Your university of Illinois Fighting Illini are set to take on The Cavaliers of Virginia at 3PM CST, on ESPN U. This week’s matchup will take place in a sunny Memorial Stadium, for what is predicted to be beautiful weather for Week 2 (week 3 for the Illini) college football.
Virginia will come to town 1-0, lead by first year Head Coach, and former Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliot. This change came after Head Coach Bronco Mendenhall abruptly stepped down as Virginia Head Coach at the end of last season.
Illinois of course, will enter this game with a couple of chips on their shoulder. This team is coming off of a gut wrenching 23-20 loss that took place last Friday night against Indiana, but Bielema’s team will also be thinking back to this exact Saturday last season, when Virginia delt Illinois a 42-14 thrashing in Charlottesville. So, as we know, there shouldn’t be any lack of motivation to improve this Saturday.
KNOW THE ENEMY
The Cavaliers come into Memorial Stadium 1-0, after a lackluster performance pushed them to a 34-17 win over Richmond. Offensive and Defensive line play was a point concern for the Cavaliers coming off the week one victory. The Spiders of Richmond, an FCS opponent coming off a 6-5 season, were able to make it tough on Virginia on both sides of the ball. The Cavs’ offensive line is an entirely new group, with no starters returning from the previous season. This also comes with being paired under a new offensive regime under new Head Coach Tony Elliot. As for the defensive side of the ball, Richmond was able to turn over 300 total yards of offense against the Cavaliers, which is impressive numbers for an FCS school, who did not have troves of success years prior. This of course poses a lot of problems for the Virginia trenches, who will have to come a long way to be successful against a very talented Illinois Defensive front featuring Johnny Newton, and Keith Randolph. Newton leads the nation in quarterback pressures and has been an unstoppable force thus far.
Virginia does however return virtually an entire offense that absolutely shredded the Illini last season in their first meeting. In fact, if you could probably say the turning point last season for Ryan Walters defense, and for Illinois to improve, would have to be how badly Bronco Mendenhall‘s offense tore the Illini to pieces, in a 42-14 stomping at Virginia in 2021. The Illini defense enters this game a much better defense than what was put on the field last season. Mostly because this was only game 3 of Bret Bielema‘s leadership in the Illinois program, and Ryan Walters had not quite found the right prices to his defensive puzzle. However, since last years beating, the Illini have taken a major step forward. The secondary for Illinois has been very good thus far, and will be a tough test for quarterback Brennan Armstrong, and the new Virginia Offense. This will be a change from Armstrong being able to absolutely pick you apart as he did a season ago with 423 yards passing. No, that’s not a typo, and not total yards, that’s only passing. Again, mostly due to the early rust of a new regime. The Defensive line was also a a major disappointment in last years matchup as well, giving up 4 yards per rush, and putting low pressure on Armstrong, which allowed him to make work of the Illinois secondary. Ryan Walters and the Illinois front 7 will surely look to redeem themselves Saturday, and put much more pressure on Armstrong, in a home-field advantage.
Keys to the Game
Get Big- For Illinois to win this game, they must be able to successfully do a couple of things. They must be able to win the trenches on both sides of the ball, which would be a massive improvement over the beating on both sides of the ball that you took last season. The Illinois defensive line needs to look to take advantage of a brand-new Virginia offensive line. Illinois offensive line will be key, as Virginia does have depth at the defensive line position, however, last weeks matchup proved that they do have some soft spots at that position, and can be beat..
Score. Illinois must be able to score the red zone. Too many times Illinois found themselves inside the 30-yard line of Indiana, and came away empty-handed. One of these times, including a goal line stand, at the 1 yard line. Which would have given Illinois the go ahead 27-23.
Hold the ball. After four turnovers last week, Illinois must do a better job of controlling the rock. If Illinois wants a winnable improvement over where they found themselves against Virginia last season, they will have to control the ball much better than they did against Indiana. These turnovers, along with mental errors, ultimately lead to a tough loss at Indiana, according to head coach Brett Bielema who said Illinois is still trying to find a way not to lose, before they can win.
Kirkland’s Prediction
My prediction is that Illinois will find themselves back in the winning column with a 30-24 win over the Virginia Cavaliers. I feel that this Illinois team is overly motivated after last week’s tough loss and will be ready to bounce back into winning. This, paired with thoughts of sweet redemption from last season.
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