The Illini are reeling from getting torched through the air by Indiana, and things won’t get any easier against the Trojans’ elite offense.
The Illini are reeling from getting torched through the air by Indiana, and things won’t get any easier against the Trojans’ elite offense.If no one is as good or as bad as their most recent game, then the Illinois Fighting Illini warrant some deference coming off their 63-10 embarrassment at Indiana.
As good as the Hoosiers’ passing offense is, it is nothing compared to what the USC Trojans have been showing lately.USC vs Illinois predictions Here are our early thoughts on the spread and total for this week’s game. We will have a full game preview later in the week.The Blue Devils should be long criticized for their five turnovers, but they proved that the Illini offensive line has worries.Curt Cignetti, on why Indiana was so effective in pressuring Illinois:"Put the Duke game on," referring to Illinois' struggles to protect against Duke."The difference in that game was Duke turned it over."has not faced anyone with a well-respected offensive line or passing game, it warrants noting the Trojans’ defense ranks No. 1 in the country in expected points added per dropback against,Worry No. 1 is avoiding another defensive performance like last week’s. Indiana threw for 267 yards on just 23 pass attempts. Fernando Mendoza completed 21 of 23 passes and averaged 11.6 yards per pass attempt, which should be the kind of thing that keeps the Illini coaches up all week long. The Hoosiers’ offense carries just the 29th-best dropback EPA in the country, adding 0.012 points on average per dropback. For quick context, this is simply a way to quantify a play’s impact given game state, pondering things like down, distance, field position, score, time, etc. USC ranks No. 2 in EPA per dropback, adding 0.036 points on average per dropback. Not to oversimplify it, but one can argue the Trojans’ passing offense is measurably three times better than the Hoosiers’. Illinois cannot return enough defensive backs — certainly not without Xavier Scott — to make up for that worry.Illinois head coach Bret Bielema has only so many solutions at his disposal. A coach who made his career on offensive line play and found success at Illinois because of a strong secondary now lacks both of those traits. Right now is not the time to try to ascertain how these shortcomings came to be. It is time to wonder what Bielema will do as a result. Most likely, especially when facing a USC offense that could blow this game wide open as Indiana did, if not to the same dramatic extent, Bielema will try to shorten the game. The Illini do not run the ball all that much — ranking No. 42 in the country in pass rate over expected, throwing the ball 3.5% more often than an average team would in a given game state — but they arguably should. Illinois succeeds on 47% of its rush attempts, compared to just 39.5% of its dropbacks. The two are adding nearly the same expected points, 0.008 per rush compared to 0.010 per dropback, so leaning into that rushing success rate can be justified. Betting this Under is betting on Bielema to change course for the time being in an attempt to plug some holes on the figurative boat without leaving the water.: Our team of experts has thoroughly researched and handpicked each product that appears on our website. We may receive compensation if you sign up through our links. Douglas Farmer spends his days thinking about college football and his nights thinking about the NBA. His betting habits and coverage follow that same pattern. He covered Notre Dame football for various outlets from 2008 to 2024, most notably spending eight seasons as NBC Sports’ beat writer on the Irish. That was also when his gambling focus took off. Knowing there were veteran beat writers with three decades more experience than he had, Douglas found his niche by best recognizing Notre Dame’s standing in each year’s national landscape, a complex tapestry most easily understood and remembered via betting odds. In 2021, that interest created a freelance opportunity with Covers, a role that eventually led to Douglas joining the company full-time in 2023. In the fall, Douglas will place five or six dozen bets each week, a disproportionate amount via BetRivers because the operator tends to have lines slightly different than the rest of the market. The same can be said of Circa Sports’ futures markets. While Douglas is an avid NBA fan and covers the league throughout the year, the vast majority of his bets are on college football, because that is the biggest key to sports betting: Know what you do not know.Copyright © 1995 - 2025 CS Media Limited All Rights Reserved. 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