Beat Down and Broken: 3 ways Illinois can keep fighting

The worst loss in Bret Bielema’s Illinois career happened Friday night. And it wasn’t even close.

Here is the EPA chart from this week:

And here is the chart from the previous worst loss, Wisconsin, in 2021:

There’s a distinct difference in the two charts.

In the 2021 Wisconsin game, Illinois ended the game with a cumulative EPA of -5. In last week’s game Illinois ended with a cumulative EPA of -25.

Even if you look at the Virginia game in 2021:

Illinois was still Fighting, until they couldn’t anymore, ending with a 20-point cumulative EPA against Virginia.

There was that “us against the world” mentality in the first two years of Bielema’s team that let them continue to have positive plays even when unlucky interceptions or shutouts happened.

The -5…