CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Illinois football lost all the wind out of its sails at Camp Randall last Saturday. No way around it, it seemed the Illini were dominated in every facet of the 27-10 loss.
But the 2025
Illinois football team is no stranger to a disapointing loss in their 7-4 campaign. Whether it was a 63-10 loss at Indiana, or an offensive thrashing at Washington, Illinois head coach Bret Bielema has applauded his team’s resilience.
With the Illini’s in-state rival, Northwestern coming to town to close out the regular season, Bielema needs to find just one more response — one more win — for Illinois football’s upward trajectory to continue.
“This game is all about your response,” Bielema said. “I even told our guys this morning, this has kind of been the year of responses. The loss at Indiana was one that everyone was worried how we were gonna respond, and we beat a USC team with a walk-off field goal — I like that response there.”
When assessing the crushing loss to the Badgers, Bielema said his team just needs to flush it. Every week in the Big Ten is going to be a battle, no matter what SEC pundits have to say about it. With 18 teams all fielding competitive rosters upsets are going to happen, and it seems the Illini just ran into Wisconsin at the wrong time.
But the good teams are able to collect themselves for the next week, but for Bielema, the great teams respond.
“I think going into it, you look at us and we were a top-25 team that got knocked off by a non-ranked team because they are playing really well and executed when they needed to and we didn’t,” Bielema said. “That is what makes the Big Ten conference what it is right now, and that is a challenge we all have in this league.”
Now with Wisconsin in the rearview mirror, Bielema’s squad turns their focus to Northwestern. At 6-5, the Wildcats are a sound football team, led by their defense who hold opposing quarterbacks to under 200 passing yards a game.
In Bielema’s eyes they do everything the right way, and have since he has been a part of the Big Ten during his time as head coach with the Badgers. From one coaching regimen to the next, the Wildcats have found a way to be a thorn in the side of the Big Ten for many years. You can point to one person that started Northwestern’s success, former head coach Pat Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald was fired in 2023, but was cleared early this year of any wrongdoing. It is no secret that many coaches respect Fitzgerald, and that is especially true with Bielema.
“When I came in the league, Fitz and I had a very long relationship,” Bielema said. “My first head coaching job I offered Fitz the defensive coordinator job and he turned me down to stay the linebacker coach at Northwestern, because he loved Northwestern. Then he turned that place into what he did.”
Now it is David Braun’s squad, and he has picked up right where Fitzgerald left off. Once the latter’s defensive coordinator, he has morphed the Wildcats’ identity into his own.
“David and I, he is a defensive guy. Few of us head coaches are defensive minds, so when he came in the league I just had an automatic identity with him,” Bielema said. “I think he is a really good coach, I think he handles it really well, and they are bowl eligible two times in his first three years, which isn’t an easy thing to do.”
And for the game itself, it just means more. It is one of three in-state rivalries in the Big Ten, and only one of two that will play this weekend. The Land of Lincoln trophy has been staying in Champaign during Bielema’s tenure, winning three of four contests against the Purple and White.
“It’s for a trophy game, we always make a big deal about that,” Bielema said. It is a rivalry game in-state— to have that here at Illinois, it is just a very rare moment that we have to take advantage of.”
Not only is the Land of Lincoln trophy up for grabs, but the eyes of the state as well. It is no secret that past coaches of both schools have struggled to keep in-state talent in-state for their collegiate years, and Bielema made it a point that they will build from within.
The brand of the state, and more importantly the type of athletes the state produces is who Bielema wants in his program. Even if his players are not from Illinois, Bielema wants them to have an Illinois edge. He sees it in his senior quarterback Luke Altmyer from Mississippi.
“I have said all along we are going to build this program from within, with Illinois players,” Bielema said. “We will have over 50 Illinois kids that will play in this game. Even when we go to Mississippi, when we go to Florida, New Jersey, we look for Illinois kids. I think Luke is a proud young man from Mississippi, but he would consider himself an Illinois player, which is really fun.”
The Illini head coach finished with a strong remark before the twelfth and final game of the Illini’s regular season.
“Before we can beat them, we have to respect them.”
