MADISON, Wis. — In a highly contested road matchup against the Wisconsin Badgers, a sloppy performance from the special teams unit hampered the No. 21 Illinois Fighting Illini.
Trailing by seven points
with just over ten minutes remaining in regulation, the Illini were forced to punt things away.
On what’s typically a routine exchange from long-snapper to punter, chaos ensued.
Illinois punter Keelan Crimmins wasn’t able to cleanly handle the snap and got drilled before he was able to get the punt off, leading to a turnover on downs.
A rowdy Camp Randall Stadium crowd erupted as their Badgers hustled out to take over on offense on the Illinois 14-yard line.
Four plays later, Wisconsin running back Darrion Dupree punched in his second touchdown of the evening, extending the lead to 14 points, the nail in the coffin for Illinois.
Untimely mistakes like that one seemed to follow the Illini around on special teams all night long.
When asked how big an impact these miscues had on the game, head coach Bret Bielema didn’t mince words.
“Huge,” Bielema said.
Early in the first quarter, Illinois had a chance to put its first three points on the board, setting up kicker David Olano for a 37-yard field goal attempt.
An 87.5% kicker entering Saturday’s game, Olano sent the kick wide left for an uncharacteristic miss, just his third of the year.
“David’s been one of the best kickers in the country, right, so I mean he missed the field goal, that’s probably why everyone’s so shocked,” Bielema said.
Over the course of the contest, Crimmins’ four total punts traveled for 158 yards, with only one landing inside of Wisconsin’s 2o-yard line.
This ended up being killer for Illinois, as their defensive unit was consistently being sent out with a short field behind them.
One of those moments came right before the half, when Crimmins had a punt go short with 50 seconds left in the second quarter.
With good field position on their side, Wisconsin was able to get within kicker Nathaniel Vakos’s range in no time, drilling a field goal to take a game-altering lead just before halftime.
“Obviously, they got that field goal at the end on a short field with a short punt,” Bielema said. “But at halftime, thought we made some corrections, made some adjustments, but it just never really materialized to anything successful.”
A Badger offense that came into the game as the Big Ten’s worst in both yards per game and points per game was able to score 27 points on the Illini.
Perhaps the biggest component of that success was that on their 11 offensive drives, their average starting point was their own 37-yard line, something that was impacted by special teams lapses.
In the eyes of Illinois quarterback Luke Altmyer, it’s hard to succeed in the Big Ten if you make unforced errors.
“Miscommunication, mental errors and penalties is not going to win in this league,” Altmyer said.
With the Northwestern Wildcats coming to Champaign next Saturday, the Illini have a full week ahead of them to clean things up before getting a chance at redemption in their regular-season finale.
