Ohio State 30, Illinois 0

I'm not sure I have much to add about this game, because I wasn't able to watch it (yes, I have clearly not been putting my blog first). There is no shame in losing to a strong Ohio State team on the road, especially a team, that as I pointed out earlier in the week, always wins the little ones. That said, the Illini were favored to lose by 14 and instead lost by 30. Coupled with a similarly uninspiring 28 point loss to Missouri in their other game against actual competition (sorry, Illinois State), the prognosis for the rest of the season isn't good.

There aren't really a lot of positive things to say about this game. Illinois held Ohio State to 318 yards of offense, but that was mostly because Jim Tressel called a conservative game plan due to poor weather conditions, and ran the ball 46 times to just 13 pass attempts. I was optimistic about Illinois' run defense after solid performances in the last two games, but without Martez Wilson at MLB, the Illini allowed Ohio State to pound them for 236 yards on the ground. Thus despite the low total yardage, it's hard to say it was a good defensive performance for Illinois, and the final score reflects that.

And if the defense was mediocre, the offense was much worse, as Juice averaged just over 3 yards per pass attempt while throwing two interceptions. Eddie McGee came in for the fourth quarter and immediately threw an interception. Ohio State has a tough defense, but that is just miserable. Furthermore, the Illini failed to establish any kind of credible running threat. Add it all up, and you get 170 yards and 0 points.

So far, this team has played even worse than whatever worst-case scenario I would have envisioned before the season. My worst-case scenario would have been an Illinois team with a porous defense and an offense that could move the ball but would blow scoring opportunities thanks to penalties and turnovers. What I'm seeing so far is a team with a porous defense that can't even move the ball well enough to create scoring opportunities (and the few opportunities they have gotten they have indeed choked away). Yes, Ohio State has a good defense, but 170 yards is a sorry performance for a supposedly explosive offense no matter who they are playing and what the weather is like. My only solace is that this offense was so much better last year with mostly the same personnel that it's hard to imagine they will continue to play this poorly. But even if they do improve, the mediocre defense, issues with turnovers and penalties, and blown scoring chances are looking like a fact of life under Ron Zook. The fact that Penn State is favored by only 6.5 points this weekend is a joke unless Illinois really steps up their play. And I'm not banking on it.