Illinois Football: 5 crucial areas of improvement during the Illini bye week

2. Third down conversion percentage – defense

For the most part, I have been pleased with the Illinois defense this season. They were put in bad situations early on in the year, but they have kept us in quite a few games.

I am not blind to the flaws, though. The Illini defense has many areas where they could improve during this bye week. One of the areas I want to point out is third down conversion percentage.

Overall, Illinois is pretty good at stopping opponents on the first two plays. We are getting them to third down quite a few times. In fact, Illini opponents average 15.4 third downs per game. The problem is, we can’t stop the opponent when they do get to third down.

Illinois’ opponents are converting 46.34% of third downs this season. That is bad enough to rank No. 118 out of 133 teams in the FBS. But how can we prevent the opponent from converting third downs?

I believe it all has to do with pressure. A perfect example to show that pressure matters in this situation is Jer’Zhan Newton. He played for just over three quarters against Wisconsin before being ejected for a weak targeting call. Before Newton was ejected, Wisconsin was 5-of-12 on third downs, which is 41.7%. After Newton was ejected, the Badgers converted 5-of-5 on third downs. For those counting at home, yes, that is 100%.

Allowing 41.7% of third downs to be converted is a great improvement over what we have done this season. Newton was in the backfield all game long, and it showed by how well Illinois was playing. I think this bye week is important for the defensive staff to develop a game plan of pressure moving forward. I don’t want Newton to be the only one getting pressure. We need to start bringing an extra man or two on a blitz. Get to the quarterback and make him squirm. That is how you stop opposing teams from converting third downs.