For the Illinois football team, penalties have been a problem all season long. The Illini have had only one game with fewer than four penalties. They gave up a season-high 11 penalties for 110 yards in a 44-19 loss to Washington.

Saturday’s game against Iowa was no different, with the team recording eight penalties for 59 yards. Five of those came from the offense, two from the special teams and one from the defense.

In the loss, the penalties hindered an Illini offense struggling to make plays. Illinois had two penalties on its opening drive, including an illegal formation and a kicking catching interference call on an Illini punt.

Then, on their second drive, the Illini recorded three more penalties: a holding call, a delay of game and an intentional grounding call on quarterback Wes Lunt that resulted in a safety.

Tim Beckman, head football coach, said the defense started off strong, but the calls added up and hampered the offense from getting into a rhythm.

“Those types of things, regardless of whom you’re playing – you can’t make those mistakes,” Beckman said.

The intentional grounding penalty gave Iowa two points but a personal foul from defensive tackle Jarrod Clements gave Iowa better field position. The Hawkeyes carried out the drive and added another touchdown on the board.

Looking ahead, defensive coordinator Tim Banks said the key is coaching better to avoid similar situations. 

“You’ve got to coach them as best as you can and make sure they’re making smart decisions, in terms of where they putting their hands,” Banks said. “To be honest, I’m thinking of a penalty we had, a hands to the face — that’s an aggressive penalty. You’ve just got to be smarter in terms of his hand placement.”

While Illinois racked up the penalties, Iowa managed to go almost the entire game without recording one. The Hawkeyes did not have a penalty until the final four minutes of the game.

“It was 8-0 there for a little bit,” Beckman said on Illinois’ penalty run. “It was kind of crazy – never been involved in one of those before.”

Charlotte can be reached at cmcarro2

@dailyillini.com and on Twitter @charlottecrrll.