It’s one thing for a player to say something brash to give their upcoming opponent bulletin board material. It’s quite another for a coach to do it.
Enter Illinois coach Bret Bielema, whose No. 19 Illini go to Happy Valley to face the No. 9 Nittany Lions at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Bielema had this to say, among other things, during his weekly radio show: “They’re calling for White Out energy, whatever the hell that means.”
I’m not the best at picking up on sarcasm, but I’m pretty sure the comment was made tongue-and-cheek. That’s not how 107,000 other people will see it on Saturday night, however. Beaver Stadium in primetime might be the toughest atmosphere in the country to play against; it’s certainly on a short list, and if I’m an opposing coach, I certainly want to give that group any extra ammunition.
Bielema and his team have every right to feel confident heading into this one. They are 4-0 , coming off a 31-24 overtime road win (at night) against what at the time was a ranked Nebraska team. Will the Cornhuskers ever be back? But I digress.
The fact remains they are a 17.5-point underdog against a team that has yet to come anywhere close to playing its best football.
Bielema is good in the Big Ten. He belongs in the Big Ten. He went 68-24 in seven seasons at Wisconsin, including a 12-win season, two 11-win seasons and a 10-win season. He went to Arkansas, and in five years with the Hogs, it didn’t work out. Bielema’s teams went 29-34 and he was canned after five seasons.
Now in his fourth season at Illinois, he is 22-19 to this juncture. That might not sound like much, but consider the fact that the Illini had gone a decade without a winning season before Bielema’s arrival, and their eight wins in 2022 were the most for the program since winning nine in 2007. He has made the program relevant.
That being said, Penn State will easily be their toughest test to this juncture (sorry Nebraska).
The Athletic ranks all 134 Division I FBS teams and Kent State, Penn State’s opponent last week, was ranked 134, so there’s not a lot to glean from the Nittany Lions’ 56-0 victory last week. That being said, they did what they were supposed to do, amassing 718 yards of offense, the most in a game in program history. They also limited the Golden Flashes to 66 yards of offense.
Illinois quarterback Luke Altmyer, an Ole Miss transfer, threw for 215 yards and four touchdowns in the win over Nebraska. On the season, Altmyer is completing 71.4% of his passes and has a 10-0 touchdown to interception ratio. He will present a challenge for a Penn State secondary that is without All-American safety KJ Winston.
Offensively, the Nittany Lions have done more or less whatever they’ve wanted through three weeks. Even in a closer than expected 34-27 win over Bowling Green, they faced little resistance.
This Illinois defense, which has yielded just 50 points through four games, will be the best they have faced so far.
The game is one of four matchups this weekend involving ranked teams, with the headliner coming when No. 2 Georgia visits No. 4 Alabama. It’s also the last weekend before the calendar turns to October when typically, you start to see some separation from the top teams.
I expect we’ll start to see that a little earlier than normal, however.
