Sweet redemption flowed through Illinois Memorial Stadium Saturday evening, as Bret Bielema’s Fighting Illini advanced themselves to 2-1 on the season with a 24-3 victory over ACC rival Virginia. This, a beautiful bounce back story for Ryan Walters and Bret Bielema, who’s 2021 squad gave over 556 yards of total offense, and 42 points to Brennan Armstrong and Virginia only a season ago. Armstrong put up astonishing numbers in the 2021 matchup including a massive 423 yards passing against the Illini secondary. This game however, proved to be a much different story.
As Illini Head Coach Bielema exclaimed in his post-game presser “Ryan’s Defense just kept sawing wood.” Fighting through the grit of 4 offense turnovers by the Illini, and a massive scoring drought that lasted from the second quarter, well into the third. Through it all Walters defense was still able to shine. The Virginia offense was only able to produce 3 points, and 222 total yards of production, and only converted 1 of its 16 third down attempts. Not only were you able to successfully keep One of the top offenses in the nation only a season ago completely out of the end zone, but you did it in quite dominant fashion. This paired with only 42 yards rushing the entire game for the Virginia offense, who was completely dismantled up front by Illinois’ Johnny Newton and Keith Randolph.
Newton, Randolph and the “Law Firm”, as they call themselves found themselves all over Brandon Armstrong for most of the entirety of the game. In our NowBN.com pregame presser, I said that one of the biggest keys to the game would be for Illinois to dominate upfront, and put pressure on a young, inexperienced offensive line. Randolph particularly had a highly motivated outing, racking up seven tackles, tying Devon Witherspoon for team leader. This, paired with one sack, and 2.5 tackles for loss, you could say Keith found his rhythm today, and gave his good buddy Johnny, a little more competition. “On the bus ride home I was like, ‘Johnny was balling’. I watched the film and asked him, ‘What do you for this, what do you do for that?’ This whole week I was like, it’s my turn.” Said Randolph.
The Illinois secondary was the true star of the show for this game entirely in my opinion. Not only was Brennan Armstrong, only 18-32 in his passing attempts, but they only gained 180 yards in those 18 attempts through the air. Devon Witherspoon continues to be an absolute stud in the Illinois defensive backfield, proving himself as one of the top DB prospects in the Big Ten this season. His matchup, star wide receiver Donayvion Wicks was held to only 23 yards on 2 catches. Wicks is one of the better receivers in the ACC, in a receiver room that is highly respected amongst the ACC as one of the best. Witherspoon was able to successfully lock Wicks down, while also breaking up 3 pass attempts, and racking up 7 solo tackles. Freshman DB Matthew Bailey, a Moline Illinois prospect in the 2021 class, also had a massive breakout performance. Bailey started his day by scoring a touchdown on a muffed punt, which got the Illini off to a 7-3 start that they never quite looked back on. Bailey also picked off Brennan Armstrong to start the 4th quarter, snagging a tipped pass, and keeping momentum on Illinois side, through a series of bad events for the Illini, that started to make the Illini look shaken up.
The Illinois offense found themselves with a lot of ups and a lot of downs vs Virginia. Of course, outscoring your opponent 24-3 is nothing to laugh at by any means. However, The feeling of missed chances in the red zone, paired with sloppy turnovers, is both opportunistic feeling, and concerning for the Illini. What started a hot first quarter for the Illinois offense, who quickly jumped out to a 21-3 lead, led to a massive 2nd and 3rd quarter drought, that had many scratching their heads. Though the drought was scoreless, the Illinois offense had zero problems moving the ball. In fact, it was the complete opposite. Missed opportunities through turnovers, and poor decision making, led to a lot of points left on the field for the Illini. Illinois quarterback Tommy DeVito believes they could have and should have scored 56 points looking back at how the drives unfolded, and that’s not unreasonable considering the amount of times Illinois found themselves in the red zone, with no points. Again, when learning how not to lose football games, turnovers and mental errors are 2 boxes the Illini will have to check to gain consistency. However, if these errors can be corrected, paired with the continued Dominance of the Illini defense, Illinois does still have a chance at the special season they hoped for in Champaign.
The overall take away from this game, is that Illinois does still have to look in the mirror to correct small mistakes that can be fatal as we move further into the season, and Big Ten play. However, those correctable bumps in the road are a small price to pay for a season that could have a lot of potential for the Fighting Illini. You can say that week to week improvement has been there for this team. Getting healthy and getting the last of the early season rust knocked off during this very fortunate bi- week will be a key factor in the season ahead, and will be a nice reset for this Illinois squad who will look to start 3-1 on the season against UT-Chattanooga next Thursday, September 22nd at 7:30 PM inside Memorial Stadium.
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