Oregon at Illinois
Illinois (3‑3) hosts Oregon (#25, 4‑2). The market has Oregon favored by 9.5. The model gives Oregon a 78% shot. Oregon’s passing offense is at the 50th percentile; Illinois’s pass defense is at the 5th.
How they got here
Last three games
Oregon · 4-2
Rated 3rd in our preseason ratings, 10th now.
2-1 in its last three, 2 over ranked or top-40 competition.
Last three games
Illinois · 3-3
Rated 70th in our preseason ratings, 80th now.
1-2 in its last three — but nothing on this résumé beats a top-40 team yet.
Biggest mismatch: Oregon’s passing EPA against Illinois, 45 points
Each row ranks the two sides among all teams. The longer the line, the bigger the mismatch.
Oregon’s passing EPA against Illinois’s defense
Oregon offense, 50th percentile · Illinois defense, 5th
Oregon’s EPA/play against Illinois’s defense
Oregon offense, 37th percentile · Illinois defense, 5th
Illinois’s explosive plays against Oregon’s defense
Illinois offense, 58th percentile · Oregon defense, 30th
What’s at stake
Oregon
- Oregon sits at 26% to make the playoff — 29% with a win here, 12% with a loss.
- Oregon is the program that made fast look fashionable and then had to decide whether to take itself seriously.
Illinois
- Illinois needs 3 more wins in the final 5 to reach bowl eligibility — 50% to get there with a win here, 18% with a loss.
- A win would be one of Illinois’s biggest of the season — a 70-spot gap in the power ratings.
The series
Oregon leads the series 3-1
4 meetings since 1970 · Oregon has won the last 3
- 2024Oregon 38-9
- 1995Oregon 34-31
- 1993Oregon 13-7
- 1970Illinois 20-16
Each line is Illinois’s chance to win through that meeting. Older meetings have no play by play, so no line.
Face-off
What each fanbase carries into this one.
Oregon
The chip · vs the national mediaThe take that all the money and flash still haven't bought the one thing that matters — that Oregon is a great brand and a very good team, not a champion. The fanbase wants the ring that ends the distinction.
What this game touches
The 56-22 semifinal — the brand humbled by a basketball school. Oregon made the Playoff for the second straight year in 2025 (11-1, the #5 seed) and got routed 56-22 by eventual champion Indiana in the Peach Bowl semifinal — the flashiest program in the sport blown out by a school that had never mattered, the title drought extended again.
Illinois
The chip · vs the national mediaIllini fans are tired of being the Big Ten game nobody previews and the program penciled in as a loss; even at 9-4 they hear the analysts wait for the regression, and they want the respect a two-year climb has earned.
What this game touches
The long winter of irrelevance. For most of the modern era Illinois was the Big Ten's forgotten program — a 2008 Rose Bowl blowout and a 2007 fluke aside, decades of losing seasons and empty Octobers that taught the fanbase to expect nothing and brace for the bottom falling out.
Best players
Oregon
- Koi Perich (DB) · 40 tackles
- Devon Jackson (LB) · 36 tackles
- Teitum Tuioti (LB) · 31 tackles
Illinois
- Collin Dixon (WR) · 608 receiving yards
- Matthew Bailey (DB) · 41 tackles
- Ismael Kante (LB) · 37 tackles
What to watch
Leading passer and rusher so far this season. Illinois: Katin Houser (1,440 passing yards).
The spread has moved 3.0 points toward Illinois since opening (+12.5 → +9.5).
The betting line, and the fans
Oregon fans are feeling it less than most fanbases this week (8th among FBS fanbases), and the other side is no happier.
Oregon favored by 9.5 · Total 50.5
Oregon by 9.5: where a favorite like this usually runs
Half of games8 in 10 games
Oregon’s chance through the game, if this goes like the 387 games since 2025 with a favorite of 7.5 to 14.5 points.
Weather at kickoff
Mild. No coat needed.
Oregon at Illinois · Saturday, Oct. 24 · 3 pm ET · Big Ten Network · Memorial Stadium.
- 72°feels like
- 0%average rain chance
- 8 mphwind gusts
- 100weather score, Ideal
Forecast, read Fri Oct 23, 3:20 am ET. It can change until kickoff.
Weather score: 0 to 100, higher is better, for the first 3 hours and 20 minutes of the game. Ideal is 100, Comfortable 90 to 99, Mixed 75 to 89, Rough 50 to 74, Harsh under 50. Gusts count toward the score (up to 15 points). Average rain chance: the hourly chances of rain over the first 3 hours and 20 minutes, averaged.
Tied for the highest forecast of this Saturday's 33 TV games with a forecast
- Baylor at Kansas: 100, Ideal
- Boston College at Georgia Tech: 100, Ideal
- Colorado at Oklahoma State: 100, Ideal
- Eastern Michigan at Ohio: 100, Ideal
- Indiana at Michigan: 100, Ideal
- Iowa State at Arizona: 100, Ideal
- Kansas State at Arizona State: 100, Ideal
- LSU at Auburn: 100, Ideal
- Michigan State at UCLA: 100, Ideal
- North Texas at Navy: 100, Ideal
- Oklahoma at Mississippi State: 100, Ideal
- Oregon at Illinois: 100, Ideal
- Tennessee at South Carolina: 100, Ideal
- Texas A&M at Alabama: 100, Ideal
- Texas Tech at Cincinnati: 100, Ideal
- USC at Wisconsin: 100, Ideal
- UTSA at Tulane: 100, Ideal
- West Virginia at TCU: 100, Ideal
- Western Michigan at Toledo: 100, Ideal
- California at SMU: 99, Comfortable
- Vanderbilt at Kentucky: 98, Comfortable
- Boise State at Washington State: 97, Comfortable
- Iowa at Minnesota: 97, Comfortable
- Utah State at Texas State: 96, Comfortable
- Ole Miss at Texas: 95, Comfortable
- Syracuse at North Carolina: 95, Comfortable
- Virginia Tech at Clemson: 95, Comfortable
- Houston at Utah: 93, Comfortable
- North Dakota State at New Mexico: 93, Comfortable
- San Diego State at Colorado State: 91, Comfortable
- BYU at UCF: 88, Mixed
- Pittsburgh at Miami: 85, Mixed
- Rice at Florida Atlantic: 85, Mixed
Tap a dot to read the game.
Forecast, read Fri Oct 23, 3:20 am to 9:20 am ET (each game has its own read time). It can change until kickoff.
If it kicked off at
Typical at Memorial Stadium: noon Saturdays score 87, 3:30 pm 84, 7:30 pm 86.
- noon: 87, Mixed
- 3:30 pm: 84, Mixed
- 7:30 pm: 86, Mixed
Typical weather score at each kickoff time.
Typical means the average of regular-season Saturdays at this stadium, 2018 to 2025. It is not a forecast for this game.
Home field
Illinois is worth +3.1 points (±4.1) more at home than on the road since 2018 — bottom third of FBS, 31st percentile.
52% at home, 44% on the road against FBS opponents (26-24 home, 18-23 away).
Our model gives every stadium the same flat 2.3-point home edge (why); the books use about 3. Against the closing line this stadium reads -3.0 at home vs. away over 95 games — inside the ±6.6 noise, so the flat number is the honest one here.
The visitors travel about 1,793 miles to get here.
Season profile
Week by week
Illinois
- Wk 2Lvs Duke27-31
- Wk 3Wvs Southern Illinois48-10
- Wk 4Lat Ohio State19-42
- Wk 5Lvs Purdue17-24
- Wk 6Wat Michigan State38-37
Oregon
- Wk 2Lat Oklahoma State31-39
- Wk 3Wvs Portland State84-0
- Wk 4Wat USC41-27
- Wk 6Lvs UCLA15-17
- Wk 7Wvs Nebraska17-14
Power rating by week
Oregon is rated 11.7 points ahead as of week 8. Our power rating by week; higher is better.
The market
The spread moved 3 points toward Illinois.
The total fell 1 point.
Spread: +12.5 → +9.5 · Total: 51.5 → 50.5
The books’ cut: 4.3%, the margin built into the odds
Conference standings
Place in the conference, then conference record.