{"id":72712,"date":"2024-10-15T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/illinois-coach-bret-bielema-on-matchup-with-michigan-this-game-means-a-lot-to-me-excited-about-the-opportunity\/"},"modified":"2024-10-15T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T13:00:00","slug":"illinois-coach-bret-bielema-on-matchup-with-michigan-this-game-means-a-lot-to-me-excited-about-the-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/illinois-coach-bret-bielema-on-matchup-with-michigan-this-game-means-a-lot-to-me-excited-about-the-opportunity\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois coach Bret Bielema on matchup with Michigan: \u2018This game means a lot to me \u2026 excited about the opportunity\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Saturday, Illinois is celebrating the 100-year anniversary of three-time consensus All-American Red Grange <\/strong>scoring 6 touchdowns in a 39-14 win over Michigan Oct. 18, 1924. The Fighting Illini will wear 1920s-themed uniforms<\/a><\/strong> in commemoration of the game.<\/p>\n

Athletic director Josh Whitman <\/strong>\u2014\u00a0a former UI tight end from 1997-2000 \u2014\u00a0will serve as the team\u2019s honorary captain for this weekend\u2019s game between No. 22 Illinois and No. 24 Michigan. Despite Michigan dominating the series, 72-23-2, including winning eight of the last 10 meetings, the Fighting Illini faithful gets particularly excited for these matchups.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know how much this means to the fan base of Illinois, and Josh being an alum here and obviously the director of our intercollegiate athletics,\u201d head coach Bret Bielema<\/a> <\/strong>said. \u201cWhat he stands for and represents to make this game what it is has been awesome, to have it culminate this week having two ranked teams \u2026 I couldn\u2019t believe when I saw the stat that the last time this happened was when he was a senior in college, which is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michigan and Illinois last met in 2022, when the Wolverines escaped with a 19-17 victory at The Big House thanks to a game-winning field goal by Jake Moody<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m 3-3 against them, and I didn\u2019t like the last one,\u201d Bielema said. \u201cSo everybody\u2019s got their history. This game means a lot to me. We will put our best foot forward. Excited about the opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last one was pretty big. The last one was big, I thought we had a good enough football team to go up there and win. Unfortunately, it didn\u2019t [happen], and there were a lot of things that went into it, things we could\u2019ve done better. We didn\u2019t get the chance to rematch these guys last year, so we have the chance to rematch them this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThose things mean a lot. Even in league play \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s changed a little bit now \u2014\u00a0but this year we have six rematch games. We\u2019re through four of them; we\u2019re 3-1. Last year against those same four teams, we were 0-4. I think our guys know the growth they\u2019ve had.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I told them last night, there\u2019s nothing more challenging than to have a team that\u2019s continued to play well and continues to move forward to keep doing the same things that brought you success. Don\u2019t get bored doing things well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bielema\u2019s team is coming off a 50-49 overtime win over Purdue, one of three one-possession victories this season, joining a 23-17 triumph over Kansas and a 31-24 overtime win over Nebraska. Bielema lauded Illinois\u2019 ability to translate its work from the practice field to games, which helps them execute in close games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent a lot of time, I spent I-don\u2019t-know-how-many hours already this morning just working about Tuesday\u2019s practice,\u201d Bielema said. \u201cSo Michigan is a very scripted football team. They play very, very good football. They\u2019re sound fundamentally offensively, defensively and on special teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir offense \u2026 74 percent of their snaps have been early downs. And their defense has been 77 percent of their downs. The reason we practice early downs on Tuesday is a large part of the game \u2014\u00a075 percent of the game \u2014\u00a0is played on early downs. So we gotta learn to play like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the thing that gives our guys the moment to have those things be successful is they\u2019ve been prepared, they\u2019ve been put in that position, they visualize it and also a little bit of some of the pain of the past. Our No. 1 season goal this year was remember the past, prepare for the future. I think literally every week, that comes up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Illinois\u2019 Memorial Stadium holds 60,670 fans, and Bielema is expecting a raucous environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t lost a game out there all year,\u201d Bielema said. \u201cThat place should be rocking. That place should be going crazy. To have two ranked teams, that\u2019s what I wanna hear. They\u2019ve been great, the student section, after the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we go to Michigan, we have to prepare for crowd noise there. I\u2019d really like for someone to have to prepare for crowd noise coming here. That\u2019s when we\u2019ve arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bret Bielema recounts experiences with former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr<\/h2>\n

Bielema played at Iowa and has taken on Michigan as the head coach at Wisconsin and Illinois. He discussed some of his experiences with the Wolverines, including former U-M head man Lloyd Carr <\/strong>serving as a mentor when he was a young coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in this conference a long time,\u201d Bielema noted. \u201cThe first time we played these guys, I was a redshirt freshman. Saw [late former Michigan head coach] Bo Schembechler<\/strong> on the other sideline, saw him get a penalty in the first half, which brought the whole place to a crazy. Which, I thought was crazy, watching someone I idolized on TV.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have huge respect for who they are, what they are. Actually, Lloyd Carr, when I first came into the league as a head coach, he was the head coach of Michigan, and him and [former Wisconsin] Coach [Barry] Alvarez<\/strong> were very tight. So he actually kinda grabbed me after that first year. The only game I lost my first year \u2014\u00a0we went 12-1 \u2014\u00a0was to Michigan. I remember Lloyd grabbing me at spring meetings and just kinda talking about what I had in front of me and what I should be aware of. He just really kinda took a young coach aside.<\/p>\n

\u201cHim and [former Ohio State head coach] Jim Tressel<\/strong> probably treated me as well as anybody in that conference at the time. [Late former Penn State coach] Joe Pa[terno<\/strong>] was still trying to figure me out. But those two guys were really, really good, and I\u2019ve tried to do that now for me as a head coach. I\u2019ve tried to carry it forward with young coaches that have come up. I\u2019m not saying I\u2019m Lloyd Carr or Jim Tressel, but I\u2019ve been in this league a long time, and I try to say those things to those coaches.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut playing Michigan, I think from the outside world, it obviously makes it a big deal. It does to me, too, but I learned this one from Coach Alvarez \u2014\u00a0I remember when he first began to teach and instill in me some things \u2014\u00a0you don\u2019t get ready for Michigan, you don\u2019t get ready for Ohio State or you don\u2019t get ready for Penn State in one week. You do it 365 days a year. And that\u2019s what you gotta rely on. If you try to make something magical in a week, it\u2019s never going to work, so it\u2019s kinda what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Illinois coach Bret Bielema on matchup with Michigan: \u2018This game means a lot to me \u2026 excited about the opportunity\u2019<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Saturday, Illinois is celebrating the 100-year anniversary of three-time consensus All-American Red Grange scoring…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}