There were a few plays that belong on Illinois’ 2006 highlights film.
There were a few others that are candidates for the football follies.
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“I [had] never been involved with some of the things that happened,” coach Ron Zook said Saturday after the Illini lost 27-16 at Northwestern to finish in the Big Ten basement for the fourth straight year.
“We had opportunities to do things and we shot ourselves in the foot. It was kind of a recap of the whole year.”
Middle linebacker J Leman also saw the game as a microcosm of the season.
“The games we should’ve won, we haven’t,” he said. “The games we had a chance to win against teams people said we shouldn’t win against, we didn’t. Since we won at Michigan State (Sept. 30), every game has been competitive and we’ve come up short every time.”
On their first possession, the Illini (2-10, 1-7) had a fourth-and-goal situation at the 3-yard line. But Jason Reda’s kick hit the left upright after Zook chose to try a 20-yard field goal.
Late in the first quarter, after Justin Harrison’s 15-yard face-mask penalty helped the Wildcats drive 41 yards for the game’s first touchdown, Pierre Thomas ran the kickoff back 75 yards to the 11. But quarterback Juice Williams fumbled when he was sacked and Brendan Smith recovered for the Wildcats.
Northwestern then drove 92 yards in 14 plays to lead 14-0 early in the second quarter. Again, a penalty was a factor: Derek Walker put a late hit on Northwestern’s C.J. Bacher when the quarterback was throwing an incompletion, making it first-and-goal at the Illinois 8 instead of fourth-and-15. Bacher’s 8-yard TD pass to Terrell Jordan put the Illini in a two-touchdown hole.
But over the next seven minutes, Illinois played its best football of the day to take the lead.
Rashard Mendenhall ran 86 yards for the fourth-longest TD in school history. Josh Pilcher smeared the Wildcats’ Tyrell Sutton in the end zone for a safety. And Harrison recovered Jordan’s fumble at the Illinois 44 and Williams capitalized with a 47-yard pass to Chris James and a 9-yard run for a touchdown.
The half ended with Northwestern leading 17-16, thanks to Joel Howells’ 36-yard field goal with 10 seconds to play. The field-goal opportunity arose when Leman’s apparent diving interception at the Illini 13 on the previous play was wiped out on review.
The Wildcats began the second half by recovering their onside kick and proceeded to take over the game, assisted by several Illinois miscues. An open James dropped a pass on a fourth-and-2 situation that would have given the Illini a first down at the NU 16.
Then, after the Wildcats were stopped on downs, punt returner E.B. Halsey signaled for a fair catch but fumbled it when teammate Alan Ball rammed into him.
Phil Bruner recovered at NU’s 42.
“It was a winnable game and we kind of laid an egg,” junior defensive tackle Chris Norwell said.
Zook just wanted to look ahead.
“Sometimes you forget how far you’ve come,” he said. “We have made great improvement this season, [but] we have a long, long way to go.”
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