Eastern Illinois football had a problem against the University of Illinois during Thursday’s home opener.
The dreaded turnover bug; a significant ailment that led to Eastern’s 45-0 loss.
“Tip of the hat to coach [Bret Bielema] and his staff, they did a really good job tonight,” Eastern’s head coach Chris Wilkerson said. “It’s hard to win a game with a minus four turnover margin.”
The Panthers recorded two interceptions and two fumbles against the Fighting Illini. Perhaps the most fateful happened just over five minutes into the game.
Eastern’s offense was rolling as graduate quarterback Pierce Holley was running an efficient short pass offense, complimented by a few, gritty inside runs courtesy of redshirt sophomore running back MJ Flowers.
As the offense lined up, it appeared the Panthers were going to run inside again.
Redshirt junior center Drew Wilder snapped the ball, and Holley motioned to Flowers for the hand off yet pulled the ball at the last second and darted toward Eastern’s sideline.
The Illini defense took the bait; senior receiver Eli Mirza had five yards of separation down field.
Mirza was tackled on the Illini 27-yard line. Just like that, the cavernous Memorial Stadium was silenced.
That silence lasted a single play.
Redshirt sophomore Jay Pearson had the ball at the 25 yard-line with space in front of him. Illinois’ defensive back Miles Scott came up laterally and drilled Pearson knocking the ball free.
Illinois recovered, and Eastern never made it that close to the end-zone for the rest of the game.
“We are taught since the first day of fall camp: The turnover margin, that’s how you win games,” said Wilder, Eastern’s center. “Ball security is a huge thing. When you’re preaching it all throughout the year, it was tough seeing [turnovers] happen.”
Holley threw two interceptions in the first half; The Illini took advantage each time as they scored touchdowns on both drives.
“They did exactly what we thought they were going to do,” Wilder said. The center said Eastern’s offense was able to pick up on what the defense was doing and communicate. He added the stadium noise was not much of an impact.
The Panther’s went into halftime down 31-0. The second half was equally as unforgiving to Eastern’s offense, yet the turnover bug did lift. Other ailments still plauged the Panthers.
“We had a couple first game special team issues,” said Wilkerson. “We didn’t cover a punt great and gave up some field position there. Had a penalty on a kickoff that put our team in a bad position. Those are tough to overcome.”
Eastern’s starters stayed in the whole game. Wilkerson and his staff did choose to rotate in fresh players throughout the game, but the core group largely stayed in.
“We apear to have come out relatively healthy,” said Wilkerson. “There are some bumps and bruises but it appears nothing catastrophic has happened. We’re going to get back to work, we have our home opener next week against an FCS opponent.”
The FCS opponent Wilkerson noted is Eastern’s next game against Indiana State University. The coach and his staff will prepare for the game in the coming week.
“Tip of the hat to the Illini,” said Wilkerson. “They really came at us pretty good; we have some stuff to clean up.”
Aidan Cusack can be reached at 581-2812 or at atcusack@eiu.edu.
