The question Thursday night wasn’t “how are you going to keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Soldier Field?”
No, after two of Illinois’ four fumbles resulted in both of Washington State’s scoring plays and the Illini offense spun its wheels by going five net yards on 29 rushes, the question became, “How do they plan to drag these Chicago fans down to the farm to see this excess pork?”
A crowd of 39,472 turned out to see Illinois play its first football game in Chicago since 1939. It wasn’t worth the wait. What did the 10-9 loss by the 22nd-ranked Illini to the unranked Cougars say to their big-city fans?
That all the rampant speculation that this Big 10 season belongs to the Illini, that their life can be a bowl of roses, is a tad premature. The 2 1/2-hour drive from Chicago to Champaign is much longer than anything Illinois can manufacture on the field, and just as boring.
“Our players are devastated, and it will take a great job by the coaches to come back from this,” head coach Lou Tepper said, eager to avoid a start that would evoke memories of last year’s 0-3 stumble out of the gate. “We expected to win, but we never thought it’d be easy. Washington State was second in the country last year in rushing defense, and eighth overall.”
That can’t cover up the fact Tepper and offensive coordinator Greg Landry must find an offense to complement the team’s super defense. In the Bears’ home, the Illini actually looked liked their NFL cousins, forced into three field goals because there was no spark to sustain their drives.
Washington State scored only with help from fumble recoveries. Linebacker Ron Childs returned running back Damien Platt’s fumble 20 yards to the Illinois 15 to set up an eventual field goal, and linebacker Mark Fields raced 71 yards after picking up quarterback Johnny Johnson’s slip with Illinois in striking distance of the goal line.
“I really didn’t know they were around me,” Johnson said of that play. “We obviously have got a lot of things to work on.”
Added Tepper: “Johnson was erractic and not as strong as he should be. Our biggest problem was turnovers (an interception to go with the fumbles) and the way we beat ourselves.”
Illinois’ vaunted defense suffered an early setback when John Holecek, one of their three returning All-Big 10 linebackers, sprained his ankle on the Cougars’ first series. He didn’t return, hobbled home on crutches to see if the ankle is broken and is reported to be questionable to play Sept. 10 in Champaign against Missouri.
Linebacker Simeon Rice rose to the occasion, however. Rice, from Mt. Carmel High School, delighted his personal Chicago cheering section Thursday with a school-record five sacks, eight tackles and a blocked field goal.
“To lose in front of friends and family is big for me,” Rice said. “We made a lot of mental errors. To have that offsides penalty at the end really hurt.”
On their final drive, after blocking a Cougar field-goal try, Johnson completed four straight passes, three to Jasper Strong, to pull Illinois to the WSU 34 with :08 left. But the right side of the offensive line jumped offside and knocked Illinois back to the 39, and Bret Scheuplein, the team’s punter, missed a 57-yard field-goal attempt as time expired.
“We could have used a timeout at the end, but Johnny had to burn one earlier,” Tepper said, pointing to more unwanted confusion.
Chris Richardson made the Illini field goals from 38, 28 and 43 yards, but he told Tepper to try Scheuplein on the final desperation kick because he knew it was out of his range.
Illinois obviously missed Ty Douthard, its top rusher and receiver from 1993. He missed the game with a hamstring pull.
If Fields didn’t look like a linebacker on his 71-yard TD return, there’s a good reason. “He was one of the top running backs in Los Angeles,” coach Mike Price said. “He bulked up, and linebacker is new to him.”
Fields said: “We have lots of speed on our defense. To be honest, we didn’t really worry about their running game. We took what they gave us, and usually it was the blitz, so that’s what we did.”
Price pointed out that, at the end, when many teams would have gone to a prevent defense, the Cougars still blitzed effectively.
“I appreciate you all coming out and covering us,” Price said to the media. “Spread the word about us.”
After stealing the game, he also swiped what should have been Tepper’s line. That was the final turnover.
