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Illinois Football: 5 observations from the Illini loss to Purdue

By Rees Woodcock

Nov 12, 2022; Champaign, Illinois, USA; Illinois Fighting Illini quarterback Tommy DeVito (3) runs with the ball and looks to pass during the second half against the Purdue Boilermakers at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Ron Johnson-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 12, 2022; Champaign, Illinois, USA; Illinois Fighting Illini quarterback Tommy DeVito (3) runs with the ball and looks to pass during the second half against the Purdue Boilermakers at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Ron Johnson-USA TODAY Sports /
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Oct 29, 2022; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA; Illinois Fighting Illini head coach Bret Bielema talks to players during warmups before the game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dylan Widger-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 29, 2022; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA; Illinois Fighting Illini head coach Bret Bielema talks to players during warmups before the game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dylan Widger-USA TODAY Sports /

3. Penalties killed Illinois

Coming into the Purdue game on Saturday, the Illini hadn’t been the most disciplined team when it comes to penalties. This is a reflection on the coaching staff and the discipline instilled in the players.

Before the game, Illinois was averaging 7.1 penalties per game, which ranked No. 97 in the country. That is not a good number at all. But, on Saturday, Illinois wanted to crush that number, and crushed it they did.

Not only did Illinois eclipse the 7.1 penalties in the game against Purdue, they decided to nearly double that number and had a total of 12 penalties on the day. This is an astonishing number.

Illinois is actually an even worse team in the country in penalty yardage per game. Coming into Saturday, we were accruing 64.9 penalty yards per game, which ranked No. 108 in the nation. That is out of 131 teams. Illinois pretty much doubled that number against Purdue by accumulating 121 yards in penalties.

If you watched the game, you would have seen some bad calls go against the Illini. There is nothing we can do about those calls. But there were some legit pass interference calls against Illinois. Alex Palczewski also had a couple of false start penalties that cost the team greatly.

This game was a struggle for the Illini, and one of the big reasons we ended up falling to Purdue was due to penalties. If we want to win in the future, this has to be corrected.

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