Illinois football is long overdue for a November to remember

Back home in Champaign on Sunday morning, less than 24 hours after his upstart team had been humbled at Oregon by a hard-to-swallow score of 38-9, Illinois football coach Bret Bielema knew what had to be done and got down to some unpleasant business.

He pushed. He pulled. He prodded and pulled some more.

Before long, he was holding one of 5-year-old daughter Brexli’s bottom front teeth in his hand and things were looking up.

Or as he put it Monday, “Make the whole world know [we were] going to go forward.”

Bielema usually waits until Tuesdays to gather his players and give them what he considers the “keys to victory” for that week’s game. This time, he did it Sunday night. They’d flown 2,000-plus miles after being smacked around by the top-ranked Ducks. Some were tired, groggy, still freeing the cobwebs from their minds. But it didn’t matter — it was that important to turn the page to Minnesota, the Illini’s next opponent (11 a.m. Saturday, FS1).

If the 24th-ranked Illini (6-2, 3-2 Big Ten) aren’t ready to respond Saturday against the Gophers (5-3, 3-2 Big Ten), who’ve won three straight games — the last a 48-23 mauling of Maryland — the wrong team will walk out of Memorial Stadium with a “W.”

“We’ll have to make sure that Oregon doesn’t get us twice, right?” Bielema said.

Once was more than enough. Once made it crystal clear the Illini weren’t actually going to contend for a Big Ten championship and aren’t at the level of the conference teams that have been — from the jump — in full-on College Football Playoff-or-bust mode.

In Year 1 of the expanded playoff, it’s already obvious there’s very little oxygen for any team that’s outside the mix for one of the 12 coveted spots. The Illini’s playoff hopes aren’t officially dead — at 10-2, they’d be part of the bubble intrigue — but they are long shots at best. Even at 10-2, there’s almost no chance they’d be in the Big Ten title game, and without that? Hello, Citrus Bowl, Music City Bowl, Duke’s Mayo Bowl or something else along those lines.

As some blue-blood teams are finding out — their fan bases already stressing out and ready to blow if things go wrong — missing the 12-team playoff equals disaster. If Ohio State, for example, falls short, Buck-nuts will chase coach Ryan Day with torches and pitchforks. If Notre Dame falls short, Marcus Freeman will be viewed far more skeptically than he has been. Just imagine the pressure on Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer, who already has lost twice in his first go-round as successor to Nick Saban. And so on.

Illinois football doesn’t inhabit that same world. If the Illini win nine games or eight, their supporters will deal with it because they’ve seen so much worse, so many times. But the only way for the Illini to move up in the world — to make a non-playoff season really count — is to win ’em all from here.

If they beat Minnesota, Michigan State, Rutgers (away) and Northwestern (at Wrigley Field) — as the favorites in all four games — they’ll accomplish a 23-year first. Illinois’ 2001 team won 10 games — and the Big Ten title — en route to the Sugar Bowl. No Illinois team has won 10 games since, and only one (in 2007) has won nine. The next Illini team to win 11 will be the first one ever, a goal this group still can reach if it avoids a November upset and then wins a bowl game for the first time under Bielema.

If the Illini do all that? Shoot, even a playoff-mad world will take notice.

“We’re a program that’s on the rise,” Bielema said. “It’s a program that’s building, and we’re going to get better at every opportunity. … I promise you that we’ll get better this week.”

The first playoff rankings come out Monday. The Illini won’t be anywhere near the top 12, but all will be good as long as their name flashes across screens at some point during the rollout of the selection committee’s top 25. It’ll mean a seventh win has been added to the pile. And it will indicate this won’t be a repeat of 2022, when the Illini started 7-1 — putting themselves in prime position to win the erstwhile Big Ten West division — before blowing two straight at home, falling to Michigan State and Purdue in dispiriting upsets.

Those two days at Memorial Stadium were nothing like the most recent home game, against Michigan, the first time for Bielema in this job when he felt a crowd played a real role in an Illini victory. He’s calling for more of the same against Minnesota.

“I hope you’ll be there and be loud,” he said. “You’ve got an 11 a.m. kickoff. You’ve got to get that first beverage, whether it’s a coffee, a mimosa, a bloody, a Red Bull — whatever you got going, man — just get up and get it going and get here and get seated by about 10:30 and get ready to be a part of a really good Big Ten football environment.”

An elite one? Perhaps not quite. But after so many years of pulling teeth, Illinois football can at least still have a November that matters.