Nebraska football: Ranking the 2018 Huskers’ opponents

One of the worst losses for the Nebraska football team under Mike Riley was to Illinois in his first year. It wasn’t because it was a blowout.

The loss was embarrassing because the Illini just haven’t been very good. For a while now.

The Illini still aren’t good. While there are all kinds of reports that Lovie Smith finally has Illinois moving in the right direction, the team is probably going to be as bad or a little worse than it was a year ago in 2018.

Keep in mind they were 2-10 and winless in the Big Ten a year ago. That record included a 28-6 loss to Nebraska.

Scott Frost and company are going to find winning in the B1G a tall order thanks to a brutal conference schedule. Illinois is not part of that brutal schedule.

The Illini are one of just three teams on the 2018 slate that didn’t go to a bowl last year. They’re going to try and replace their quarterback with a guy who had zero touchdown passes and five interceptions thrown last year.

While Cam Thomas has shown some promise, he’s also not shown he can lead the Illini to wins over Big Ten teams. This is an offense that will also be replacing it’s starting running back and attempting to do better on offense than 127th in the country in scoring offense.

They were the 123rd ranked rushing offense. They were the 107th ranked passing offense.

Their defense wasn’t that much better. The Illini were especially bad against the run (117th) in the country. It’s a safe bet the Nebraska football team is going to be looking to take out some aggression on Illinois in November.