Your Home of the Oregon ILLINI. Oskee Wa Wa!

Well, this is a shocker. Almost as good as a win in my book. Illinois played Iowa tough today at home only losing 24-7 on the best turf in the land. I mean come on - give 'em some credit already. We're getting better each and every week. This was expected to be on the order of 66-13 or something like that. Our defense isn't great, or good, or hell even mediocre. But, pathetic is better than abyssmal where we were last year. I'll take it.

Sure, IOWA lit us up for 21 points in the 2nd quarter. But hey, we held them scoreless in the opening session. Yes, I know it was our 10th straight BIG-10 loss. And, we didn't do diddley in terms of moving the ball until the 4th quarter. But, we finished with 315 yards of offense for the game. Not bad. The Juice started at QB - and he struggled going only 9-32 early. I'm sure some of the passes were not even visible to the receivers.

In the end, we played them strong for most of the game except for a 4-minute stretch late in the 2nd quarter. Sure, we were erratic on offense. At times enemic. At times pathetic. But what do you expect from one of the most marginal DIV 1AA squads in the land? OOPS, I mean 1A squads in the nation. No surprises execpt the final score as Iowa pulled away to a 24-7 victory in Champaign.

I believe Ronnie. We're getting better with each little nano-step we take. When does basketball start already?