College Football Futures, Picks: Fade Illinois in 2025

Believe it or not, but college football preview season is starting to heat up. Now that analysts have a feel for teams’ post-portal rosters, articles are being spun up daily, previewing every single angle of the 2025 college football season. And one of the common themes across the board is optimism.

Transfer quarterbacks at Auburn, Houston, Iowa, Oklahoma and Utah are poised to make major impacts across the Power 4.

According to talking heads, new head coaches like UNC’s Bill Belichick, West Virginia’s Rich Rodriguez and Washington State’s Jimmy Rogers will surely win bowl games in their first year on campus.

Sprinkle in cliches like defensive coordinators installing new “aggressive and attacking” schemes and offensive playcallers finding new ways to get their playmakers in space, and you have the makings of a college football world in which everyone overachieves in 2025.

The reality is that some of these splashy new hires and portal additions will fall flat.

Dating back to 1990, one to two top-10 teams in the preseason fail to finish the season ranked. Just last year, the defending national champion, Michigan, opened the season ranked ninth in the AP Poll and eighth in the Coaches Poll, only to finish 8-5 as an unranked team.

If Wolverine fans are feeling down, they can take solace in the fact that some other preseason top-10 teams fared worse… much worse.

Florida State imploded, dropping from 10th in both polls to the bottom of the sport after a disastrous 2-10 campaign.

So, it’s time to bust out a bucket of cold water to throw on a team getting too much preseason love. Let’s dive into my college football futures and NCAAF picks for the Illinois Fighting Illini in 2025.

ESPN’s Mark Schlabach ranked the Illini 11th in his preseason poll last month, but he wasn’t the only media member high on Bret Bielema’s team.

CBS Sports’ Brandon Marcello put respect on Illinois’ name when he ranked them 12th. USA Today’s Paul Myerberg wasn’t far behind, ranking Bielema’s bunch 13th, and Brad Crawford of 247Sports slid it back by a single slot in his preseason poll at 14th.

For whatever reason, the media loves this team.

The Illini undoubtedly overachieved last fall, winning 10 games. But who they beat matters more to me than the headlines they generated.

Illinois’ best regular-season win came over a perennially rebuilding Nebraska team in overtime. Then, at home, it clipped Michigan, who was forced to turn to journeyman quarterback Jack Tuttle.

Neither regular-season win moved the needle much for me.

Beating South Carolina in the Citrus Bowl was a big deal. But the star of that upset, running back Josh McCray, has since transferred to Georgia.

That four-point upset of SC also came with its fair share of luck. Rocket Sanders, who led the Gamecocks in rushing, opted out of the game, and South Carolina dropped a pair of touchdown passes and hit an upright on a field-goal attempt.

Poking holes in the Illini’s triumphs is one thing, but quarterback play is where I’ll really attempt to draw the line on the likelihood of Illinois regressing this season.

Luke Altmyer has started 23 games in his college career, and in that time, he’s faced four top-15 opponents. His QBR against those four elite teams ended up at 43.6. He took 13 sacks, turned it over nine times, and was pulled once.

Nine of his 22 passing touchdowns last fall came against Eastern Illinois, Central Michigan and Purdue. The Chippewas and Boilermakers finished a combined 5-19 at the FBS level, and Eastern Illinois finished 3-9 as an FCS program.

If pundits are pinning their hopes on Altmyer being the real deal in 2025, it’s a bad bet.

And finally, we have the schedule, which, unlike last season, features Ohio State. Road trips to Duke, Indiana, Washington and Wisconsin won’t be picnics either.

Illinois and Altmeyer will draw five top-40 defenses, according to ESPN’s Bill Connelly, and three of those come on the road.

I’ll be playing the Illini’s win total under and will look to fade them in Week 2 when they travel to Duke to take on a well-coached Blue Devils team.