“What went wrong?” is the question Fighting Illini football fans have been grappling with all season. Sporting a 5-6 record and with the final regular season game a day away, Illinois has not shown the poise or power of a team that played in the coveted Rose Bowl a year ago.

This year’s team knows there have been missed opportunities throughout the season: game-changing plays, players switching positions and a plethora of new faces that have not yet made up for the absence of last season’s starters.

“We have kind of gone through a lot of ups-and-downs together,” head coach Ron Zook said at Tuesday’s press conference. “As I told them, ‘We haven’t won as many games this year as we all think we could have or should have or whatever and for whatever reason.’ I think we’ll get it figured out and address that in the offseason.”

Even though the Illini have not played the way many fans and pre-season analysts thought they would, there is no clear-cut answer as to what exactly has been the problem.

Zook’s senior class does not know why the team has a losing record either. With impressive victories against Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich., and snapping a four-game losing streak against Iowa, how does the team lose a neutral-site game to Western Michigan?

“I don’t question the desire of people to work hard,” said center Ryan McDonald. “All season we’ve busted our butts, I thought we did everything we could to get strong and physical and be in shape, and we’ve just been inconsistent this year, and that’s all I can really say about it. This is a chance to – as bad as everything’s been, as up and down as it’s been, and we had such high expectations – this is one more chance to make it right and still go to a bowl game.”

A win against Northwestern would mean that Illinois is bowl eligible, but it does not guarantee an actual bowl berth. The strength of the Big Ten might mean that the Orange and Blue will be overlooked by the Bowl Selection Committee.

In a three-way tie for a conference champion heading into this weekend’s games, Penn State, Michigan State and Ohio State are all guaranteed bowl games with Northwestern, Iowa and Minnesota sitting ahead of the Illini.

But again, missed opportunities and a handful of bad plays are what separate the Illini from last year’s team.

“I can’t really say what’s different,” lineman David Lindquist said. “There’s just as much talent, just as much depth everywhere. I truthfully don’t know. What some people don’t understand is that it’s usually very circumstantial and it comes down to it in certain games. Last year we were able to get things done when it came down to those one or two plays and this year we’ve had a harder time with that, and those are the difference makers in the games that we’ve won and the games that we’ve lost.”

Unfortunately for Illinois, it has been difficult to pinpoint what is not working. Zook and his staff have given younger guys playing time, made position changes and have found success in practice, but it has not consistently shown on game day.

The answer to “What went wrong?” has not been found but not because of a lack of effort.

“If I could tell you that, we’d probably have the problem fixed,” McDonald said.

“It’s been a mystery and don’t think that nobody’s searching. The players are searching, the coaches are searching, I’m sure everybody, the fans are searching too. Something’s just been a little off.”