Way back in August, I wrote an article laying out my reasons for believing that Illinois’ game against the Penn State Nittany Lions was the most important game of the 2023 season. The crux of my argument was as follows.
Beating a bunch of peer-school Big Ten West rivals and winning 8 games again en route to another Florida bowl game would be an outstanding outcome for this season. But essentially dashing Penn State’s last hopes to earn a four-team CFP berth in front of a national TV audience would be a huge victory in and of itself due to the media frenzy it would cause, regardless of which wins or losses come before and after.