Illinois football went up to the Big House and gave the Michigan Wolverines a scare on Saturday.
The Illini had this game. There were multiple times this game should have been put away, but Michigan kept getting an extra life. It is hard to beat the game when your opponent keeps respawning every time you kill them.
At halftime, Illinois was only down 7-3. On the back of Chase Brown, the Illini made a great comeback and had the lead late. A Michigan field goal would seal our fate, though. The Wolverines would end up winning, 19-17.
Here are five observations from the Illinois football loss to Michigan.
1. Illinois’ defense did enough to win
Coming into the Michigan game, many people thought the Wolverines were going to trounce the Illini. This was supposed to be a bloodbath in favor of Michigan.
That didn’t end up being the case. In fact, the Illini were able to keep up with the Wolverines in large part due to the play of our great defense.
Last week against Purdue, our defense came into question. Was this unit really as good as many had hyped them up to be? I think defensive coordinator Ryan Walters and the Illinois defense just had a bad week against the Boilermakers.
I was impressed with how the Illinois defense played against Michigan, though. Former five-star quarterback JJ McCarthy was 18-of-34 for 208 yards. He couldn’t get the ball in the end zone for the entire game.
Besides the one big carry of 37 yards, Blake Corum wasn’t having a huge day by any means. He would finish the game with 18 carries for 108 yards before the injury. His backups couldn’t get anything going either, even with that great offensive line. Michigan only had 40 carries for 168 yards and a touchdown.
Illinois was able to hold Michigan to just 19 points on Saturday. That was the second-fewest points the Wolverines have scored in the past two seasons. The only other score lower was when they scored 11 points against No. 3 Georgia in the College Football Playoff last season.
2. Chase Brown is amazing at football
The Michigan Wolverines have a really good defense. They are touted as one of the best defensive units in the country.
Coming into the game on Saturday, Michigan was only giving up 11.2 points per game, which ranked No. 1 in the nation. That is right, they were the best team in the country in giving up points. Illinois managed to score 17 points against the Wolverines.
The Wolverines were only giving up 72.7 rushing yards per game coming into the contest against Illinois. That number was good enough to rank No. 1 in the country as well. As a team, the Illini rushed for 148 yards and two touchdowns.
Do you know why the Illini managed to crush those country-leading numbers that Michigan has been putting up this season? It is simple, Chase Brown.
Brown has been incredible this season. He has rushed for over 100 yards in each Illini contest, and that continued against a tough Michigan defensive line.
On Saturday, Brown would finish with 29 carries for 140 yards and two touchdowns. Both of his scores were the only touchdowns of the game for the Illini, and his second score was a massive 37-yard run that gave Illinois the lead.
I am glad I am alive to see Brown play football. He is going to go down as, arguably, the greatest running back in Illinois football history. By season’s end, I don’t think there is going to be an argument that Brown is the best running back Illinois has had over the past 50 years. He will have most of the Illinois rushing records. This kid has been amazing.
3. Play-calling seems a little too conservative
In the previous slide, I talked about how the Illinois football team was able to score more points than Michigan averaged giving up the entire year. The Illini offense did a good job scoring against the Wolverines.
A lot of that scoring came via Chase Brown being amazing, though. It didn’t have a ton to do with Michigan being confused or the great play-calling. It had a lot to do with sensational blocking and even better running ability from Brown.
For most games this season, and on Saturday, I have been a little upset with the play-calling coming in on the offensive side of the ball. We are too predictable, and it hurts the ability of the offense to move the ball down the field.
Don’t get me wrong, though, there are times when I think offensive coordinator Barry Lunney calls great plays. But then there are times when I am completely baffled.
It is usually early on in the game when the play-calling is too conservative. These are the possessions where teams have every play scripted and they should lead to some type of points. Not with Illinois, though.
In the first two drives for the Illini against Michigan, we went run, pass, and pass. They were both three-and-outs. This gave Michigan the chance to extend the lead, but thankfully, the Illinois defense held strong and kept us in the game.
I know we just extended Lunney, so I hope he makes some adjustments moving forward. Let’s shake things up early and put the opposing defense on their heels. We have the weapons to do so.
4. Refs can’t make that big of a difference
The Illinois game against Purdue is still fresh in my mind. We only lost by seven points to the Boilermakers despite there being 12 penalties for 121 yards. That was nearly double that of Purdue.
On Saturday, Illinois was definitely better when it came to penalties. We only had four penalties for 40 yards against Michigan. The Wolverines were right there with the Illini with four penalties for 25 yards. If you just look at the box score, you wouldn’t know anything egregious happened.
Midway through the game, Illinois had an open wide receiver down the sidelines. Tommy DeVito put it on the wide receiver, but a Michigan defensive back held the Illini wide receiver’s arm and we couldn’t pull the ball in. This was obviously pass interference, but it was not called.
Let’s fast-forward to the final drive of the game. Michigan was down 17-16 with time ticking off the clock. Illinois was able to get the Wolverines to fourth down with three yards to go. This game could have been over.
Michigan called a pass play to the left. A Michigan wide receiver started blocking as soon as the ball was snapped. He blocked his defender into another Illinois defensive back. This allowed Michigan’s running back to be wide open for an eight-yard gain. The refs have to call offensive pass interference there.
On the very next play, Illinois was called for a back-breaking 15-yard pass interference that wasn’t pass interference. It became clear what was happening at that point. It is sad that is the way the game had to end. It wasn’t a great play by Michigan, which would have been painful but understandable. No, it wasn’t that. It was the refs finishing us off. That doesn’t sit right with me.
5. This is still a successful season
How are we feeling this morning, Illinois football fans? After a great 7-1 start that had us in the top 20 in the College Football Playoff, we have now dropped three-straight games.
I am sure people are saying that we weren’t a good team and that we shouldn’t have been ranked. That narrative has to be out there. But those same people haven’t watched the Illini play for the last three weeks. Despite the losses, we are a tough team that is still fully bought into what Bret Bielema and his coaching staff are saying.
Illinois is still 7-4 this season with a legit shot at going 8-4. If you would have said the Illini finished 8-4 in 2022, all of our fans would have taken that in a heartbeat. 8-4 is a really good record and one we can continue to build on moving forward.
I am excited to go to a bowl game this season as well. This doesn’t feel like the bowl game we made a couple of years ago. That one felt like we slopped into playing in the postseason. This time around, it feels like we are a really good team that can compete with any team in any bowl.
Let’s not forget, while it is an outside chance at this point, Illinois is going into the final game of the regular season still having a chance to get to the Big Ten Championship game. No one would have thought that to be a possibility to start the year.
On top of all of that, we have a good recruiting class coming in for 2023, and we have all been able to witness one of the greatest running backs in Illinois history, Chase Brown.
This season has been great. I know the last three weeks have been rough, but it is still a successful year. I can’t wait to see what this program does next season. The future is so bright.