Illinois’ continued a senior day tradition Saturday.

For the fifth straight year, Illinois’ seniors left Memorial Stadium for the last time as losers. The Illini (2-9, 0-7 Big Ten) dropped the final home game of the season 20-17 to Purdue (5-6, 2-4).

“It was very emotional for me,” defensive end Michael Buchanan said. “I was finally realizing this was the last time I’ll be on this field playing. I was replaying my career in my head, just thinking I really wanted to get this game and finish out on a good note. But we weren’t able to do that.”

Unlike most of its other nine loses, Illinois played Purdue close throughout, but was plagued with early turnovers, as three fumbles — two from receiver Ryan Lankford and one from quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase — killed offensive drives in the first half.

“You cannot turn the football over and win,” head coach Tim Beckman said. “It deflates you. It’s a simple football game and you cannot turn the football over.”

Neither team managed to score until the second quarter, when Purdue took the lead on a 31-yard field goal. Illinois got on the board and tied it at 3-3 as Tyler Zalewski converted on a 54-yard field goal try, the third-longest field goal in school history.

The Boilermakers took a 6-3 lead into the locker room and after a dull first half, Purdue and Illinois combined to score three touchdowns in the first six minutes of the third quarter.

The Illini outgained Purdue in yardage 398-333 and scored their first offensive touchdown since the third quarter of the Ohio State game on Nov. 3, but the defense gave up two big plays of 63 yards — one a screen play from Robert Marve to Akeem Hunt that broke lose for a score and the other a 63-yard run by Ralph Bolden, who appeared to be free for a score but came up limping toward the end of the run and had to step out of bounds — and Purdue built a 20-10 lead.

“The big plays hurt our defense,” Beckman said. “But that’s the game of football. You never know when those big plays are going to happen and you have to be ready for them and you can’t let them happen to you.”

Scheelhaase ran for a 2-yard score in the final minutes, but Illinois couldn’t recover the onside kick and allowed Purdue to convert a fourth-and-2 to seal the game.

The Illini will turn their attention to the Northwestern Wildcats as they finish out the season in Evanston, Ill., next Saturday. Beckman has championed the in-state rivalry since arriving at Illinois in December and most commonly refers to Northwestern as “the team upstate.”

“When you go into so-called rivalry games, you really throw the records aside,” Scheelhaase said. “You throw the momentum aside and it becomes one game: who’s the better team.”

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