Illinois Football: 5 observations from the Illini loss to Indiana

3. Indiana territory was our kryptonite

Buckle up because there are some ugly stats coming. Illinois managed to get into Indiana territory quite often on Friday night, but we couldn’t convert those drives into points.

There is nothing more demoralizing than a solid drive ending in zero points. To do all of that work and to look good throwing and running the ball to not score at all is something that kills all momentum. That happened quite frequently to the Illini.

Illinois would end the game on Friday night with 13 total drives. Out of those 13 drives, we found ourselves in Indiana territory on eight of those drives. That is 61.5% of the time, Illinois managed to get over the 50-yard line and into Hoosiers territory. But we only managed to get 20 points on the night.

While that stat is ugly, here is an uglier stat. Illinois was able to get into the red zone on four different occasions. Being inside the 20-yard line of the Hoosiers should equal a decent number of points. But on those four red zone drives, Illinois only managed to secure 10 total points. That is 2.5 points per red zone trip, which is insanely bad.

If you look at stats from the 2021 campaign, four red zone attempts would have ranked No. 32 in the nation. In fact, as a team, Illinois only averaged 2.6 red zone attempts per game last season, and that ranked No. 120 out of 130 programs. So, having four red zone attempts is impressive.

Do you know what is not impressive? The fact Illinois scored on 50% of their red zone attempts against Indiana. If you look at 2021’s stats on red zone conversion percentage, 50% would have finished dead last in the country. New Mexico at 54.55% would be the next closest. We actually ranked No. 100 in the nation last season in red zone conversions at 77.42%.

Illinois doesn’t have a problem getting into the red zone, but not converting lost us the game on Friday night. 50% conversion in the red zone is unacceptable.