwestern, the lower tier Big Ten bowl options of Music City, Pinstripe (at Yankee Stadium in New York), Redbox (at Santa Clara, Calif., where the San Francisco 49ers play) and Quick Lane (in Detroit) are high options for Illinois if the bowl committees are convinced ticket sale guarantees and travel package numbers would be high.
According to the conference rules agreement, if the Big Ten has more than nine bowl-eligible teams, they can place a team in the Armed Forces Bowl (in Dallas) against what would hopefully be a Mountain West Conference opponent on Jan. 4. If Illinois were to be selected for that game, it would obviously be the latest an Illini team has played into a season.