3. The Illinois defense was okay
When you look at the scoreboard and see that Rutgers only scored 13 points, one would think the defense played lights out. Honestly, I thought they just played okay.
This past week, after getting demolished by Washington and giving up over 40 points per game in the last five contests, Illinois made some adjustments. Bret Bielema has his fingerprints on the defense a little more, and the Illini looked slightly better than in previous weeks.
You have to take everything with a grain of salt. This is not a good Rutgers team, so naturally, Illinois is going to look better. But I will give credit where credit is due, the Illini had some good moments.
I liked how the Illini defensive line played. They were able to get to Athan Kaliakmanis to sack or put pressure on him throughout the game. They also helped the secondary with a tipped pass that was surely going to be a catch.
It is pretty evident that the Illinois secondary is still an issue. This won’t go away anytime soon, as you can only put what you have on the field.
There were numerous occasions when a Rutgers wide receiver dropped wide-open passes. That helped Illinois’ defense out a lot. Kaliakmanis had some bad throws that enabled the Illini defensive backs to catch up to the Rutgers wide receivers, too.
At the end of the day, the defense will always have massive flaws the rest of the season. This showing on Saturday was a nice step in the right direction.