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3 hours ago
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Nearly a month removed from Illinois football's 21-17 Cheez-It Citrus Bowl win against South Carolina, national media pundits are still doing all they can to discredit the Fighting Illini's on-field accomplishments.
Despite winning its first bowl game in over a decade, the first time under soon-to-be fifth-year coach Bret Bielema, CBS Sports analyst Josh Pate failed to include Illinois in his "unofficial" final poll to put a bow on the 2024-25 college football season.
Instead, he included the Gamecocks, which got a reaction from former SEC-turned-Big Ten quarterback Luke Altmyer.
Altmyer took a less formal approach to the news Wednesday afternoon. Instead, he shrugged it off with a laughing emoji.
Since then, fans have gone ballistic in defense of Altmyer, even those who don't claim to root for Illinois. Meanwhile, Pate listed the Gamecocks at No. 10, above the Indiana Hoosiers and Clemson Tigers. Both, of course, made the College Football Playoff.
One fan even requested Altmyer's personal top-25 list, which will likely never happen. However, college football fans have caught onto Illinois' sudden turnaround. This past season, the. Illini improved their win total by five games, winning six of seven home games while defeating then-ranked Kansas, Nebraska and Michigan in the same season.
Luckily for Illinois, it returns most of its production and should be a dark-horse Big Ten title contender next season. It draws Indiana in Bloomington in late September for the first time since 2022 (the 2023 meeting was in Champaign) and plays defending national champion Ohio State in early October in Champaign.
Regardless, Illinois will have more to prove as the season draws closer, as it seeks back-to-back 10-win years.
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