The Illinois football team was beaten down on Saturday by Washington, and the postgame press conference showed it.
Bret Bielema took the stage in front of the media, and he looked downtrodden. The Illini just got boat raced in the second half against the Huskies, and Bielema didn’t have answers.
For it being a 17-point loss, Bielema did well in the press conference. He didn’t throw anyone under the bus, and he was collected. The one big takeaway I had was that Illinois will have some changes to the depth chart heading into next weekend.
Here are five interesting Bret Bielema quotes from the Illinois football presser vs Washington
- “Before you can expect to win a game, you got to stop from losing it. We did enough things, self-inflicted wounds today…that took away from our success.”
This is a trend with the Illinois football team. When we lose games, a lot of the time it is due to the mental errors and missed opportunities that are left on the field.
Illinois had at least three bad, mistimed, personal foul penalties against Washington. These contributed in a big way to us losing the game. We also had chances to make plays defensively, and that didn’t happen. It was a complete letdown on all fronts when it comes to discipline.
- “If I have to get more involved, I will”
Bielema is referring to the defensive side of the ball. Later in the press conference, he said he won’t call plays because that would send mixed messages to the players, but from the sound of it, he will have his fingerprints a little more on the defensive playbook.
- “The guy who covered him just stopped covering him, and it is just inexcusable. We have to figure out why that happened, and if he can’t do it, then we have to find someone else who can.”
I think you are going to see some personnel changes on the Illinois defense in the next game. There were multiple times in the Washington game where an Illini player gave up on a play when they were in the middle of the action. That is inexcusable, and I believe Bielema will see it and make the adjustments this week.
- “We talked about before the game, to get a W today, we need everybody working together. That is probably more now coming out of this game than ever before. We don’t need anybody standing around pointing fingers, especially me.”
The press conference, while somber, gave me comfort. Bielema didn’t go in and point fingers. He had a measured approach, and he helped instill the belief that change will happen. While Illinois is in a tough spot right now, Bielema is definitely the right coach to get us to the other side.
- “We knew the whole offense ran through No. 2, and unfortunately, we weren’t able to curtail that.”
It is kind of crazy that Illinois had two weeks to game plan for Demond Williams Jr., and that is what we came up with. Williams finished the game with 280 yards and four touchdowns through the air. He also had 66 yards on the ground and averaged 6.6 yards per carry. It was a complete meltdown by the Illini defense.