The Lovie Smith era didn’t have a ton of big wins before Saturday. I would say his biggest win came during his first season in Champaign. Illinois went up against Michigan State and was able to come away with a 31-27 win over the Spartans. But this wasn’t a ranked game. So, the win over No. 6 Wisconsin is easily the biggest in the Lovie era. Let’s go back further.
2015 featured the Bill Cubit era of Illinois football. He only had one season, and his biggest win was easily against Nebraska where the Illini seemed to have a thousand tries at a touchdown and eventually had Geronimo Allison catch the game-winning score to win 14-13.