Illinois football dropped its fourth straight game of the season on Saturday, this time at the hands of the Purdue Boilermakers by a score of 13-9. It was another shaky week offensively for the Illini, as they could never get any consistent momentum throughout the 60 minutes.

The Purdue front seven, led by junior defensive end George Karlaftis, were all over the Illinois offense during the game. Despite the Illini not committing any turnovers throughout the game, it was clear that Illinois was constantly under pressure. 

After marching down the field and trailing by four points, Illinois was unable to convert on fourth down and lost the game shortly after. Offensive coordinator Tony Petersen took away some positives from the performance, but he knows his team had more to offer.

“We did some things well up front,” Petersen said. “We had no turnovers, no penalties and we went into the game knowing that we wanted to run the football. We knew we wanted to get (Josh McCray) more carries. We played clean football, just needed to make some more plays.”

One of the bright spots from an otherwise dull offensive performance came from freshman running back Josh McCray. The Alabama native carried the ball 24 times for 156 yards but could not find the end zone. With injury issues piled up for the Illini backfield, McCray has emerged as a reliable option for the offense.

“Josh (McCray) did a great job,” Petersen said. “He’s going to be an unbelievable player here, and he’s still a true freshman. We gave him the ball a bunch of times.”

Although he did not commit any turnovers, Brandon Peters struggled to help move the chains and get the Illini into scoring positions, as he went 14/26 with 100 yards. Petersen was not totally pleased with how Peters performed but was happy with certain aspects about the sixth-year senior’s game.

“Brandon managed the game out there and did a lot of good things,” Petersen said. “Obviously if you asked him when he came off, there were some things he could have completed out there. No one’s going to be perfect out there, but I was happy with where BP was.”

Head coach Bret Bielema generally avoided the question about the quarterback position, but he said he would announce to the press if he was making a change.

It’s clear that Illinois needs some of its offensive talent to make big plays if it wants to get back to winning ways. For the past four weeks, watching this Illinois team struggle mightily on offense has been tough. Despite this being Bielema and Petersen’s first season in Champaign, there have to be changes for the better at some point this season.

“We’ve got to be able to throw the football,” Petersen said. “We talk to our wideouts and quarterbacks all the time about winning our one-on-one matchups. We need to put them in a position to do better, have more success and make some plays.”

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