The last few days have been tumultuous for the Illinois football program.
Going into the Ohio State game, everyone knew that the Illini were outmatched. That showed on the field, to the tune of a 42-19 thumping by the Buckeyes.
Within 48 hours, Illinois had parted ways with defensive coordinator Bobby Hauck. The decision was sudden but needed. Now, the Illini need to get the defensive woes corrected. While Purdue seems like a nice opponent to get things right on paper, they have a quarterback in Ryan Browne who has feasted on the Orange and Blue.
Browne is in his junior year in West Lafayette. For his career, he has thrown for 3,924 yards, 20 touchdowns, and 15 interceptions. This season, it does seem like he has the career trajectory pointing in the right direction, as he has 1,135 yards, seven touchdowns, and one interception through four games.
Purdue is battle-tested, too. While they have only played in four games, three of those are against quality teams. They narrowly lost against a solid Wake Forest team in double overtime. The Boilermakers went on the road and competed against UCLA and put up 38 points. This past week, Purdue got trounced by No. 3 Notre Dame.
Browne knows good competition, so going up against Illinois isn’t going to be the toughest task in the world right now. What scares me the most is the fact that Browne has experience against a Bret Bielema-led Illinois squad, and he has played some great football against the Illini, too.
In two games against the Illini, Browne is 48-of-76 (63.1%) for 599 yards, four touchdowns, and zero interceptions. This includes what I believe was his first start ever, when he threw for 297 yards and three touchdowns in an overtime loss for the Boilermakers.
For those keeping track at home, Browne has 20% of his total touchdowns in his career against Illinois.
The Illinois defense has been particularly bad in pass coverage this season
I would imagine Browne is licking his chops right now with the way Illinois has been playing defense, especially in pass coverage. And now, we don’t have a defensive coordinator.
Through four games this season, Illinois has allowed 264.0 yards per game through the air. That is bad enough to rank No. 110 out of 138 teams in college football.
Granted, that number is a little skewed because the Illini are coming off a game where we played one of the best teams in the country, but the pass coverage was horrendous in that contest.
I think pass defense has to be the first thing that is fixed this week. Illinois needs to figure out what the heck we are doing in the secondary, or Browne could go off once again. He has played some of his best football against Illinois over the years, and that is when we had solid defensive players. Now, he likely eyes a massive outing and a rare Purdue Big Ten victory.
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