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Illinois football has a massive barometer game against Purdue

The national media won't be paying attention to this game, but the Illinois football program has one of the biggest perception games of the season.

USC v Illinois | Justin Casterline/GettyImages

On Saturday, Illinois football plays one of the worst teams in the Big Ten, and some would say the country.

Purdue hasn’t been a good team since former Illini defensive coordinator Ryan Walters bolted Champaign and took a handful of coaches and players with him. That experiment fell flat, and now they have former Missouri and UNLV head coach Barry Odom at the helm.