Gameday Central | Illinois 47, Northwestern 14, FINAL | Sports | news-gazette.com – Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette
CHAMPAIGN — The Illinois football team delivered its most complete performance of the season.
Albeit in the final regular-season game. Too little, too late to possibly salvage Bret Bielema leading the Illini to a bowl game in his first season.
But Saturday’s dominating 47-14 win against Northwestern in front of an announced crowd of 27,624 at Memorial Stadium at least left open the possibility of a slim chance for Illinois to play a game beyond November.
Even if Illinois (5-7, 4-5 Big Ten) played its final game of the 2021 season on Saturday against Northwestern (3-9, 1-8), though, the Illini can head into the offseason on a positive note. And with the Land of Lincoln Trophy back in their possession.
Illinois beat Northwestern for the first time since 2014, ending a six-game skid against the Wildcats. And rode a solid offensive performance in doing so.
Brandon Peters completed 14 of 24 passes for 242 yards and one touchdown, with Isaiah Williams having a breakthrough performance with seven receptions for 113 yards and one touchdown catch.
Williams added a touchdown run, one of four Illini to reach the end zone that way, along with tight end Daniel Barker, running back Chase Brown and running back Josh McCray.
James McCourt added four field goals to boot in his final game kicking at Memorial Stadium.
Brown rushed for a game-high 112 yards on 14 carries and topped 1,000 rushing yards on the season. The redshirt sophomore has 1,005 rushing yards on the season, becoming the first Illini to hit that milestone since Reggie Corbin did so in 2018.
Now, Illinois will wait to see if its slim bowl hopes are still intact. With 82 bowl slots to fill, there’s a possibility not enough six-win teams could fill all those spots. If there’s not, five-win teams with the best APR score would factor in to fill out all of the bowl spots.
A first-year Illinois coach hasn’t led the team to a bowl game since Lou Tepper took the Illini to the 1992 Holiday Bowl. But the four Big Ten wins Illinois achieved this season under Bielema — Nebraska, Penn State, Minnesota and Northwestern — are the most by a first-year Illini coach since that 1992 team went 4-3-1 in conference games.
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The rout was on in the first half. And hasn’t let down in the second half.
Josh McCray just added to it for the Illini with a 6-yard touchdown run to cap a methodical scoring drive and Illinois now leads Northwestern 47-7.
It’s the most points Illinois has scored against the Wildcats since — wait for it — the 47-33 win against Northwestern in 2014. Which, coincidentally, is the last time Illinois beat the Wildcats. Until today.
Don’t think Bret Bielema will let his team get the point total up much further (the last time Illinois scored more than 47 points against Northwestern was in a 63-14 romp during the 1989 season), but this is a positive way to end the regular season during Year 1 of the Bielema Era.
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James McCourt has really boosted his career field goal numbers the last two games. After making three field goals in last week’s loss at Iowa, McCourt has connected from 25, 36, 28 and now 49 yards.
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James McCourt makes it a 3 for 3 first half with a 25-yard field goal as time expires before halftime. Illinois’ 37 points is the most it has scored in a half this season. Mainly because the Illini haven’t scored this many points in a single game this year.
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A 28-yard field goal is basically a chip shot for James McCourt. And a 36-yarder isn’t much more difficult. The Illinois super senior kicker made both of them to extend the Illini lead as halftime near.
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It won’t be a shutout today in Champaign. Some missed tackles and a coverage mistake opened the door for a sustained Northwestern drive. A drive the Wildcats ended with a 1-yard touchdown run on a quarterback sneak by Ryan Hilinski.
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Illinois just turned defense into offense. Again. Immediately.
Quan Martin picked off Northwestern quarterback Ryan Hilinski, returned it to the 21-yard line and then Isaiah Williams took the reverse on the very next play and scampered 21 yards for the touchdown. It was Williams’ second score of the half, and he’s making an early case for player of the game honors.
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Just saw a tweet asking where this Illinois offense has been all season. It’s a valid question. Simply scoring three touchdowns is a success let alone scoring three with most of the second quarter still to play. The Illini padded their lead on a 1-yard touchdown run by Chase Brown after Brandon Peters got them in scoring position by hitting a 56-yard bomb to Casey Washington.
As far as where this offense has been, though, it’s an easy answer. Not playing Northwestern. The Wildcats are … not great.
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It’s safe to say Illinois hasn’t had as good a first quarter all season as the one the Illini are putting up on Northwestern. In all three phases.
Illinois has now scored two first quarter touchdowns, with the latest a 39-yard strike from Brandon Peters to a WIDE open Isaiah Williams (and that might not be a strong enough description as to how open he was).
The Illini defense has also forced two Northwestern fumbles, recovered one of them and hardly given the Wildcats much more elsewise.
And Blake Hayes had a boomer of a punt on his lone opportunity. A punt that Tailon Leitzsey downed at the 2-yard line.
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Illinois went the first nine games of the season without scoring a first quarter touchdown. Now the Illini have an early score in each of their last three games, including today.
Daniel Barker went in motion and scored on an 8-yard touchdown run. Yes, a touchdown run for the Illinois tight end. The Illini had to score a touchdown, though, given they got the ball at the 8-yard line after Northwestern quarterback Andrew Marty just had the ball slip out of his hand as he dropped back to pass and Isaiah Gay fell on it for the takeaway.
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Illinois is back to listing 12 offensive starters. Would be a serious advantage if the Illini could pull that off.
Anyway, here are the starters. Take the offensive ones with a grain of salt. It will either be the three wide receiver look or two tight ends and not both.
OFFENSE
LT – Vederian Lowe
LG – Jack Badovinac
C – Doug Kramer
RG – Alex Palczewski
RT – Julian Pearl
RB – Chase Brown
TE – Luke Ford
TE – Daniel Barker
WR – Isaiah Williams
WR – Casey Washington
WR – Donny Navarro III
QB – Brandon Peters
DEFENSE
OLB – Isaiah Gay
DL – Johnny Newton
DL – Calvin Avery
OLB – Isaiah Gay
NB – Quan Martin
CB – Tony Adams
CB – Devon Witherspoon
S – Sydney Brown
S – Kerby Joseph
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The list of Illinois’ Senior Day participants was just distributed. After a quick glance, it looks like three players that would have eligibility for 2022 don’t intend to return in Daniel Barker (the big one), Mike Epstein (don’t blame him given injury history) and Jamal Woods (ditto).
Wood has been ruled out for today’s game against Northwestern. The veteran defensive lineman didn’t play last week at Iowa either after suffering another injury in the Minnesota game earlier this month. Deuce Spann was the other notable Illini ruled out for the game.
The full list of unavailable players, which doesn’t include those that have previously decided to leave the team (or redshirt in Brian Hightower’s case, which is a precursor to leave if I’ve ever seen one), is as follows:
LB Calvin Hart Jr.
WR Deuce Spann
QB Art Sitkowski
WR Desmond Dan Jr.
WR Ty Lindemann
DB Tyler Strain
RB Mike Epstein
LB Jake Hansen
TE Lucas Althaus
LB Kalen Villanueva
OL Jordyn Slaughter
OL Moses Okpala
DL Jamal Woods
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I’m not even going to begin to guess what the over/under would be on how long the Senior Day activities might take at Memorial Stadium. When you add super seniors with regular seniors Illinois is at nearly 50 guys.
That takes us to the under-the-radar storyline for today’s game. The roster that will take the field for next year’s Week 0 game against Wyoming won’t look much like the roster for today’s regular season finale. There will be some continuity with the defensive starters, but that’s about it.
The nearly two dozen super seniors will have exhausted their eligibility. Then comes the tough decisions both Illinois coach Bret Bielema and the other players that have used their four years worth of scholarship. Bielema doesn’t have to bring any of them back even if they’ve got eligibility remaining. Odds are there’s going to be a fairly significant number in that group.
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Illinois now has three state champions in its 2022 recruiting class after Fenwick won the Class 5A title earlier today in DeKalb. Jordan Anderson, Malachi Hood and Joliet Catholic won the 4A title late Friday night.
Anderson dominated in JCA’s 56-27 victory against Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin. The future Illinois running back 30 carries for 306 yards and four touchdowns and added two catches for 69 yards and another score. Hood had three tackles and forced and recovered a fumble.
Pugh caught five passes for 24 yards in Fenwick’s 34-15 win against Kankakee. The Friars leaned on their run game, with uncommitted senior Danny Kent rushing for 208 yards and a touchdown.
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A consequential regular season finale. A novel concept for Illinois in the past, well, several years. But there’s actually a fair amount to play for today in Champaign with the Illini hosting rivals(?) Northwestern.
First of all, the Hat is on the line. Northwestern has basically claimed permanent ownership of the Land of Lincoln Trophy with six straight wins and 14 victories in the last 20 games.
Then there’s the fact a fifth win could actually clinch a bowl game for Illinois. There won’t be enough six-win teams to fill all the bowl bids, so some 5-7 teams will extend their season into December. (Whether or not there are too many bowl games is a discussion for another day. But that’s definitely the case).
Even if a fifth win doesn’t mean a bowl game (and it might not), beating Northwestern would send Illinois into the offseason on a high note. Five wins in year one for Bret Bielema, including four wins in the Big Ten, isn’t a bad start to the rebuild.
Illinois is primed for all of the above to happen. While the Illini aren’t exactly world beaters themselves, Northwestern enters today’s game with a 3-8 record, even more issues at quarterback than Illinois and with a defense that’s not quite as effective as what coach Pat Fitzgerald typically puts on the field.
So this game has to be more like Penn State and Minnesota and less like Maryland, Purdue and Iowa. The latter three were certainly winnable games — especially Maryland and Purdue — and Illinois couldn’t make plays late to close it out. Imagine how different the outlook would be on this program if the Illini were 6-5 entering today’s game instead of 4-7.