The chart:
Funny thing about this game: Illinois was more effective than Cincinnati when they ran the ball, and also more effective when they dropped back to pass. Yet Cincinnati was much more effective overall. The reason is that Illinois called 45 runs and 36 passes, while Brian Kelly called an absurd 46 passes to just 13 runs for the Bearcats. Given that both teams' pass offenses were much more successful than their run offenses, this imbalance worked out rather well for Cincinnati. So although Tony Pike was no more effective on a per-play basis than Juice was, his performance was actually much more impressive given that his team almost never ran the ball, and when they did run it, got nowhere. Illinois knew Cincinnati was going to throw and throw again, and there was nothing they could do about it.
So sure, the defensive performance was sorry, but we're talking about the 98th ranked secondary against the 5th ranked passing offense in the country. What did Illini fans really expect? The thing that caught my attention more was Brian Kelly's willingness to flout typical run/pass convention. You shouldn't call runs just for the sake of calling runs and if your pass game can be that successful without running the ball, you might as well keep throwing. Mike Schultz, however, called more runs than passes despite the Illini gaining no traction on the ground all day. I don't blame him for starting the game more conservatively, but especially in the second half, facing a deficit, Illinois might have been well served to pass more and more often. It's all moot at this point anyways, as the Illini have found their offense a few weeks too late.
