Illini Football: 2008 Season - Roster Information - History - Future Schedules
Illini Basketball: 2008/09 Season - Scholarship Chart - Depth Chart
NCAA Football: Preseason Rankings - Bowl Tie-Ins
Other UI Sports: Volleyball - Soccer

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Week 1 Big Ten TV Listings:


(Click on the picture to go to the Gamefinder on the Big Ten website)

11:00 AM Games
DirecTV Dish
Akron @ Wisconsin Big Ten Network 623 440
Coastal Carolina @ Penn State Big Ten Network 617 443
Youngstown State @ Ohio State Big Ten Network 610 439
Syracuse @ Northwestern ESPN2 209
Western Kentucky @ Indiana Big Ten Network 611 442
Maine @ Iowa Big Ten Network 617 441




2:30 PM Game


Utah @ Michigan ABC on ESPN
Check local Listings




Evening Games


Northern Illinois @ Minnesota Big Ten Network 610 439
Michigan State @ California ABC on ESPN
Check Local Listings
Illinois @ Missouri ESPN 206




For Fellow Excel Nerds:

view the full sheet here.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p99xqYtyCwsvZHcdENoblNw

Comprehensive Division I football schedule, with game times where avaialable. Games involving only FCS schools are in light blue, games where a FBS school is involved are white. All games have the location and capacity of the stadium listed (except for a couple obscure FCS games)

Column Headings:
Game # (order I typed them in)
GW = Game Week (I consider game weeks to start at midnight on Tuesday and last until the following Monday Night)
Date = Date of game: Peach-ish with black text means the game is tomorrow, orange with white text means the game is today, black with white text means the game has already happened, and blue with white text means the game is in the future.
Day = Day of the week... Mon, Tue, Wed, etc...
Time = Kickoff time, where available, All times Central (unless I screwed it up)
Away Team = away team, this might not be entirely accurate for neutral site games
Score = away team score*
Home Team = home team, again, don't read too much into this for neutral games
Score = home team score*
N? = A "Y" will be present if this game is neutral-venue.
Location = the Stadium the game will be played in (list of stadiums can be found in the team data section)
Capacity = capacity of the stadium the game will be played in
Att. = Game attendance, as lifted from posted box scores.*


*NOTE ON SCORES/ATTENDANCE: This will be updated periodically, but not necessarily often

Also, a table with list of basic data for all Division I football schools. (School, Nickname, City, State, Stadium information, school information)

Column Headings:
# = Index Number
School = School Name
Games = Number of games scheduled
Nickname = School athletics nickname
City = City where school is located
State = State where school is located
Conference = Conference
2007 Att. = Average home game attendance for the 2007 Season
Stadium = Name of primary home stadium
Surface = Artificial or Grass
Type = Outdoor, Dome, Retractable Roof
Capacity = Stadium Capacity
Built = year stadium was built
Enroll = University Enrollment (undergraduate and graduate)
Type = Public or Private School
Founded = Year school was founded
Stadium Notes = notes on stadium construction/renovation/replacement
Growth/Year = Enrollment divided by age of school
Subdivision = Football Bowl Subdivision or Football Championship Subdivision

NOTE: BCS Conference schools are Dark Green, Mid-Majors are Light Green, Independents are Gray, and FCS schools are Orange.

this concludes "how I spent my summer vacation".

Awesome

The Big Ten with a very cool advertisement scheme this year...

Long PSA:
(where the hell did they find a beach?)

Illinois Version


watch them all here:

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Even more roster updates: Week 1:

mostly lifted from here

Greg McClendon has left the team (he would have been a Senior this year)
Tad Keely is going on Scholarship. Derek Dimke and/or Anthony Santella might.

Roster Updates: Week 1.

Mark Jackson and Brian Gamble are both gone... 2 more scholarships for 2009 I guess. Also, Evan Frierson isn't on the roster, so he has been removed, hopefully he comes back next season.

The depth chart has been updated to reflect the one on FightingIllini.com (page 7 of that link).

I need to figure out some method to show week to week injuries, for now I'll just keep an "ideal" depth chart here... so guys like Cumberland are still up top, even though they might be out a couple weeks.

Couple Redshirting Notes:

Jeff Allen and Corey Lewis are in the 2-deep on the offensive line, its assumed htey will not RS. No word on Graham Pocic. Its a bit odd to see that... but I guess since we have lost some depth (Jackson and Jordan, in particular), we need it.

Other Freshman in the Depth Chart (and therefore presumably not redshirting:
- Fred Sykes
- Cordale Scott
- AJ Jenkins
- Walkon FB Zach Becker
- Jason Ford and Mikel LeShoure
- Hubie Graham
- Tavon Wilson
- Russel Ellington
- Corey Liuget

I'm going go through the participation report in the box scores each week and cross of players who have redshirted.

Updated depth charts can be found here

Scholarship grid here

Projected Starting lineup for this year here

Monday, August 25, 2008

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Big Ten Pick 'em week 1:

Week 1 of the 2008 Big Ten Pick 'em is upon us... the form you need to fill out is at the bottom of the page...

CURRENT STANDINGS:

PLEASE NOTE:
Enter a username for yourself (strongly prefer you keep it similar to what you use on whatever message board you post on, so people can identify you) and a PIN number, the PIN number can be any text string you want, but when it comes time for me to add together scores across weeks, I will make sure the PIN Number matches, this is to prevent someone from hijacking your picks. If you are off by a character or two, I will probably find it and correct it for you.


Illinois vs. Missouri
Akron @ Wisconsin
Coastal Carolina @ Penn State
Maine @ Iowa
Syracuse @ Northwestern
Western Kentucky @ Indiana
Youngstown State @ Ohio State
Utah @ Michigan
Northern Illinois @ Minnesota
Michigan State @ California
BONUS #1: Alabama vs. Clemson
BONUS #2: Oklahoma State (abbreviated "MAN", here's why) vs. Washington State
Bonus Question: Who will have the higher QB Rating in the 2008 Arch Rivalry Game between Illinois and Missouri, Chase Daniel or Juice Williams (click here for the college QB rating formula)



The Triumphant Return of the Big Ten Pick 'em Game: Week 1

For those who have been posting on the IB for a while, you might remember I tried to do this a few seasons ago. Basic premise, you try and guess the final margin of victory for a game, and you get points based on how close you are. Whoever has the most points at the end of the year wins..... nothing, but hopefully it will be fun along the way.

Here's how the scoring will work: Each game is worth 25 points.

- 10 points for correctly picking the winning team
- up to 10 points for correctly picking the margin of victory.
- 5 bonus points if you pick the margin of mictory on the nose (example, you pick Illinois to win by 7 and Illinois wins by exactly 7)
- For each game you can chose for a team to win by "more than 20 points". By doing this you are predicting a BLOWOUT. Different scoring rules apply if you select this option. If the team you select to win by a blowout wins by 21 or more points, then you receive 10 points for correctly picking the winning team, 10 points for Margin of Victory (regardless of the actual margin), and 5 bonus points for correctly selecting a blowout. If you select a team to win by blowout, and they win by 1-19 points, then you will only receive the 10 points for selecting the winning team, regardless of what the margin of victory is. IF YOU CHOSE A TEAM TO WIN BY BLOWOUT, AND THEY LOSE THE GAME... not only will I laugh at you, but you will LOSE 5 points from your total score (henceforth known as the "Appalachian State Rule")... so be careful.


Also, each week there will be a bonus question, and bonus points will be given to those with the top scores each week. Each week you will get up to 25 points for how well you judged the fate of each Big Ten team (this means that Big Ten Conference games are worth double), plus 25 points for a bonus game. If any Big Ten team has a bye, then another game will be selected.

That means each week you can get:

up to 300 points guessing the score of games
up to 40 points for how you fared in THAT week.
up to 10 points for a bonus question.

For a total of 350 points.

Over the 13 week football season, that is a maximum total of 4,550 points.

Good luck.

Friday, August 1, 2008