Illini football head coach Ron Zook shook Paul Petrino’s hand before Saturday’s 38-35 victory and gave his offensive coordinator a piece of advice.

“He grabbed me and said, ‘Don’t be cautious,'” Petrino said. “It was probably the best thing that happened to me all day. It gave me a lot of confidence, so we threw the ball deep.”

Last season, the Illini ran for 519 yards against Northwestern in the Wrigleyville Classic. So when the Wildcats arrived in Champaign on Saturday, they had one goal – stop the run.

For three and a half quarters, Northwestern’s strategy worked. Before Saturday’s game, Illinois averaged 209.8 rush yards per game. At halftime, the Wildcat defense held the Illini rushing attack to 32 yards on 23 carries.

“We didn’t run the ball like we wanted to run it, or how we wanted to run it,” Zook said. “I think we’re probably lining up this week and doing some ones on ones and get after it a little bit. I think maybe we’ve lost our edge a little bit. There’s no doubt in my mind, we run the football.”

While Zook maintained that running is the Illini’s identity, Saturday was a different story. Sophomore quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase threw for 391 yards through the air, leading Illinois down the field with 1:15 remaining in the fourth quarter for a game-winning touchdown. Scheelhaase had never eclipsed 300 yards in his life.

The sophomore quarterback had some help. Senior wide receiver A.J. Jenkins set an Illinois record with 268 receiving yards, passing former Illinois All-American David Williams. Jenkins also caught all three of Scheelhaase’s touchdown passes. He had never before eclipsed 200 yards.

“He had a great week of practice,” Scheelhaase said of Jenkins. “He made a lot of plays for us in practice. We’re excited to see him go out there and make plays. That’s what we expect from him … He really just had a breakout game.”

The Illini broke a scoreless tie toward the end of the first quarter on a Jenkins’ touchdown catch, but they would not find the end zone again until the 3:51 mark of the third quarter. A Derek Dimke field goal at halftime sent Illinois into the locker room down 14-10.

Northwestern, on the back of senior quarterback Dan Persa in his first game back from a ruptured Achilles, scored 14 unanswered points to start the third quarter, taking a 28-10 lead.

“As I told them at halftime, the score doesn’t count until it’s over, and then they played their tails off and finished strong which gave us the win,” Zook said. “You have to give Northwestern credit, they played hard and weren’t soft and were going to do whatever they had to do to stop the run after what happened last year.”

After Persa’s touchdown pass to Jeremy Ebert that gave the Wildcats an 18-point lead, Scheelhaase and Jenkins led the Illini charge back from the dead. In two straight possessions, Scheelhaase threw 33-yard and 50-yard touchdown passes to Jenkins, bringing the Illini within five points.

“I don’t really panic at all,” Jenkins said. “Games are going to be like that sometime. They are going to be up and down. You just got to keep fighting, and that’s what we did.”

With 6:53 remaining in the game, Donovonn Young ran into the end zone, giving the Illini a 31-28 lead.

The defense stopped the Wildcats on their next possession, but senior running back Jason Ford fumbled on the Illini’s 36-yard line while trying to run out the clock with under three minutes left. Jenkins missed his block, and his assignment, Wildcats safety Brian Peters, placed a hard hit on Ford to force the fumble.

“I was supposed to try and block him into the lineman, and J-Ford was supposed to make a cut, but (Peters) came down real quick,” Jenkins said. “Trust me, there should be no excuses. I’m not going to say anything about it. Coach (Petrino) is going to get on me on Monday about it.”

Persa led the Northwestern offense down the field and scored, leaving 1:15 seconds left for Scheelhaase to orchestrate his game-winning drive. On the final drive, Jenkins was interfered with on a pass in the end zone, giving the Illini the ball at the four-yard line. In the closing seconds of the game, Scheelhaase ran into the end zone for the final score.

“Games are won in the last two minutes of the game,” Zook said. “Particularly in this stretch of the schedule and the anatomy of it, you have to be able to win in every two-minute situation and have confidence in every two-minute situation. Those guys do.”

With the victory over Northwestern, the Illini are 5-0 for the first time since 1951 and retained the Land of Lincoln rivalry trophy. Illinois snapped a streak of three straight losses in conference openers, winning their first contest in the Big Ten for the first time since 2007.

“They are our rivals, so they are going to play us hard every year and play for the trophy,” Jenkins said. “So we knew it wasn’t going to be an easy game. They scored some points on us toward the end, and as an offense, we decided that we are going to go 5-0 this year.”