Homecoming! The weekend alumni across the country all know and love. The time they can go back to the old stomping grounds and reminisce about sleeping off a 13-hour binge drinking session in an off-campus gutter.
Alumni always love when the local team wins—it sets the mood for the weekend—so colleges try to arrange favorable match ups for their team. (Rutgers is this year's choice for Ohio State.) The Illinois Illini are the hottest date in the conference for 2016.
From collegefootballtalk.com:
Illinois will serve as the proverbial Homecoming meal for four of its five Big Ten road games this fall: Nebraska on Oct. 1, Rutgers on Oct. 15, Michigan on Oct. 22 and Wisconsin on Nov. 12. Wisconsin moved its Homecoming to two weeks after the rest of the conference to pass over Nebraska for the Illini.
No other Big Ten team will serve as a Homecoming opponent more than twice this season.
Nebraska, Michigan, and Wisconsin would be expected to pick Illinois. But Rutgers!? Oh, Chris Ash threw the gauntlet down to Lovie Smith on that one.
