Illinois Defeats In State Rival Illinois State

(Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill.-The true value of the 2009 Illinois football team lies somewhere in between the results of its first two games.

Coming off a poor performance against the Missouri Tigers in St. Louis last Saturday, the Fighting Illini redeemed itself to a point, whipping in-state rival Illinois State 45-17 Saturday before 62,347 fans at Memorial Stadium.  

After a bye week, however, Illinois will face a much more tougher opponent, No. 8 Ohio State in two weeks in Columbus, Ohio to open the Big Ten Conference portion of the season. The Buckeyes will provide a better measuring stick to determine how the 2009 Illini (1-1) team ranks.

"A win is a win, and obviously there were some things that we've got to correct and there were some things that we will get corrected," Illinois coach Ron Zook said. "But there were a lot of things that I liked. First of all, we played with a lot more emotion, which is something we talked about at halftime."

But in either case, the Illini could not look in either the past or future and were relegated to focus on it's week long goal: defeat Illinois State for the team's first victory in 2009. It took Illinois all of one offensive play to take control of the game. Williams kept the ball on an option swept to the left and took off. He was not touched by a Redbird (0-2) defender and looked poised to score a touchdown.

But when Williams reached the three-yard line, he injured his quad and fell down on the one yard line. Jason Ford finished the drive with a one-yard score and Illinois went up 7-0. After talking to team doctors, Zook said that Williams risked further injuring the muscle if he continued to play.

Fortunately, the Illini jumped out to a quick lead and Eddie McGee provided more than enough offense that Williams could rest on the sideline.

"He strained his quad. He could've played, and I asked Dr. Kyrouac a couple of different times, 'Is he at more risk?' and he said he probably was," Zook said. "And Juice wanted to go, in fact he fought me a little at halftime, but I just felt like it was more important to get him healthy and ready to go for the next game."

Illinois led 24-0 at halftime and jumped on top 31-0 before ISU found the endzone on a three-yard Matt Brown pass to Eyad Salem. After the Ford score, Eddie McGee scored on another one-yard run. McGee later hit wide receiver Chris Duvalt wide open in the endzone for a 27 yard scoring pass. Daniel Dufrene and Justin Green each added rushing touchdowns and McGee finished with two scores on the ground.

"I thought we were a lot more ready to play last week than we were, and I would've like to have played the full 60 minutes today," Zook said. "We didn't play 60 minutes, but once again, we did the thing's we had to do."

Ford rushed for 137 yards on 10 carries and the Illini rushed for 384 yards. Juice Williams did not attempt a pass after hurting his quad on the first play. McGee was 13 for 17 with 164 yards, a touchdown and an interception. Matt Brown threw for 312 yards for the Redbirds. He went 27 for 45 with two touchdown passes and one interception.

"[Illinois is] very talented," ISU coach Brock Spack said. "They have a nice, tall range of guys. They run well and they are a very physical Big Ten football team. "they have weapons offensively and htey are a lot better up front from the last time I played them. They are an impressive football team from a lot of angles."

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