Illinois football’s (2-2, 0-1) season has not been pretty so far, but it still holds the keys to its season, which is far from over. The Illini’s first road game of the Big Ten season is against a familiar face, as its former defensive coordinator Ryan Walters leads the Purdue Boilermakers (1-3, 0-1) in a battle of divisional rivals.
The last matchup between the two programs came last November, part of a massive skid that derailed Illinois’ hopes for a Big Ten West crown. The Boilermakers stormed into Champaign and took a 31-24 win back to West Lafayette en route to the Big Ten championship game.
For the Illini, a tight win over the Florida Atlantic Owls finished off their non-conference schedule. Head coach Bret Bielema gave his thoughts in the post-game press conference about heading into the grind of Big Ten football season.
“Obviously, I’d love to be 4-0 going into conference play,” Bielema said. “But to be 2-2 with the amount of players we’ve played and the amount of adversity we’ve had at certain positions, it’s pretty good.”
Much has changed this season for both the Illini and Boilermakers, with new starting quarterbacks and coaching staff changes. However, both programs will surely say that they are disappointed by the start to the season. Purdue is winless at home, and while Illinois has only played on the road once so far, it was an ugly loss to Kansas.
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With sophomore quarterback Luke Altmyer under center, the Illini are looking to play with more speed, which the Ole Miss transfer emphasized in his post-game media availability on Saturday.
“The emphasis of the week was to play with a lot of pace and physicality,” Altmyer said. “We find a lot of success when we do that. I am looking forward to keeping that going.”
Junior wide receiver Isaiah Williams spoke about what he felt needed to change going into another year of Big Ten play with the emphasis being faster starts.
“We have to start fast,” Williams said. “We have to be able to move the ball down the field, make plays and just build that momentum early. We can’t just wait for the second quarter or the second half to get that momentum going.”
The slow starts have plagued the Illini as they have scored in the first quarter just once all season with multiple opportunities to do so being cut short by turnovers and missed field goals. The Illini have been outscored by 31 points in the first half through four games.
Things are similar for the Boilermakers who have been outscored by 28 in the first half in their first four games. Their struggles are a product of the defense giving up about 19 points per first half. Regardless of the different records, the similarities are certainly there.
As far as the history goes, the teams are around even with Purdue leading the all-time series 47-45-6. Even the home and away stats are close, as Illinois is 23-23-4 on the road and 22-24-2 at home against the neighboring state rivals.
The Illini travel to West Lafayette for a 2:30 p.m. start time on Saturday, and for the first time all season they will be exclusively available on the Peacock streaming service.
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