After the final whistle blew on Saturday and Memorial Stadium cleared out, the stats continued to tell the tale of Illinois’ dominant defensive performance.
The Illini gave up just six first downs, one of which came on a penalty. They surrendered just 96 yards, with only 25 yards rushing. To top it off, they intercepted two passes, including one returned for a touchdown.
But even after piling up all of those impressive statistics, there was still one number that stuck out in the minds of the Illini defenders: three, the number of points South Dakota State had on the scoreboard at the end of the game. The Jackrabbits’ lone score came on a 33-yard field goal with just more than four minutes left in the first half.
“We were so upset,” safety Supo Sanni said about losing the shutout. “We wanna be able to shut every team out and that’s what we wanna do, come out and do those type of things.”
Cornerback Tavon Wilson said that while the shutout would have been a great accomplishment, he was still proud of what the defense did.
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“That’s something that we strive for, but the win is always great,” he said.
Saturday’s win came almost a year to the day since the Illini last held their opponent to three points, when the Illini also gave up just a field goal to Southern Illinois.
And while the defense wanted the shutout, defensive coordinator Vic Koenning was still impressed.
“In today’s college football, to do what we did today against anybody (is impressive),” Koenning said.
“If you do that against dadgum Tates Creek High School, you probably don’t feel too bad about it.”
More than the results, though, Koenning was pleased with the progression from last week.
“I think there was improvement in the secondary for sure,” he said.
That improvement is what the Illini coaching staff hoped to see against the Jackrabbits.
Going into the game, head coach Ron Zook said he was stressing to his team the importance of focusing on themselves and making themselves better each week.
This is something safety Trulon Henry has taken to heart.
“Every play is a learning experience,” Henry said. “We get better by every play, that’s the goal. You don’t wanna take any steps backwards, you want to take steps forward so you gradually get better and better … You go out there and make a play if you can, and if not you learn from it and go on to the next play.”
While the results have been better than expected, Wilson stressed that it’s just a building block for the rest of the season.
“We got a lot to build on,” Wilson said.
“But we weren’t perfect, so we feel like we just gotta keep coming out every day and just playing with the same intensity all the time.”