Golden Era Of Illini Sports
House of L podcast
Laurence W. Holmes
4.9 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 23 February 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Laurence checks in with Jeremy Werner of Illini Inquirer to talk about the run of program-wide success, Illinois Athletics has had.
Episode Log:
1:30 Golden Era?
6:32 Josh Whitman best Athletic Directer in the country
9:49: Whitman's foresight
11:21 Brett Bielema is built for Illinois
13:47 Brett's tenure vs Lovie Smith's tenure
20:00 Brad Underwood's Evolution
24:26 Connecting Champaign to Chicago
27:00 The Great Terry Boers
28:32 Jeremy's White Sox Takes
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, hey, and welcome in to the House of L podcast. |
| 0:03.0 | I'm Lawrence Holmes. |
| 0:03.7 | Thanks so much for hanging out. |
| 0:05.4 | I appreciate it. |
| 0:06.3 | Got a guest today. |
| 0:07.5 | I'm excited about the subject matter because I haven't really done a ton of Aligni on the pod. |
| 0:14.2 | But considering how well things have gone for Illinois as a program, I thought that I'd check |
| 0:20.8 | in with my guy Jeremy |
| 0:22.0 | Warner of the Alina I Enquirer and just see what he thinks about the teams that he's covering. |
| 0:29.2 | So he's been nice enough to join me. Thanks for being on the pod. I appreciate it. How you been? |
| 0:34.8 | Do well, Warrens. Thanks for having me. House of L listener myself, so I appreciate the invite. |
| 0:39.3 | And it's a good time because after an emotional loss, disappointing loss at UCLA, it is kind |
| 0:46.3 | of nice every once in a while to zoom out what Illinois athletics has become. |
| 0:50.3 | Yeah, look, I was, you know, I'm a DePaul guy and I don't really root for Illinois, |
| 0:56.0 | but I was rooting for them so hard against UCLA because I hate Mick Cronin. But that's another |
| 1:01.7 | story for another day, but it was a great game by them. But here's what I wanted to get into. |
| 1:07.7 | I've been thinking about it for the past few months and I've been like bothering my showmates |
| 1:12.3 | with this idea. And I wanted to run it by someone who's been around the Illinois program for |
| 1:18.0 | forever. Are we in the golden age of Aligni athletics? It's a great question. And it's one that I've tried to put out there that enjoy this. |
| 1:32.3 | Because when I first really got into covering this professionally out of college, it was |
| 1:39.3 | the worst decade of Illinois athletics. |
| 1:41.3 | I mean, seven of 10 missed NCAA tournaments. Illinois football was an embarrassment outside of Rut athletics. I mean, seven of ten missed NCAA tournaments. |
... |
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