The season opener for Illinois finally — for the first time in several years — did not leave me with a pit in my stomach. It appears that this team (and Lovie) is determined to not barely beat a horrible Kent State team or need a blocked field goal to avoid going to overtime against Ball State.
What did we learn from this game? Quite a bit, but we also need to keep in mind that Illinois played a bad Akron team. This isn’t even the same 4-8 team that managed to beat Northwestern last year.