The end couldn’t come any sooner for the Illinois football team.

All of the Illini’s season-long struggles were on display during Saturday’s 50-14 thumping by Northwestern in Evanston, Ill., including an offense unable to score points and plagued by turnovers (4), a formerly top-ranked defense that allowed more than 30 points in eight games this season and costly penalties (eight for 88 yards).

All of that added up to Illinois dropping its final nine games of the season to finish the year 2-10, winless in conference play at 0-8 and last in the Big Ten.

The Illini scored on their opening possession  an 11-play, 78-yard drive capped off by a 15-yard touchdown run by Donovonn Young. Then Illinois was flagged for “illegal numbering” because it didn’t have enough offensive linemen lined up on the line of scrimmage on a trick play that negated a successful two-point conversion in the first quarter.

At the end of the first quarter, quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase threw an interception on the first play after Illinois received the ball via an interception. During that play, Illinois head coach Tim Beckman was run into by a referee and ended up on the ground, which resulted in a 15-yard sideline interference penalty for good measure, his second such penalty.

“That was on me,” Beckman said. “I just got in the way, got excited in the game. I’m sorry.”

The image and video of Beckman on the ground became an Internet favorite, summing up a woeful first season as head coach of Illinois. It was difficult for him to put in words what was going on in his mind as he stood behind the lectern moments after the season ended.

“You want your kids, just like you want your sons, to experience winning, and we didn’t experience winning this year,” he said. “It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through.”

The turnovers proved the most costly for the Illini. First it was a fumble by Justin Green on a kickoff that led to a Northwestern touchdown and a 10-7 lead it would never relinquish. Illinois has now turned the ball over in 23 consecutive games.

Scheelhaase threw two interceptions, and Reilly O’Toole played for first time since Oct. 13 against Michigan.

Beckman said he planned to use O’Toole, who only attempted four passes; his only incompletion was an interception. He did lead the Illini on its only other scoring drive and ran for a touchdown in the second quarter.

After the game, Beckman was no longer referring to Northwestern as “the team upstate,” at least not for now.

He made it a priority to intensify the rivalry between Northwestern and Illinois and hung the purple block-N Northwestern logo in the football facility and put a line through it for emphasis.

But Illinois had no answer for Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter, who finished 9-of-11 for 102 yards, threw a career-high three touchdown passes and ran for another. The Wildcats ran for 359 yards, including 129 from Venric Mark.

It was revenge for a Northwestern team that had lost to Illinois for the past two seasons. In the fourth quarter, as the stadium announcer called out Northwestern’s promotional slogan of “Chicago’s Big Ten team” it seemed to get the loudest cheer of the day from the crowd of 32,415.

The Illini didn’t’ stick around to see the Wildcats celebrate with the Land of Lincoln Trophy.

Beckman said his message to the players was that things can only get better. But has a longer way to go turn Illinois into a contender then when he first imagined when he was hired.

“We’ve been disappointed and frustrated for a while,” Scheelhaase said. “Just because we haven’t been producing the way we wanted to. Obviously we want to finish on a good note, but then (that) happened today.”

Jamal can be reached at [email protected].