Illinois Football: 5 observations from the Illini loss to Purdue

2. We need to stop trying to be something we are not

I touched on the tough game that Tommy DeVito had in the previous slide. Illinois needs him to play well to win games. But we also need to stop trying to be a team that we are not.

The Purdue Boilermakers were able to throw on the Illinois defense. They were getting shredded whenever Aiden O’Connell was on the field. So, how do you slow down the Purdue offense? Keep them off the field. It is that simple.

Illinois didn’t implement a game plan to keep Purdue off the field, and when they saw O’Connell having success against the Illini defense, we didn’t make adjustments. Illinois needed to stop passing as much, or we could have at least started dinking and dumping the ball down.

DeVito had 32 pass attempts against Purdue, and that number should have been lower. We have a strong running back in Chase Brown who only had 23 carries on the day. Illinois went away from him too often and too early in the game. He should have been getting the ball more.

I also believe we could have used Reggie Love III more. He only had four rushing attempts against the Boilermakers. That number could have easily been 10 or more touches.

The lack of usage of Isaiah Williams confuses me too. Illinois didn’t use our most electric player on the field nearly enough. He had three total touches against Purdue. That number should be much higher.

Offensive coordinator Barry Lunney relied too much on the arm of DeVito. I think he is a good quarterback, but when you see the defense needing help and DeVito not completing a ton of passes, then we should have fallen back on the running game. We are a running team. Let’s be who we are.