Ep. 1036 - J Leman reacts to Illini's 45-19 win at Duke, previews WMU

Illini Inquirer Podcast: An Illinois Fighting Illini athletics podcast

247Sports, Illinois, Illinois Football, Illinois Basketball, Illinois Athletics, College Football, C

Football, Sports

4.9 • 575 Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

All-American linebacker J Leman joins Illini Inquirer's Jeremy Werner to react to Illinois football's 45-19 win at Duke. Leman breaks down how the game was another sign of growth for Bret Bielema's program, how the defensive game plan and execution succeeded against a potent Duke offense, the key halftime offensive adjustments made by Illinois and some star performances. Leman then looks ahead to the nonconference finale against Western Michigan and discusses the rest of the Big Ten so far.

Follow the Illini Inquirer Podcast on:

Go VIP for just $1: http://bit.ly/3FUGfIj

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	All right, welcome in to the Yonanquire podcast.
0:15.0	It's Jeremy Warner and it's Monday, so that means it's Jay Lehman.
0:18.1	And for the first time in the history of this podcast, Jay
0:21.3	Lehman and I gets to talk about a top 10 team in the country for Illinois football. Unbelievable.
0:26.8	Here we are, Jay, after a 4519 win at Duke, 31 to 6 advantage in the second half for Illinois. Some
0:35.8	struggles early, but boy, dominance in that second half. What's this struggles early but boy dominance in that second half what's
0:40.3	this like jay i mean top 10 team in the country coming in at number nine in the ap poll after a
0:45.4	feel good victory out in durham well i think you you had to put in perspective five years ago when
0:49.8	brett beelman got hired um to say hey in five years you're going to be a top 10 team with the talent that was here, you would be doing cart rules and we should be doing cart rules. I mean, we're going to talk about analyze the game because that's what we do, and there's always stuff to get better on. But if we zoom out, look at the big picture, phenomenal job by this staff and by the players, everybody involved in Josh Whitman
1:13.0	stuff, to get the program to a point where it's at now. And it feels like we're not waiting for
1:18.8	the other shoe to drop. We feel like we're kind of getting some stability here, which is what
1:22.4	Brett's been preaching to us for so long. He feels he brings that confidence that he's been here
1:27.1	before. What I want to
1:28.7	also say is if you look a big picture, I'm not sure there's a program in the country. You look at
1:33.4	the fellow top 10 that, and I'm not knocking on our players here, but when you look at what our
1:39.0	recruiting rankings are over the last three or four years compared to where the recruiting rankings are for
1:44.9	the other top 10 to 20 programs, it really speaks volumes about, number one, the player
1:50.3	development.
1:51.5	Number two, identifying talented players that maybe other people didn't have as highly rated
1:56.9	or, you know, 247 didn't have as highly rated or rivals didn't have as highly rated.
2:01.5	And number three, the character of these football players to get better.
2:06.0	It takes high character players, I believe, to get better as well.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from 247Sports, Illinois, Illinois Football, Illinois Basketball, Illinois Athletics, College Football, C, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of 247Sports, Illinois, Illinois Football, Illinois Basketball, Illinois Athletics, College Football, C and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.