Wisconsin entered Saturday's game against Illinois ranked No. 3 in college football in total defense, and it lived up to its billing. The Illinois offense had one of the worst performances in program in a 24-0 shutout loss to the Badgers..
Coming into the game, Wisconsin had the best run defense in the country, and it became clear early in the game that the Illini were going to struggle to run the football effectively.
Illinois finished with just 26 rushing yards on the day with 23 of those yards coming on a Chase Brown run in the first half.
Illinois ran it just 13 times against the Badgers after racking up 50 rushing attempts last week in a win over Charlotte. The decision to put the ball in the air 34 times against Wisconsin was partly about playing from behind, and partly a gameplan decision based on the Badgers’ stout rushing defense.
Adding insult to injury, starting quarterback Brandon Peters was hurt on a sack in the first half. While Peters has struggled this season, his backup Art Sitkowski didn’t complete any of his first 12 passes and finished the game just 8-of-27 for 55 yards and had a quarterback rating of 46.7.
“We just aren’t at a place in the throw game that gives you a chance in this type of game,” Bielema said after the game. “We will continue to work on it. We can’t just give up. We have to double down. Before we get caught up in the schematic of the throwing, catching the ball we weren’t protecting the quarterback.”
Wisconsin was credited with just one sack, but they were constantly in the face of the Illini QB’s, forcing five hurries. In the back end, the Badgers locked up Illinois receivers and had 10 pass breakups, led by linebacker Ned Herbig with three. Sitkowski also missed a few throws when he had open receivers.
There was speculation that Illinois may ride with Sitkowski after Peters was largely ineffective in his previous three starts. But the struggles that Sitkowski had on Saturday show that both the options in the Illinois quarterback room aren’t good enough to win games in the Big Ten, especially when the Illini running game isn’t working.
Ultimately, Illinois wants to base its offense on establishing the run, but the Badgers ability to stuff the run impacted the Illini game plan. The plan was to loosen things up with some quick throws. It never came to fruition, obviously.
“I think they were a very good and effective run defense and we knew that we needed to get that done (the running game) we were going to have to do some unconventional things to get ahead of the chains,” Bielema said.
Freshman running back Josh McCray, a power back who has had solid debut season, didn’t’ get many opportunities. The Alabama native had just three carries for one yard. McCray saw his carries cut back some last week due to Chase Brown returning from an injury. Brown finished with just 8 carries 35 yards.
Illinois now heads into their first bye week of the season before traveling to Penn State on Oct. 23 in what should be another tough matchup for Illinois because Penn State is one of the top-10 teams in the country and is competing for a Big Ten Championship.
“We have five guaranteed games left to get as much out of those five games,” Bielema said. “Where that leads, nobody knows. But to have the bye week and take an internal check and find out what we do well, what we don’t do well as coaches and take a step forward.”
So its back to the drawing board for Bielema and offensive coordinator Tony Petersen who have to figure out a way to get the offense on track down the stretch.
