Illini Slip Past the Rockets, 30-28
By Jeff Mayfield

[September 05, 2023] 

To say that the Illinois Illini were lucky to slip past the Toledo Rockets on Saturday night at home 30-28 would be the understatement of the season; and we’re only one game in! A better description would be this-Illinois was fortunate, lucky, blessed, fluky, propitious, opportune, auspicious, and most of all fortuitous! And that doesn’t even cover how lucky they were to win this contest. If you’re beginning to get a sense that this easily could have been a loss and maybe should have been, then you’re beginning to understand that Illinois won a game that was headed deeply for the loss column.

I was there, and I still don’t know how the Illini did it! And who scheduled this game? I’ve written about this before-scheduling is part art and part science and never includes scheduling teams like Toledo! How many times do I have to write this stuff? For those who don’t know much about their league-the MAC-they dominate it and then they went and beat Liberty U in their bowl game-need I say more? While I know that fans want to see all these great teams visit us-I don’t. I want to play “Whatsamatta U” for at least the first four games IF not the first ten! IF you want to go to bowl games you need to get through those first four unscathed, with no injuries and no setbacks, and hope that the rest of your schedule is set-up for you to win at least the games you should win. Then IF you sneak out one or two along the way, you’re golden, and that’s all the better.

Illinois had the weirdest start to a game in a while. They lost the coin toss but took the opening kickoff and marched down the field. The Illini used a 10-play 75-yard drive capped by a Josh McCray 1-yard td plunge to go up 7-0. Not only was I encouraged by the ball control, I really liked the razzle dazzle ingenuity of many of the calls. It seemed like we went away from that for the next 2 quarters plus and I’m not sure why.

After the Illini defense looked like they had held, they were flagged for an unsportsmanlike penalty after a play that kept a Rocket drive alive and allowed them to put points on the board. It seemed like it was a blow that maybe the Illini would not recover from. From there things went from bad to worse. Two field goals and a td pass gave Toledo a 12-7 halftime lead, but it felt much worse than that and the Rockets would be receiving the 2nd half kickoff. You can’t make this stuff up and accurately describe how the momentum had swung to the opponents. 50,000 fans have never been quieter!

Then when you hoped things couldn’t possibly get worse-they did! Toledo marched down seemingly unmolested-took a 19-7 lead-and when you hoped for a comeback-the Rockets intercepted a wayward Illini pass and many fans headed for the exits! But you know, old man momentum is a funny and curious thing.

And just like that, Illini defender Miles Scott stepped in front of a would-be Toledo receiver for a pick six and took it to the house to cut the Rocket lead to 14-19. Now why Toledo was passing the ball in that situation-I have no idea-they don’t pay me to figure things like that out! But when the Illini forced a quick 3 and out it fired them up to take the ball down the field once again in a much more impressive fashion.  The drive culminated with a 4-yard td pass from Illini QB Luke Altmyer to receiver Pat Bryant and gave the Illini lead back at 20-19. And when the two hooked up again early in the 4th quarter on a 9-yard pass putting Illinois up 27-19 you felt like you could breathe easy. IF you did-that was a mistake. Cause Toledo came right back kicked a field goal & then when they got the ball back they marched down and scored another td retaking the lead 28-27 with less than 4 minutes left in the game; and after everything you’d been through you wondered are we really gonna lose to a MAC team? Because to be fair, I think you’d find many people in agreement that the Rockets out played us in this one and probably deserved a better fate.

It all came down to a 4th down play. And not only a crucial conversion, but in some ways a Hail Mary pass down the sideline near the Illini bench. Thank God for Casey Washington! Somehow, he was in a tangled mess looking pretty much like a pretzel, but in some remarkable way he came down with the football to not only keep the final drive alive but to put Illinois in position for a game-winning field goal with less than 30 seconds to play.

Caleb Griffin was called on to boot the winner from 29 yards out & he drilled it right through the uprights. As Ollie said in Hoosiers, “I knew we had ‘em all the time.” Yah…right!

Up next is another better than advertised road game versus the Kansas Jayhawks Friday night in Lawrence, KS.

[Shout out to the Lincoln Railers who’ve started their season 2-0…I’m hoping that THIS is the season they finally return to the play-offs! Aalso shout out to the Leroy Panthers-my son played for them-who’ve also started their season 2-0 and yes, I’m thinking play-offs for them too.]

[By JEFF MAYFIELD]

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