Welcome into the O'Anne Acquire podcast. It's Monday. It's a favorite day here because we got Jay Lehman on the podcast. All-American Linebacker to break down another Illinois victory.

Improved a 7 and 3 with a kind of nondescript, kind of fascinatingly and in a positive way, boring 24 to 6 business-like victory for Illinois.

Back-to-back wins, take care of business against Rutgers and Maryland at home, Jay. Not the prettiest one, but on a windy day here. Beautiful day in Champaign. Good to see them. Take care of business, especially on the defensive side of the ball. We'll dive into that, but just original thoughts here. Well, the first 35 seconds this podcast, you said a lot of things that we couldn't say five, six, seven, eight years ago, right? Which is just taking care of business at a big 10 football.

I just, I don't think fans understand how difficult it is to beat anybody in college football,

especially an FBS opponent. Like it is, it is hard to win football games. It's extremely

hard to put football games. So like the way you won against Rutgers,

the way you won against Maryland, and you probably didn't play your best in those two games.

The way you won against Purdue earlier in the year, you didn't play your best, right? I know those

aren't great teams, but you are going and you're doing, you're executing your plan and you're winning

games when you don't play your best and you're overpowering people. And we'll talk about this more,

been so encouraged that the defense has kept you in the game when your offense has sputtered

early on. And that makes all the difference on whether it's a game in the second half or not. And I just, we were hard on the defense in October and rightfully so. But they've made some adjustments. I know it's with your competition. So it's been good to see them take the next step as a defense and keep us in games. I know there are certain fans that are tired of me talking about. It's tired of you talking about. It's tired of comparing to the past. But I would, one of the things I wrote after this game was don't get bored with these wins, Jay. I don't get bored with beating Ruckers in Maryland and Purdue and potentially Wisconsin and Northwestern because it wasn't that long ago, Jay, that you were the given win for those other teams.

So I know what Kurtzignati is doing just kind of breaks perspective, but compare Brett

Bielmo to some of the other hires that were made that cycle.

Lance Leipold was a really great hire for Kansas.

They're just sneaking into a bowl game potentially.

So at 7 and 3, chance to win nine games,

just don't get bored with these or take it for granted

because I know there's bigger than better things.

Bioma has raised the bar,

but as you said, you've been here.

It's not easy to win and sustain winning.

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