You know that half-full glass of hope Illinois coach Ron Turner has been carrying around? After No. 9 Wisconsin smashed his Illini 37-3 Saturday at Memorial Stadium, in front of the smallest homecoming crowd since 1943 (40,627), Mr. Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow smashed it against the wall.
“It’s hard to be positive after this,” a visibly angry Turner said. “I don’t know if we took a step back, but we didn’t show any progress in any phase of the game–that I noticed. We’ll find out how we react. We can either shut down or start fighting, because this was embarrassing today.”
Illinois’ offense looked lost in the woods without a compass. After being shut out 41-0 last week by Ohio State, Turner’s attack appeared to take a step backward–if that’s possible. The Illini netted only 28 yards rushing, and their 166 passing was as late as it was inconsequential.
“We can’t simplify the offense any more than we have unless we want to run just one play,” Turner said. “The offense stunk. It was disgusting.”
Neil Rackers’ 38-yard field goal with 2 minutes 20 seconds left helped the Illini avoid being shut out, but it was a long, long, long day for the defense. The Badgers amassed 274 yards on the ground, including 195 by junior tailback Ron Dayne. Dayne scored Wisconsin’s first three touchdowns on runs of 8, 1 and 3 yards to raise his career total to 45, breaking Billy Marek’s school record of 44 rushing TDs.
“We feel real bad about the defense being on the field all the time,” Illinois guard Ray Redziniak said. “Every time we go out there for a series we say, `Let’s give the defense a break.’ You try, but it just doesn’t happen.”
What was remarkable was that the defense held Wisconsin to 10 points in the first half, despite so little help from the offense. The Badgers led just 3-0 at the end of the first quarter despite rushing for 117 yards. The Illini’s answer? Four plays for a pitiful 4 yards of offense and no first downs.
“Our defense played exceptionally well,” Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez said after the Badgers improved to 7-0 for the first time since 1912. “We continually gave our offense the football. When you do that with a guy like Ron (Dayne) coming at you, you can really wear a defense down.
“He had a lot of yards after contact. He moved the pile a lot. There weren’t any creases for him to get big gains. He earned all his yards today,” Alvarez said.
Wisconsin’s time of possession (37:47) was nearly double Illinois’ (22:13).
“They just pounded us, pounded us, pounded us,” Turner said.
Things got so bad in the third quarter that Turner pulled freshman quarterback Kurt Kittner and inserted senior Mark Hoekstra after Kittner was intercepted by Jamar Fletcher, who returned the ball 22 yards for a touchdown and a 30-0 lead.
Turner, though, said Kittner is still his man. “Kurt is our starting quarterback. I took him out of the game because I didn’t want to shatter his confidence. He didn’t have a very good game today, but neither did one person on the offense that I saw.”
Kittner completed 9 of 17 passes for 86 yards and was intercepted twice. Freshman tailback Rocky Harvey was humbled as well; Illinois’ early-season sensation rushed for a meager 8 yards on 10 carries. Fullback Elmer Hickman was the team’s leading rusher with 19 yards on four carries.
