Welcome in to the Alaintecquire podcast. It is Jeremy Warner, Joey Wagner. We are in the middle of our bowl preparations right before this, talking about when we're going down to Nashville, Tennessee, where are we going to stay?

We got a lot of things to figure out because for the third time in four years, Illinois is going to a bowl game.

Joey, I have not covered a lot of these.

I mean, San Francisco was the first bowl game I covered on this beat.

I didn't go to the 2014 Texas Bowl because I was just doing radio at the time.

But this is becoming a normal thing where Illinois is not only in a bowl game, but in one of the better Big Ten bull games.

They'll play Tennessee on December 30th, 4.30 p.m. Central time at Nissan Stadium, the home of the Tennessee Titans.

Another SEC opponent for Illinois. And I know, Joey, eight and four,

it ain't 10 and two and in the college football playoff like some other big 10 teams, but pretty

good season and good matchup, fun matchup for Illinois here. Yeah, a couple storylines in that

matchup, right? Storylines that we talked a good deal about last spring with Luke Altmeyer and Tennessee.

It's just another opportunity to go play an SEC team and see if you can carry some momentum into the offseason.

Like you did a year ago, I understand, trust me, like you said, I understand where everybody wanted to be.

They're not there, but it doesn't mean this is nothing for Illinois

and what it could mean for them to just carry some buzz.

Nine and four offseason sounds a little different than eight and five.

You get some, you know, you get another win over an SEC team

and trying to carry that in.

So, yes, it's becoming a thing under Brett Beelma's sustained success as Josh Whitman had,

Ed brought up basically every day since a day hired Breedlema.

We're going to get the lowdown on the Vols from Ben McKee, GoVals, 4,7.

This is becoming kind of a rivalry.

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