Illinois Football: Good, bad, and ugly from the Illini quarterbacks through week 3

2 of 3

Sep 2, 2022; Bloomington, Indiana, USA; Illinois Fighting Illini quarterback Tommy DeVito (3) runs the ball while Indiana Hoosiers defensive back Bryant Fitzgerald (31) defends in the second half at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports /

Bad

I would argue that Tommy DeVito has done exactly what he was brought in to do in the first three games of the year.

Illinois is currently 2-1 and had a strong possibility of being 3-0. DeVito has helped stabilize the offense for the Illini, and this has enabled the program to start the 2022 campaign strong.

But there is one issue that has floated to the top when you look at the numbers. The only bad I have for DeVito is consistency coming out of the halftime locker room.

For the vast majority of the game, DeVito is on-point. He is currently completing 67% of his passes this season, as mentioned in the previous slide, but there is one quarter that is an outlier to bring that percentage down.

I am not going to count the Wyoming game because they aren’t a good team, so DeVito should have good numbers. In the first quarter of the past two games, DeVito has completed 72.2% of his passes, in the second quarter, he completed 73.3% of his passes, and in the fourth quarter, he completed 66.6% of his passes.

The only quarter that is a mystery right now is the third quarter. DeVito comes out of the locker room at halftime and is only completing 35.7% of his passes in the third quarter. I don’t know if there is a malaise coming out of halftime and it takes some time to get going again, but DeVito is not the same quarterback in the third quarter as he is the rest of the game.

This is just a number to keep an eye on moving forward. It is one of the few bad things going on with DeVito’s game right now. Hopefully, it is just a small sample size and he improves on his third quarter performance for the rest of the season.

Home/Illinois Football