COLUMBUS, OHIO — The Lane to Lucas is closed.

After dropping its fifth straight game, the Illinois football team is now mathematically unable to catch Wisconsin in a Leaders Division race in which the top two teams — Ohio State and Penn State — are ineligible for post season play.

Throughout the season, the Illini (2-7, 0-5 Big Ten) and head coach Tim Beckman have listed the Big Ten Championship on Dec. 1 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis as their primary goal.

But a 52-22 trouncing from Ohio State on Saturday put both the championship and a third-straight bowl game out of reach.

It’s been over a year since Tim Beckman’s Toledo team lost to Ohio State by five points, but when asked if his debut season struggles at Illinois have made it feel longer, Beckman joked, “What year is it?”

The Rockets stumbled in Beckman’s first season at Toledo, but they still managed to win five games, something that seems like a long shot for an Illini squad that has lost every Big Ten game by at least two touchdowns.

“This bump might have been a little bit higher,” Beckman said. “But I’m in this profession for the kids. I had a bunch of kids come back that were former players that I coached here. And that’s what you do it for. You do it for those kids, you get those text messages from those kids that wish you good luck and you’ll get out of it.”

While former head coach Ron Zook was fired after an 0-6 slide to end last season, the Illini are still coming off back-to-back bowl victories and many expected them to at least contend in the Leaders Division this year.

Illinois’ struggles have many questioning the Beckman hire, but as the first-year coach and his staff have repeatedly said this season, change takes time. When Zook took over the program in 2005, the Illini went 4-19 in his first two seasons with just one Big Ten victory before reaching the Rose Bowl in his third.

Despite the losing ways, Beckman said the Illini haven’t had any problems with motivation or morale amidst the five-game losing streak.

“They’ve practiced hard, they study hard, they work hard,” Beckman said. “These seniors, nobody wants to be in this situation, but they are trying to do what they can to get out of this situation.”

The difficult part of the schedule is behind the Illini, who will welcome Minnesota and Purdue to Memorial Stadium before playing at Northwestern to close out the season. With postseason plans out of the picture, the Illini will be playing the final three games for pride and to avoid finishing with their worst record since 2006.

“Our goal for our season was to get to a bowl game,” quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase said. “We won’t get there this year, but we have to be able to be a better team at the end of the season than we are right now.”

Chad can be reached at [email protected] and @cthornburg10.