A lot of things went wrong for the Fighting Illini on Saturday night in St. Louis. First off, they couldn't stop the Missouri offense to save their lives, giving up 549 total yards, and allowing 52 points. If the Tigers didn't score on a drive, it wasn't because the Illini defense stopped them, but because Mizzou stopped itself and failed to execute (with the exception of Derek Walker's 34-yard interception return for a score).Of course, had somebody told the defense before the game that they weren't playing two-hand touch, it might have helped matters.
Then there was the special teams which struggled in covering kicks and punts last season rearing it's ugly head again. After the Illini took a 13-10 lead on Walker's interception and stole all the momentum, they gave it right back as Jeremy Maclin returned the ensuing kick 99 yards for a score and sent Mizzou on a run of 21 unanswered points before the half.
Still, not all was lost for the Illini last night. It appears that all the offseason talk of Juice Williams' further development as a quarterback wasn't unwarranted. Williams had the night of his life in St. Louis. After getting off to a shaky start throwing bullets that made Brett Favre blush, Williams settled down and started passing instead of just throwing the ball as hard as he possibly could.
The results? A career high 451 yards through the air, and a career high five touchdown while completing 62% of his passes. To put some perspective on those numbers, Juice didn't surpass 451 yards passing until Illinois' fifth game of the season last year, and he didn't throw his fifth touchdown until November 3rd.
Now Juice isn't going to put up numbers like this all season, but if he can give the Illini half that production throughout the rest of the season, the Illini offense will turn out to be one of the most potent in the Big Ten (yes, I realize that's kind of like winning a Tallest Midget Award).
