They said it was about emotion.

Offensive coordinator Mike Mallory said there was no fire in the Illini, who came into Saturday’s game as underdogs against a No.17-ranked Michigan State power. Quarterback Tim Brasic said the offense never clicked into high gear for the game’s crucial plays. Head coach Ron Zook said the defense’s missed tackles were a matter of too little passion, not too little practice.

The dominant emotion at Memorial Stadium on Saturday was one of loss, as the Illini suffered their first real failure of the season, falling 61-14 to Michigan State. But no one on the team was giving the Spartans credit for the win – Illinois, they said, defeated itself.

“I don’t know why the emotional level was the way it was,” Zook said. “I thought we were ready to play. We had a good week in practice and I thought everything was fine. I thought they felt good about the plan and what we were doing.”

Michigan State cleaned up with 705 total offensive yards, compared to Illinois’ 271. The Spartans out-rushed, out-passed and out-tackled the Illini.

Illinois struggled defensively, missing key tackles and letting the Spartan’s offense slip through.

“It’s tough because we work on that and work on that and work on that,” safety Kevin Mitchell said. “Just like last week, a couple missed tackles in the backfield and they got the big plays.”

But Zook said it was a matter of Illinois’ lack of game-day emotion, rather than a lack of practice.

“Let me tell you what missed tackles is. It’s no emotion. And that’s my fault; I didn’t have them ready to play,” Zook said. “You show me a good tackling football team and I’ll show you an emotional team. You’ve got to be athletic, you’ve got to be able to chase the ball, but it isn’t like we’re not teaching tackling, like we’re not stressing it. We are. We’re forcing it. But on the same token, you’ve got to play with emotion.”

Mallory said the defense is going to evaluate its scheme, but that he had not yet decided about making personnel changes. He said the important thing would be that the practice tempo stays fast and that coaches continue to push the players towards improvement.

“We’re not going to change anything about our attitude and our goals and what we’re going to do,” Mallory said. “We’re going to coach them hard, but at the same time we’re all in this together. We’re just going to go back to work and get it right.”

Offensively, Illinois was 4-of-11 on third-down conversions, compared to Michigan State’s 7-of-12. Brasic completed 16 of 30 passes and rushed 11 times for 56 net yards.

Michigan State quarterback Drew Stanton completed 20 of 26 passes. The Spartans’ rushing game was led by Javon Ringer, who rushed 13 times for 194 net yards.

“You can’t let a team come into your own house and do that to you,” Brasic said.

The Illini say they’re going to learn from this game. They say they know how it feels to win and, by contrast, how it feels to lose, and a 45-point defeat is something they don’t want to experience again soon.

“You don’t want to do this again,” said running back Pierre Thomas. “This is something that it’s really heartbreaking to go through.”