At the end of the third quarter something happened that prompted a standing ovation from the crowd of 51,469 at Memorial Stadium. Unfortunately for the Illinois football team, that is what those fans will remember as the highlight of Saturday’s game against Michigan State.
Inspiring the jubilation were the members of the NCAA tournament runner-up Illini basketball team who lined up in the north end zone, giving fans a final opportunity to acknowledge their accomplishments.
Even though one quarter remained, Ron Zook’s first Big Ten football game as Illinois’ coach already was history. The orange and blue were down 38 points and in the last 15 minutes bad became worse.
Final score: Michigan State 61, Illinois 14.
“I’d like to apologize to the fans,” Zook said after his team’s second straight defeat. “We didn’t coach very well; we didn’t play very well. It’s not the same team that was out there the first three games.
“We’ll evaluate everything we’re doing. We’re going to find out what we’re made of. We can do one of two things–hit the skids or come out fighting.”
The No. 17-ranked Spartans (4-0) neither looked back on last weekend’s dramatic overtime victory at then-No. 10 Notre Dame nor ahead to next weekend’s confrontation with 14th-ranked Michigan.
“We knew we had to make a statement after Notre Dame,” said Kyle Brown, who got the Spartans off to a resounding start early when he took Drew Stanton’s pass 75 yards for the game’s first touchdown.
When it was over, the Spartans not only had smashed the Memorial Stadium record for points by an opponent, they also had shattered the stadium record for total yards and had set a school record with 705 yards of offense.
In addition, the Spartans tied Iowa’s 1989 Big Ten record with seven touchdown passes.
Stanton completed 20 of 26 for 259 yards and five touchdowns and redshirt freshman Brian Hoyer hit 6 of 8 for 70 yards and two touchdowns.
Eleven Michigan State players caught at least one pass. At the forefront with 75 yards on five catches was Matt Trannon, the 6-foot-6-inch wide receiver whom the Illini basketball players had encountered in his role as a robust power forward.
The Spartans’ running game was just as awesome, piling up 376 yards. Javon Ringer, a 5-9, 195-pound freshman, accounted for 194 of the yards on 13 carries, for a monumental average of 14.9 yards per rush.
Immediately after Michigan State scored the first touchdown, the Illini (2-2) misled the crowd into thinking an upset might be in the offing. They drove 65 yards for the tying touchdown on an 11-yard pass from Tim Brasic to Pierre Thomas.
The defense then made a goal-line stand, forcing the Spartans to settle for John Goss’ 21-yard field goal after making a first down at the 1-yard line.
But the Spartans scored 28 unanswered points in the second quarter to put it away.
As Illinois running back E.B. Halsey said afterward: “It got ugly out there.”
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nmilbert@tribune.com
