5 massive observations from the Illinois football win over Nebraska

4. Every time Nebraska threw a punch, Illinois had an answer

With the Illinois football program, I have sports fan trauma. There are points in the game when certain things happen, and I think to myself, oh no here it comes.

Illinois had a bad fumble early in the game, and Nebraska capitalized off of it with a touchdown. The Cornhuskers took the lead with that score, and in the past, that could have snowballed on the Illini. But it didn’t. We took the punch and punched back.

The Illini defense made a great play and intercepted Dylan Raiola in the second quarter with the game tied at 10-10. We were driving after that, but we didn’t convert on fourth down. This led to a Nebraska touchdown. Those are two bad drives in a row, and in the past, that usually led to snowballing and a loss. But not this time.

Coming out of halftime, Illinois was down 17-10, but we got the ball first in the second half. The opening drive was important, but Illinois ended up punting and giving the ball back to Nebraska with the lead. The result could have been a multi-score lead for the Cornhuskers, but Illinois’ defense fought back and stopped Nebraska.

And then there was the fumble. Luke Altmyer didn’t see the defensive back blitzing, and he got clobbered from his blindside. The ball came loose, and Nebraska recovered it with the game tied 24-24. This fumble was in the middle of the fourth quarter, and in the past, it usually meant a game-winning possession coming up for the opposing team.

Not this time, though. The Illini defense held strong again, and we were able to get Nebraska to miss a field goal.

In the past, there were so many of these little occurrences throughout a game where Illinois let the win slip away. Not this time and not this team. When Nebraska threw a punch, Illinois fought back.