As first reported in The News-Gazette on March 31, Illinois faces years of $1 million-plus payoffs to visiting nonconference opponents between 2019 and 2022.
But according to contracts obtained by The N-G, the Illinois checkbook won’t be hit quite as hard during the next two seasons.
Of the four nonreturned games in 2016 and ’17, only one will cost the school $1 million-plus.
That will be this season’s Sept. 17 matchup against Western Michigan. The Kalamazoo school is being paid $1.2 million for the trip. The money is due by March 31, 2017.
The game against the Broncos was originally scheduled to be played at Waldo Stadium in Kalamazoo, Mich.