IOWA CITY, Iowa – Youth was both Illinois’ greatest asset and its most nagging weakness Saturday, as the Illini dropped their third loss in a row. But head coach Ron Zook says he’s going to keep putting young players on the field, as the Illini struggle to find the right combination of energy and confidence to secure their first Big Ten win.

Illinois (2-3, 0-2) looked better than last week, but still fell hard as Iowa (3-2, 1-1) celebrated homecoming with a 35-7 trouncing at Kinnick Stadium.

The Illini offense simply couldn’t get points on the board. The defense took a while to settle in, but then let the Hawkeyes run away in the second half. Special teams choked.

But Zook is looking at the positives while insisting he will not let his players slack off.

“Believe it or not, I think we played a little better,” Zook said, comparing this game to last week’s 61-14 loss to Michigan State. “I think we fought to the end. We stayed in there, hung in there. We didn’t quit. We kept playing.”

Iowa scored on its first two drives, once on a quick 3-yard Marcus Schnoor rush and again as Ed Hinkel gained 20 yards for the touchdown on a reverse play. Once the Illini defense settled down, it held the Hawkeyes scoreless until five minutes into the third quarter, when quarterback Drew Tate connected with Hinkel on a 10-yard pass into the end zone. Before the game was over, the Hawkeyes would score twice more, on a Tate-to-Scott Chandler pass with 18 seconds in the third, and finally as Damian Sims rushed 66 yards two minutes into the fourth.

“It was the first two drives, then we settled down,” safety Kevin Mitchell said. “But then again, we had a big missed tackle, then they scored, then a couple of times we had bad field position to deal with, and we didn’t execute.”

Zook tried tossing in a few new faces after claiming last week that he’d do anything to pump emotion back into the defense. True freshmen and defensive linemen Tremayne Walker and Sirod Williams got their first action of the season, and Zook said there may continue to be fresh faces in front of the ball.

“We put some more freshmen out there. We’re going to play those guys and get them ready to go. We’ll suffer with some growing pains now, but we’re going to be better for it down the road,” Zook said. “We’re trying to get some energy in there, get some young guys that will play with energy and play fast.”

Eight true freshmen saw action Saturday, and 32 of the 51 Illini who hit the field were freshmen, redshirt-freshmen or sophomores.

But even the older players are still getting the hang of the ballgame. Junior quarterback Tim Brasic improved in his fifth start, completing 32-of-44 passes for 233 yards. Brasic tossed a 1-yarder to E.B. Halsey in the third for Illinois’ only touchdown.

Brasic said the offense was happy with its execution as it moved the ball down the field, but came up short by not getting the ball into the end zone.

“In the Big Ten, on the road, you can’t come into a hostile environment and move the ball all the way down and not score because the defense still thinks that they won, and they did,” Brasic said.

Where Illinois really suffered was in its special teams play. Under the pressure of playing close to home and against a team he supported as a kid, sophomore kicker Jason Reda failed on all three of his field goal attempts. The first and third were blocked by Iowa’s Kenny Iwebema, and the second flew low and wide left.

“That’s something you worry about with a young kicker,” Zook said. “I worried about it this week a little bit, coming back over here, the media talking to him, it gets him out of his groove. We’ve got to get him back in his groove, because he is a good kicker and he can do it.”

Zook said that despite the errors that seemed to plague Illinois on Saturday, the Illini will capitalize on the positives and emerge as a better team.

“I still believe there were a lot more good things than there were last week,” Zook said. “Is that a sign of improvement? I hope so.”