Fresh off Illinois football’s first 10-win campaign in more than two decades, hopes are sky-high in Champaign. In fact, with the return of star quarterback Luke Altmyer – along with the majority of last season’s offense and defense – and a generous 2025 Big Ten schedule ahead, the Illini haven’t experienced another moment like right now since before the turn of the century.
Well, according to at least one set of numbers, Illini Nation needs to dial it back. A lot.Despite college football experts across the country viewing the Illini as a consensus top-15 squad, the ESPN’s vaunted Football Power Index (FPI) disagrees.
FPI is “a predictive rating system that estimates each FBS team’s strength (in points per game relative to the national average) on offense, defense and special teams, making adjustments for starters lost, recruiting talent and other personnel changes,” according to Neil Paine of ESPN.
From there, the system simulates each team’s season 20,000 times to, as precisely as possible, predict the probability of a school making the CFP, finishing atop its respective conference and even winning the national championship.
ESPN’s FPI Rankings list the Illini at 44th in the country, below an undectet of Big Ten teams – that would mean a whopping 11 other conference schools are supposedly superior to Illinois. (Yes, that’s so many teams we had to look up the correct term to describe it.)
Keep in mind, ESPN’s FPI is only one measurement, and the vast majority of the finest college football minds consider the Illini to be legitimate College Football Playoff threats – and potentially Big Ten title dark horses.
Oh, the Big Ten programs FPI puts over Illinois, in case you were wondering: Ohio State (No. 4), Penn State (No. 5), Oregon (No. 6), Michigan (No. 17), USC (No. 19), Nebraska (No. 25), Washington (No. 27), Indiana (No. 31), Wisconsin (No. 3
