Just outside the Illinois locker room, at the entrance to the tunnel that leads the players down onto the Memorial Stadium field, hangs a sign. In simple white block lettering against an orange background, the sign reminds players, “It’s a 60 minute game.”

That message couldn’t have been more fitting than it was Saturday for the No. 24 Illini, who had to fight back from a halftime deficit before finally taking down Western Michigan, 23-20, in a contest that early and often looked like it may become an infamous “trap” game. The win gave the Illini their first 4-0 start since 1951, the same season Illinois won its last national championship.

“We told them all week long — it wasn’t that they didn’t work — this is a good football team,” Illinois head coach Ron Zook said. “And it is a good football team.”

While the Illini came in expecting a pass-happy attack from the Broncos, the defense still had a difficult time containing quarterback Alex Carder throughout most of the first half. After two quarters, Carder had completed 22 of 34 passes for 206 yards and 13 points, nearly as many as the Illini had given up in any game this season.

Linebacker Jonathan Brown said Carder’s quick release was tough for an Illini defense that has had success pressuring quarterbacks so far this season.

“Carder got rid of the ball quick,” Brown said. “It was one, two, boom, so right when you got to the ball it was gone … It was definitely kind of frustrating.”

While the defense struggled to contain the Broncos, the Illinois offense was having difficulties of its own, recording just six first downs and ten points in the first half. Even the running game, which had averaged more than 220 yards through the first three games, was struggling to find consistency. Outside of a 59-yard run by Donovonn Young, the Illini running game managed just 53 yards on 19 carries.

“It was a little bit of everything,” offensive coordinator Paul Petrino said of the offense’s struggles in the first half. “They did a good job of slanting it and moving it, which gave us problems at times.”

But perhaps the most disconcerting moment of the first half came on the final play, when senior tackle Jeff Allen was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct and ejected from the game.

“I didn’t see the play,” Zook said. “The referee came over and said that when he buried him, that he put his head down, so he ejected him for that … Jeff didn’t think he did.”

Without perhaps their best offensive lineman, the Illinois coaching staff was forced to make an adjustment in the locker room, deciding to use more quarterback options and perimeter runs. The change sparked the Illini, who finished the game with 296 yards rushing on 52 carries.

“I thought the coaching staff … did a good job at halftime,” Petrino said. “We all came together and just tried to come up with a plan, how we thought we were going to get it done in the second half. And I was proud of our kids. I thought they went out and fought in the second half and found a way to win.”

While Petrino was shifting the focus for the offense, defensive coordinator Vic Koenning was also trying to get the Illini back on track on the defensive side of the ball. And just as their offensive teammates found success with a different focus, the defense came out in the second half and held Western Michigan to just above 100 yards for the rest of the game.

“Once we started to realize what they were trying to do, we just had to try to get our hands up and do whatever we could to make it a small window for the quarterback to see in,” bandit Michael Buchanan said. “We had to focus on not running up the field, we couldn’t really worry about getting sacks too much.”

The Broncos were able to tie the game at 20 just two and a half minutes into the fourth quarter. However, the Illini offense answered almost immediately, driving 77 yards to set up a Derek Dimke field goal that would ultimately account for the difference in the game.

While the contest may have featured a little more tension than the Illinois coaching staff would prefer, in the end they said it would be a positive experience for the team.

“I walked in the locker room and it was very, very somber,” Zook said. “But sometimes you gotta go through games like that. There’s a lot of times that teams would have lost that game … We’ll learn from it, and our guys will do that.”

Petrino agreed, saying a team can’t have a successful season without winning some close games along the way.

“It wasn’t necessarily pretty, but you always take a win,” Petrino said. “You gotta win some tough games like that sometimes to have a great season, so I was real proud of them to just go out there and keep fighting and keep fighting and find a way to win.”