We're a group of people who drive to Champaign a lot. Maybe you only drive from Tolono, maybe you're driving from Cincinnati, but the Illini faithful can best be described as a group of people who drive to Champaign with one thought: what if? What if today is the day where we shock the world? What if I actually drive home happy? Man, what would it be like to have a huge game in Memorial Stadium?

Here's the thing about this nagging "what if?" thought. Because it never happens, you start to feel insane for continually going back to it. You get up before your alarm on a Saturday morning, you get in the car, you head to Champaign, the "man, what if it's today?" enters your mind, it doesn't happen, and yet you never really learn. This thing you hope for never happens, so you almost laugh when the thought comes again. It's insanity, really. Driving to Champaign, "what if it's today?". Driving home, "why do I even let myself think that it might happen?".

For me, I sometimes try to imagine life three hours into the future. I did this during the Michigan game. What if this actually happens? What if we actually beat Michigan? You daydream, and while you're daydreaming, something happens and you're snapped back to reality and realize a moment like that is unattainable. It only exists, as the Freddy Jones Band told me back in 1993, In A Daydream.

But it never fully leaves your mind. You see it happen for everyone else, so you know it's possible, and something about a fresh new Saturday morning in the fall means that the clock is reset and it's possible again. And then it doesn't happen. And then you wake up on another crisp Saturday and it feels possible.

And then it happens.

When the field goal went through the uprights, I was standing directly behind them. After Tony Adams' interception, I realized that this game might come down to a last-second field goal, so I headed over to the goalposts. And that walk was as surreal as it gets. This might actually happen. And I might be standing there watching it happen. When you imagine a moment like that in Memorial Stadium, as you approach it - there was no guarantee we'd actually get in field goal range - you really do have "pinch yourself" moments. I daydream about this stuff all the time, but it appears to actually be happening right now. Is this real life?

I recorded the next few minutes on my phone - you can watch them here if you want. It's a horrible video - 75% of it is me walking around stunned with the camera pointed at the turf. But I can tell you that it was total and complete disbelief. When I say "is it over? did we win?", I'm honestly still trying to process everything.

Why? I'd imagine it's because I've asked "what if?" so many times, placing my brain in daydream mode and imagining a life where we're relevant. When you spend your life hovering around "but maybe this weekend" and then something finally happens that weekend, you really don't know what to do with it. Other than run around hugging and high-fiving people.

What does this win mean? WHO CARES. That's honestly how I feel. Last weekend reminded me that getting sucked into stance culture - everything filtered through "but what does this mean" - sucks the life out of me. There's a time and a place for stances, but that time is not immediately after beating Wisconsin, and that place is not here.

For me, tonight, my thoughts are 100% on these players and this fanbase. I cannot watch enough videos of the players celebrating on the field. I'll likely wallpaper my bathroom with photos of the fans pouring onto the field. As I type this, it's 1:09 am, and I cannot imagine what campus looks like right now. I hope KAM'S stays open until 5:00 am.

I mean, can you imagine that scene? KAM'S, which is closing tomorrow and moving to 1st and Green (re-opening in January), on Homecoming, in it's final night, over-run with alumni and students, on the day when we beat #6 Wisconsin. If James McCourt walks through the door the entire place will burst into flames.

(Please don't buy him a drink yet. While he's still a student-athlete, would be an NCAA violation. But once he graduates, he never buys his own drink in Champaign ever again, you hear?)

It's all just so surreal. Not just a win over a good team, but a win over a team that had given up 29 total points in six games. Wisconsin's vaunted rushing attack gets... 3.6 yards per carry? 5.6 yards per play for Wisconsin, 5.6 yards per play for Illinois. How?

Man, I wish I would have recorded more sounds on the field. Attendance was 37,363 (on Homecoming!), so that's never going to be the loudest crowd, but the sound when Tony Adams picked off that pass was deafening. 37,000 fans all realizing at the same time that it might actually happen. Most of these people had been waiting a dozen years to let out that cheer.

Before we started our drive, I thought through deafening moments in Memorial Stadium this decade (and there haven't been many). Ke'Shawn Vaughn's touchdown against North Carolina was easily #1. Sold-out stadium, ready to explode, first drive, 60+ yard touchdown run. That was a crowd explosion.

But this game was close to that. Here, I'll just make a list of crazy loud moments in Memorial Stadium this decade (no order).

STEVEHULL pass breakup at the end of the Arizona State game in 2011.

Dudek catch to get us into Penn State territory in 2014.

Malik Turner catch against Nebraska in 2015 to set us up with first and goal.

Ke'Shawn Vaughn TD against North Carolina.

Sam Mays touchdown to beat Michigan State in 2016.

Tony Adams' interception with 2:30 to go in this game.

To have that last one lead to a game-winning field goal (and the crowd rushing the field) after beating #6 Wisconsin, man, how do you put that into words? That whole drive, really. Daniel Barker's third down catch. Dre Brown's "still not down, STILL not down" run - I'm going back through it in my head and it still doesn't seem real. Those are the kinds of plays I only imagine happening.

This is where I'd typically get into game details and go over some things I observed, but you know what? I'll do that tomorrow. Feels like it would cheapen this post. Besides, it's nearly 12 hours later and I'm still in disbelief mode, so I'm not sure I'd have many astute observations yet. Probably need to re-watch the game first.

Don't get me wrong - there's much to talk about. This win essentially rights the ship from the Eastern Michigan loss (lost a game you absolutely should have won, won a game you absolutely should have lost), and now there's much work to do. There's only two home games left, and we need to win three games if we want to bowl, so we're going to have to sweep at home and win one on the road. If you haven't heard, winning on the road in the Big Ten is not something Illini teams do very often. Starting with Purdue, who came to Champaign last year on Homecoming and absolutely destroyed us. Beating Purdue in West Lafayette will be a very tall task.

But, you know, what if we do?