Another week is in the books, and the Illinois football team has now dropped two straight games.
The loss on Saturday hurt way worse than the blowout loss to Oregon. The Illini had a chance to win this game on numerous occasions, and even down to the last drive, we had a chance to tie it up.
Minnesota isn’t a bad team by any means either. The Golden Gophers looked good offensively, and Illinois’ defense had a hard time stopping their playcalling. Meanwhile, the Illini offense struggled to sustain consistent success. All of this led to a disappointing 25-17 loss for Illinois.
Here are five sad observations from the Illinois football loss to Minnesota
1. Illinois football needs a new offensive line
We are fresh off a disappointing loss to Minnesota, and the first thought I have is that Illinois needs a new offensive line. They were so disappointing on Saturday, and there is no correcting them this season.
The main issue with the offensive line is the pass blocking. There was only one time against Minnesota where the offensive line did a good job protecting Luke Altmyer, and that resulted in a touchdown pass to Zakhari Franklin.
Altmyer had to scramble quite a bit, and the Golden Gophers feasted. They finished the game with 4.5 sacks, which put Illinois behind the eight ball on numerous plays. One of those plays was the final play of the game when Altmyer was strip-sacked.
But the offensive line struggled more than just protecting Altmyer. While they are better at run blocking, there were some issues in this department as well.
One instance that stood out to me was toward the end of the game. Illinois called a designed quarterback run, and Altmyer had plenty of room up the middle to take the ball 20 or more yards. Illinois had three offensive linemen out front, but none of them were able to get a hand on the only Minnesota defender. Altmyer gained less than 10 yards on the play.
Priority No. 1 this offseason needs to be revamping the offensive line. We need better pass blockers. This has to change, or we will continue losing games in this type of fashion.