Illinois 2025 Football Schedule: Best & Worst Scenarios, Season Prediction

Who does Illinois miss from the Big Ten schedule?

Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Penn State, Washington

The Illini miss Michigan, Oregon, and Penn State. They have to deal with Ohio State, but okay - everyone has to play someone great.

If that’s not decent enough, not having to play Iowa, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Washington is all good - all five of those games would’ve been 50/50 dates, which means …

Illinois football schedule, the good and the bad

The Good: Illinois gets Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue, and as always, Northwestern on the slate. All four of those are Lean Win, at least, and the Ohio State game - for what it’s worth - is in Champaign.

Can the Illini beat Duke? If so, it should be 3-0 to start the season, the Indiana and Purdue road games aren’t that far away, and the only real stretch of a road game distance-wise is Washington and that’s after getting a week off. The team only leaves Illinois once in November, and that’s just up the road a few hours at Wisconsin.

The Bad: That Duke road game might be peskier than Illinois might like, going to Indiana isn’t the layup it used to be, and going to Washington and Wisconsin will be a lot harder than it would’ve been last year.

Boo hoo - again, this is about the lightest Big Ten conference schedule possible - but USC and Ohio State at home will still be nasty.

Illinois Football Schedule: Best and worst case scenarios

Best Case Scenario: The Illini beat Duke, take their beating from Ohio State like a champ, and roll through just about everyone else.

Realistically there’s at least one other loss in the mix other than to the Buckeyes, but there isn’t another game on the slate that screams defeat - like, if they have to go Oregon or Penn State. They get to 10-2 and are in the mix for a College Football Playoff spot, if not a place in the Big Ten Championship.

Worst Case Scenario: Illinois loses to Duke and drops the road game against Indiana. Do that, and all of a sudden things are looking sketchy with USC and Ohio State coming up, and a trip to Washington to follow.

The team should get to six wins and a bowl game, but in a worst case scenario, it takes a win over Northwestern in the regular season finale to do it.

What Will Happen: (Feb 11) Illinois has to take advantage of this schedule, and it won’t quite be able to. It’ll lose to Ohio State, at best get two out of the three road games at Indiana, Washington, and Wisconsin - but will more likely just get one - but it’ll do enough to push for an eight-win season and a restaurant quality bowl game.

The What Will Happen will be updated several times this offseason