Oregon shows Illinois football every weapon in the arsenal in the first half

I know the Illinois football team is playing the No. 1 team in the country, but this was a bit of a disappointing first half of action.

The Illini came out of the gates and got punched in the mouth. We showed a little fight in the middle of the first half, but the Ducks were hitting us with everything they had.

Score after score for Oregon overwhelmed Illinois. By the end of the first half in Eugene, the scoreboard showed Oregon with a 35-3 lead.

Illinois football first half successes

• Run game was effective

Honestly, it was hard to find anything positive about the first half against Oregon. When you are down by a few scores, it is tough to look on the bright side.

I did think the Illinois running game was effective, though. Aidan Laughery had a huge gain that got us into scoring range and resulted in a field goal. Josh McCray looked good on the ground too. He ran with patience.

Illinois football first half failures

• Defense is overmatched

Coming into the game, I knew Oregon had great athletes. There is a reason they are the No. 1 team in the country. But this was not a fair fight.

It was evident pretty quickly that the Ducks had better athletes, and the Illinois defense struggled with that fact. We couldn’t keep up with Oregon’s offensive weapons. They ran just about every play in the playbook, and most of them worked. The second half will likely have the same result.

• Worst half of football by Luke Altmyer

Illinois struggled to move the ball against Penn State, but it was nothing like what we saw in the first half against Oregon. This was a bad performance by Luke Altmyer.

Altmyer wasn’t very accurate. He tried to throw a ball deep middle and it was an interception with our wide receiver at least 10 yards away. Altmyer also had two fumbles, one of which was called down but shouldn’t have been. Illinois needed Altmyer to have a great game, and he is laying an egg through two quarters of action.