Eventually These Things Catch Up With You. Illinois Stumbles Against Ohio State.

You had to know that as good as the undefeated run was, the first loss was going to be very tough to take. Frankly I had allowed myself to think that the first loss would come against Michigan or Penn State, not an OSU team coached by Luke Fickell and an offense without a quarterback. Illinois lost to two thirds of a team, a team with a strong defense, a strong running back and a platoon of quarterbacks who can't pass. That said, this OSU team was more than enough to simply win by accepting Illini mistakes and not making any themselves.

The laundry list of things this team has been getting away with caught up with them Saturday. Illinois out-gained OSU on offense, got more first downs, got more tackles for losses and in other circumstances would have won. The first half more ended with the difference being a simple OSU field goal. What lost the game were the mistakes. Illinois committed more penalties, (at home no less) turned the ball over three times while getting none back, and generally got in its own way constantly.

Nathan Scheelhaase and A.J, Jenkins have done plenty this season to applaud, but this turned on mostly their mistakes. Nathan's interceptions handed the Buckeyes a touchdown and killed a comeback drive in turn, and Jenkins' fumble gave the Buckeyes the scoring cushion that all but ended the game.

The Buckeyes scored both their touchdowns off of very short fields from turnovers. Without them, the Illini likely win the game, even as tough as OSU was playing otherwise on defense.

With a game that was such a defensive struggle the special teams were needed to swing things in Illinois' favor. As ever that was not to be the case. The Illini defense for all of the problems it had stopping the run, forced Ohio State to punt seven times. Ryan Lankford and the punt return unit only attempted to return two of them, and got -2 yards to show for it. For other teams, kick and punt returns are an extra offensive weapon, for this team it is a lead weight.

Not much else is needed to be said about this game. Illinois coached and played itself into a hole they could not get out of. Even when the game was still within reach, albeit very unlikely, Illinois shot itself in the foot. Not using timeouts to save clock at some moments, and foregoing a field goal attempt when they were down ten. Basically inverting the coaching mistake made against Ohio State last year.

The good thing of course is that mistakes are correctable, the bad news is they have already cost this team a lot.