Jul. 10â***
The college football writing staff at had a fun exercise this week: looking for flaws on the nation’s top teams.
Normally, a Top 25-type list starts with what’s right about a program. And certainly ESPN has done that in the runup to the runup to the 2025 season.
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But this time, the writers tried to find something wrong with the ranked teams. For some schools it is easy. BYU for example, doesn’t know who will play quarterback after the expected departure of Jake Retzlaff.
For Illinois, Big Ten expert Adam Rittenberg didn’t go with a position-specific area of concern. Instead, he picked “Offensive explosiveness.”
“The Illini had good and efficient offense in 2024, but they weren’t particularly explosive, tying for 64th nationally in plays of 10 yards or longer and tying for 66th in plays of 20 yards of longer,” the story said.
Rittenberg points out the loss of receivers Pat Bryant and Zakhari Franklin, plus running back Josh McCray’s transfer to Georgia.
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Illinois offensive coordinator Barr Lunney Jr. suggested backup Collin Dixon and freshman Brayden Trimble might be part of the solution at receiver.
“Overall, we’re going to have a little bit more vertical speed in what we’re doing to stretch the defense than what we did,” Lunney told Rittenberg.
Important to note that the ESPN folks founds something to be concerned about with every team. At Ohio State, it is the quarterback. At Texas, the offensive line.
