Oregon Football 2024 summer opponent preview: Meet the Illinois Fighting Illini
By Ethan Lee
It’s really time to start preparing for the 2024 Oregon football season because it will be here before we know it. So, this is a great chance to start learning about all of the foes that Oregon will face this season, including the Illinois Fighting Illini.
Illinois isn’t really a team that has been involved in the history of Oregon football much. It’s not like these two teams have met all that often. But now with the Oregon Ducks making the move into the Big Ten, that’s probably changing a bit.
And these two teams will meet up this year. So, here’s a few things you should absolutely know about the Illinois Fighting Illini.
Illinois Fighting Illini head coach: Bret Bielema
Heading into his fourth season with the Illinois Fighting Illini is Bret Bielema, who stepped into the role as the Illinois head coach back in 2021 and has been working hard to elevate the program ever since. During his time at the helm of the program, Bielema has been able to steadily get some improvement and shown some potential, like in 2022 when Illinois won eight games.
Oregon fans are already probably a little familiar with Bielema, but it’s not from his time with Illinois. Before he was the head coach at Illinois (and Arkansas), Bielema was found on the sidelines of the Wisconsin Badgers from 2006 through 2012.
Historical win-loss record
There’s a lot of history with the Illinois Fighting Illini football program. That said, not all of it is really all that super impressive or anything. Dating back to 1890, Illinoi has won 632 games but the Fighting Illini have also lost 625 games. They have tied on 50 occasions. This is a program that has been up and down and is trying to get moving in the right direction once more.
Conference: Big Ten
It’d be fair to say that Illinois is a founding member of the Big Ten. Because you can. That’s true. Except it was known as the Western conference way back in the day. The Fighting Illini helped get the conference established back in 1896 and they’ve been a member ever since.
Location
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (that’s a bit of a mouthful) is home to the Fighting Illini. And where is this university located? Well, it’s nestled in Illinois. Near the cities of Urbana-Champaign. The Fighting Illini play all of their home games in Memorial Stadium, which holds a little over 60,000 folks.