Illinois Football: 3 observations from the Illini loss to Wisconsin

3. What is going on in our secondary?

Overall, I don’t believe our defense is bad. I think there is way more nuance to the 45 points surrendered on Friday night to Wisconsin. But there were some really bad defensive drives against the Badgers.

The first scoring drive of the game was extremely short due to the offense giving the ball up. The touchdown pass by Wisconsin was a 10-yard strike to Mason Stokke. It was a simple play-action pass but Nate Hobbs bit so hard on the play-action, and this enabled Stokke to have a wide-open touchdown reception.

Wisconsin would go on to have two more touchdowns that featured a hard play-action pass where their tight end, and best player, was left wide open in the end zone. Having our defensive backs bite every time is unacceptable.

Now let’s get to the two drives to end the first half.

Do you want to see a classic breakdown of defensive backs? Check out the final two touchdowns in the second quarter. Wisconsin’s tight end was wide open in the middle of the field for a 14-yard touchdown reception. No one even paid attention to him until the ball was pretty much already in his hands.

The second touchdown just took one play. Wisconsin’s wide receiver just jetted down the middle of the field and neither Illinois safety took him. They both let the wide receiver fly by before realizing the other teammate wasn’t taking him. It was too late, and Wisconsin had another easy 53-yard touchdown.

I believe in most of these situations, Illinois was playing a Cover-2 defense. But this defense breaks down when the offense goes into a spread offense. The spread offense pulls the middle linebacker away from the center of the defense. Both safeties then go to their zones leaving the center of the field wide open.

Illinois needs to figure out a solution to their secondary issues. Every single team we play this year is going to look at the Wisconsin game film and pinpoint that they need to hit the middle of the field. If this doesn’t get fixed quickly, it could be a long season.