Coming into the game on Saturday, Illinois football had the offense to beat a lot of teams.
The only issue with the program at this point was the defense. We were soft against UAB, and the Illini were running up against a tough Duke running game that can dice up the middle of any defense.
Illinois drove down the field on the first drive of the game and scored a touchdown. Things were looking good. That was until the Illini defense took the field.
All Illinois defensive fears came true.
Duke took the ball and shoved it down Illinois’ throat. After stopping running back Nate Sheppard on the very first play, he started to go to work.
Sheppard then rattled off a 12-yard run. Illinois gave Duke some yards with a penalty. Sheppard then ran for a 30-yard gain. The final play of the drive was a 12-yard touchdown toss by Walker Eget.
A little salt on the wound was the fact that this was Eget’s first touchdown toss of the season. He didn’t even have a score against Tulane last week.
Bret Bielema tried to tell us that the defense hadn’t practiced talking very much, and that is why week one and the 16 missed tackles that ensued happened.
We all could see that the Illinois defense had major issues against the Blazers. The hope was that the issues would be tightened up, and the Illini would come out and look tougher against Duke.
That clearly didn’t happen, though. The first drive of the game for the Illinois defense was exactly what we saw against UAB. There is a ton of game left, but something needs to change, or Duke will put up a massive number.
Illinois needs to stop dropping back so many defensive backs against Duke
The Duke offense diced up the Illini on the first drive. A lot of the issues are that Sheppard gets into the second level of the defense without much effort. He then has a ton of open field to maneuver around the Illinois defenders.
It feels like the Illini need more bodies up front. We need to load the box more. The touchdown pass for Duke was good defense, but a better catch. There isn’t anything you can do about that. Illinois still needs to load the box and stop Sheppard. As long as he is running loose, Illinois will struggle.
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