WKU Football: Tops Fall Hard to Fighting Illini, 20–7
WKU fell flat in nearly every aspect of the contest on Saturday, dropping a game in which they were favored by 7.5 points as the Illinois…
WKU fell flat in nearly every aspect of the contest on Saturday, dropping a game in which they were favored by 7.5 points as the Illinois Fighting Illini defeated the Tops, 20–7, on Saturday night in Champaign.
Mike Sanford’s offense struggled mightly, gaining just 244 total yards with only six rushing yards. Quarterback Mike White accounted for 238 of those yards, with an interception and a fumble to accompany a touchdown run.
The first half was sloppy, especially on special teams. Jake Collins had two bad punts that gave the Illinois stellar field position and WKU went 0/6 on third down conversions. The bad field position caused the Tops to be backed up to their own goal line where White threw a pick six to wide open Illini linebacker, Julian Jones, who waltzed into the endzone untouched.
The Tops had an opportunity to score right before the half ended, but White was hit from behind when he was throwing and “fumbled” the ball (ed. note — it was an incomplete pass) as the Illini led at the half, 13–0.
Most of us expected WKU to come back in the second half with some big plays, but it didn’t really happen. The Illini had a strong opening drive to start the half, shredding the Tops’ defense like a a cheese civ, that ended with Illinois QB Chayce Crouch diving in the endzone to score. WKU was finally able to get some offense going and scored toward the beginning of the the fourth quarter when White ran the ball into the endzone after D’Andre Ferby busted through down the the two to set the Tops up, but that was the only scoring play for WKU the entire night in the lowest scoring game WKU has had since they played top-ranked Alabama last season, where they only scored 10 points.
The Tops finished the night converting only two third downs on 12 opportunities, and committed eleven penalties for 100 yards, which also cost them big. Two of which were unnecessary blocks in the back on punt returns, costing them field position and several holding penalties forced them to punt instead of continue their drive.
Crouch threw for 107 yards with a rushing touchdown and a pick, while freshman running back Mike Epstein shined with 21 carries for 111 yards.
While a performance like this is frustrating, it shouldn’t be the end of the world for WKU. Illinois had a very close call at home last week versus Ball State which caused them to wake up. One thing I think a lot of people forget is that Illinois head coach Lovie Smith is a great coach. He was a head coach in the NFL for eleven years for the Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers prior to coming to Illinois last season, so he knows how to coach at a high level and get the most out of his players.
WKU had many missed opportunities in this game, along with the aforementioned penalties, dropped passes, etc. that they normally wouldn’t have. Hopefully this loss can be WKU’s wake up call before they take on Louisiana Tech at home next week.
I feel like WKU will learn from this loss and their bounce back will be very important. The C-USA is still very winnable for WKU, so how they learn from this Big 10 loss could help them moving forward tremendously.
What are your thoughts following the Tops’ loss? Do you think they’ll come back and put together another C-USA title? Is the season over? Let us know in a comment below, on Twitter at @TheTowelRackWKU or on our Facebook page.
Final game stats below:
