Welcome in to the Lionanquire podcast.

It's Jeremy Warner and Derek Piper.

Even before this, we're talking about a big Kansas game for Illinois football, but we're going to

interrupt this hype train going into what is a huge game with a little bit of Illinois basketball

talk. I've had a lot of fun with this, Derek, talking about the front court a couple weeks ago

than last week with the wings. Today we'll talk about the league guards, but I'll let you throw in

your two cents on a huge

matchup against Kansas coming off what, what Illinois needed to do, which was taking care of

business against Eastern Illinois.

Yeah, I'm super excited.

I've got to get my tickets still.

I probably should have gotten that done sooner, but we'll end up figuring out a way to get in that building there on Saturday evening. So, you know, great reason for the fans to come out. It sounds like that they had a really good turnout in night one, especially the students. And really, there was nothing. I wondered if there was going to be something as far as that first game against Eastern.

Like, hey, you know, they gave up a little bit too much on the ground. That's something that would concern me for Devin Neal. There really wasn't anything that raised red flags. I'm giving the opponent, you've got to, you know, maybe temper the excitement and whatnot, but Altmeyer looked good. The secondary was flying around pretty well, and Matthew Bailey's presence was notable. So when Jalen Daniels in that offense comes to town, Devin Neal you got to put him in that headliner list as well

it's a big test and really will tell us a lot about maybe Aaron Henry if they look better than

maybe initially expected as he'd turn a corner here and have things going and rolling.

And if not, can Luke Altmeier go score for score

with a really dynamic quarterback in that offense?

So super intriguing matchup and can't wait to watch it.

Yeah.

It's weird that Illinois football, hot ticket, at least for this game.

It's been a while since that's been the case.

But I think it talks to the fan base's excitement and desire to buy into the football program,

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