KENT STATE GAME PROMOTIONS
• ORANGE OUT - Fans should wear ORANGE to the game
• Grand Opening of Grange Grove – 5-8 pm (games, food trucks & music by Johnnie 6/90)
• Illini Walk – 5:30 pm through Grange Grove
• Family 4-Pack Tickets – 4 tickets and $20 concessions voucher starting at $60
FOR OPENERS
• Kicking Off: The Fighting Illini open their 126th year of football Friday night under the lights in primetime with Kent State coming to Memorial Stadium for an 8:12 p.m. kick.
• Moving Forward: The 2015 Illini are looking to continue the positive momentum generated by last season's bowl berth and the steady improvement of the team over the last three seasons. Illinois' win total has gone from 2 wins in 2012, to four wins in 2013 and to six wins and a spot in the Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl in 2014.
• Cubit Takes the Reigns: Friday will mark the first game for Bill Cubit as head coach of the Fighting Illini. The third-year offensive coordinator was named head coach on Aug. 28 after the dismissal of Tim Beckman. Cubit spent eight years as head coach at Western Michigan before coming to Illinois in 2013 and has a career head coaching record of 85-65-1.
• Home Sweet Home: Illinois enters 2015 with a streak of 17 consecutive home-opening wins, the third-longest streak in the Big Ten behind Nebraska (29) and Wisconsin (19). Illinois is 87-33-5 all-time in home-openers.
• Starting Off Right: The Illini have an all-time record of 78-42-5 in season-openers and are 55-27-4 when opening the season at home. The Illini have won their last nine season-openers at Memorial Stadium dating back to 1997.
• Bowl Bound? Illinois opens the 2015 season looking to reach a bowl game for the fourth time in the last six years. The Fighting Illini won the 2010 Texas Bowl (over Baylor) and 2011 Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl (over UCLA), then endured a two-year bowl drought in 2012 and 2013 before returning to postseason play in 2014.
• O Captain, My Captain: The Fighting Illini voted on five captians for the Kent State game: WR Geronimo Allison, STAR Eric Finney, OL Ted Karras, QB Wes Lunt and LB Mason Monheim.
• Senior LB Mason Monheim enters 2015 with 294 career tackles, the second-most among active FBS players. The Butkus and Lombardi Award candidate piled up a career-high 111 tackles in 2014, and has forced seven career fumbles, tied for fourth most in Illinois history.
• Senior RB Josh Ferguson is one of only three active FBS players with more than 1,500 career rushing yards (1,878) and 1,000 receiving yards (1,227). Arizona State's D.J. Foster and Oregon's Byron Marshall are the other two. A Doak Walker Award candidate, Ferguson ranks sixth on the Illinois career all-purpose yards (3,486) list with a realistic chance to break Robert Holcombe's all-time UI mark of 4,737.
• Ferguson needs 122 yards to reach 2,000 career rushing yards. He enters 2015 ranked 18th on the UI all-time list, with the potential to jump into the top three with a big season.
• Senior DB/RET V'Angelo Bentley needs 141 kick return yards to break Pierre Thomas' UI career record of 1,495 yards. Bentley currently ranks third on the list. The Paul Hornung Award (most versatile) candidate is the first Illinois player in school history to record kick, punt, interception and fumble returns for TD in his career.
• Despite an injury-plagued 2014, junior QB Wes Lunt still managed to break the UI single-season QB efficiency record last season. Lunt completed 153-of-241 passes (63.5 percent) for 1,763 yards, 14 TDs and just three INTs, good for a 141.61 efficiency rating that edged Nathan Scheelhaase's mark of 140.0 set in 2013.
Getting it Done in the Classroom
The Illini have excelled in the classroom over the last three seasons, a major focus of the staff's program-building.
• A total of 38 football student-athletes earned degrees in 2014-15, including 13 that are on the 2015 roster pursuing second degrees or master's degrees.
• Since 2012, the number of football graduates has gone from 15 (2012), to 16 (2013) to 21 (2014) to 38 (2015).
• Illinois has broken its school record for Academic All-Big Ten selections in each of the last three seasons in Champaign. Prior to 2012, the school record was 12 (2000 & 2009). Since then, the Illini have had 18 (2012), 21 (2013) and now 29 in 2014.
• For four consecutive semesters, at least 40 football student-athletes have posted at least a 3.0 grade-point-average, including a high of 60 in Spring 2015. In the same time frame, Illinois' team GPA also has risen steadily from 2.71 in fall 2012 to 2.98 in spring 2015.
Semester 3.0+ GPAs / Team GPA
F 2012 42 / 2.71
S 2013 51 / 2.87
F 2013 43 / 2.84
S 2014 41 / 2.90
F 2014 56 / 2.97
S 2015 60 / 2.98
GRANGE GROVE GRAND OPENING
• The grand opening of the Grange Grove will be at Friday's season-opener. Grange Grove will transform what was previously Lot 36, the parking lot directly west of Memorial Stadium, into a high-energy tailgating area.
• Grange Grove will open at 7am on game days for public tailgating. Programming in the area, including live music and children's areas, will start approximately three hours before kickoff. The tailgating lot will close at 10pm or an hour after the conclusion of the game (for night games).
• More information on Grange Grove can be found at FIGHTINGILLINI.COM/GrangeGrove
Complete Illinois-Kent State Game Notes (PDF)
