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This week in Ohio State football, we’re trying to figure out if Illinois is actually any good.
Leading into the Fighting Illini’s visit to Ohio Stadium on Saturday, the evidence is pointing in a negative direction, but that’s why they play the games!
Here’s what you need to know to get ready for the Buckeyes’ fourth game of the season:
Illinois: So far, not so good?
Remember how many (including myself) projected Ohio State would have an insanely difficult 2026 schedule?
Illinois and Iowa were probably swing games here that could push it over the top into “toughest in school history” territory, but the Fighting Illini are not ranked this week and have not looked like they should be.
The Fighting Illini are 2-1 with wins over UAB and Southern Illinois and a home loss to Duke.
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Illinois coaches and whatnot
Bret Bielema is 39-27 in six seasons at Illinois and 136-85 overall.
He is 1-6 against Ohio State. The lone victory came in 2010 when he was the head coach at Wisconsin and the Badgers knocked off the No. 1 team in the country under the lights at Camp Randall Stadium.
After a failed tenure at Arkansas, Bielema took a little while to get things going in Champaign, but their game notes claim they are fourth in the Big Ten in winning percentage, wins against Power 4 conference teams and wins against teams ranked by the Associated Press since the beginning of the 2024 season.
The last two years they set a record for wins in a two-year period with 19. That is heavily impacted by going 8-1 in one-score games, but Illinois Bielema’s 37 wins are tied for the most in a five-year period at the school since the beginning of the century — the 20th century (1901-05).
Illinois has had the same offensive coordinator, Barry Lunney Jr., since 2022 but has a new defensive coordinator in Bobby Hauck, who was formerly a successful head coach at Montana.
In Lunney’s time, Illinois has had a pretty efficient passing game and gradually increased its scoring average but not been much to write home about overall.
They are a pass-first, ball-control offense led by veteran QB Katin Houser, a transfer from East Carolina, but the headliner is Collin Dixon, a 6-1, 215-pound receiver from Tallmadge, Ohio, who has 25 catches for 367 yards and a nation-leading seven touchdowns.
Hauck has installed a 3-3-5 defense in Bloomington, something that Bielema said at Big Ten Media Days appealed to him because it is different for opponents to prepare for after so many have adopted the Penny front in the last three years. Perhaps he should have chosen a scheme more for it being effective, but time will tell if he made the right decision.
Matthew Bailey, a 6-2, 225-pound defensive back, is their overall best player on defense. He had 76 tackles last season and has 14 so far this year plus an 88-yard interception return for a touchdown. He’s joined in the secondary by Xavier Scott, a fifth-year senior who was a first-team All-Big Ten player in 2024 but missed most of last season with an injury. Illinois gave up 29 yards rushing last week to Southern Illinois, but UAB ran for 194 yards and Duke picked up 170 on the ground in the first two weeks of the season.
Statistically speaking
Small sample size, but through three games Illinois ranks 10th or worse in the Big Ten in every statistical category. Nationally, the Illini’s best ranking is 36th in scoring (39 points per game). They are 65th in scoring defense (21.3 ppg.), 70th in total offense and 79th in total defense.
Ryan Day lamented Ohio State’s red zone offense (with good cause) this week, but the Buckeyes are doing better there than Illinois. Ohio State has scored on 88.2% of its red zone possessions (68th nationally) while Illinois is at only 80% (100th).
As far as advanced stats via collegefootballdata.com, Illinois is efficient (11th nationally in success rate) but not explosive (83rd) on offense. That is especially reflected in the passing game, where they are fourth in success rate and 100th in explosiveness. The running game isn’t explosive, either, but its only 59th in success rate.
On defense, things are ugly. The Illini are 94th in havoc rate so they don’t get a lot of splash plays (turnovers, sacks, tackles for loss), and they are 76th in success rate so teams are able to stay on schedule and somewhat explosive (83rd).
The pass defense is more oriented to stopping the big play than preventing efficient gains, so this could be a good opportunity for Julian Sayin and his receivers to get in some work.
They are 117th in rushing play explosiveness, so maybe the Buckeyes can even rip off some big runs.
Illinois has six players from Ohio:
Dixon
Cam Thomas, FR LB, Lakota West
Grant Beerman, SO LB, Lakota West
Erik Gayle, SO LB, Cincinnati Withrow
Parker Crim, FR DL Elida
Demetrius John, JR DL, Dublin Coffman
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What else is going on this week
(Like what you see? Please share by forwarding this email, sharing the link on social media or sending someone this link)
— Of course I hope you already enjoyed my weekly look at what was going on 25 years ago this week in the Tressel Tales:
— I also took a deeper look at the Illinois-Ohio State series in my weekly Buckeye Historian newsletter:
— Over at BuckeyeInsiders.com, I shared what I found to be the most interesting thing Ryan Day had to say at his first weekly press conference, and Tony Gerdeman has notes on everything Bielema said at his weekly presser.
— Buckeye Insiders is also your place for hard-core football talk, including analysis from scheme guru Ross Fulton. Among those types of stories we had this week was his assessment of the offense after a fast start and slow finish against Kent State:
— Tony also took a closer look at how the running game has evolved in only three games under Arthur Smith (hint: it’s a lot).
— We got a chance to hear from Matt Patricia this week, something that has become a rare treat after we used to get coordinators almost every week in the not-so-distant past. The main takeaway: He’s still evaluating how best to use the personnel for this team after basing the 2025 defense around 4-5 aliens who were versatile playmakers.
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BONUS CONTENT
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This week I wrote an AP feature on Ja’Kobi Jackson and published a preview at MJ of what looks like a loaded weekend in college football that includes six games featuring ranked teams against ranked team.
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