Ohio State will exploit Illinois' weaknesses

Ohio State's football rivalry with Illinois has a long history but not much of a recent history. The Buckeyes and the Illini played against each other in 89 consecutive seasons from 1914 to 2002. But Saturday's trip to Illinois will be the first time the two Big Ten opponents have matched up against each other since 2017 and the first trip to Champaign, Ill., for Ohio State since 2015. In 2017, Ohio State won 52-14 over what I described in my game story in The Lima News as "a young, glaringly overmatched Illinois team." In 2015, OSU led only 7-3 late in the first half before getting a 28-3 win, powered by 171 yards rushing and two touchdowns by Ezekiel Elliott and the defense holding Illinois to 20 yards rushing. Illinois' football fortunes have taken a turn for the better since it hired Bret Bielema to be its head coach in 2021. The Illini won 5, 8, 5, and 10 games in Bielema's first four seasons and are 5-1 overall and 2-1 in the Big Ten this season. Bielema was Barry Alvarez's hand-picked successor at Wisconsin and the Badgers went 68-24 in seven seasons from 2006 to 2012 for him and won three Big Ten championships. He saw more money and more opportunity to compete for championships at Arkansas and made a surprising decision to leave Wisconsin to coach the Razorbacks. Five years later, after going 29-34, he was out of a job. After a couple of NFL assistant coaching jobs he landed at Illinois. With 17 starters back from last season's 10-3 team, Illinois was No. 12 in The Associated Press preseason poll and climbed to No. 9 before a 63-10 loss to Indiana dropped the Illini all the way to No. 22. Illinois is No. 17 in this week's poll going into Saturday's game against No. 1 Ohio State (5-0, 2-0 Big Ten). The Illini can score points. They average 37 points a game, the same as Ohio State. But even if you subtract the 63 points Indiana scored, Illinois has still given up an average of 16.2 points a game while OSU has held its opponents to 5 points a game. Illinois quarterback Luke Altmyer is a three-year starter who has passed for 1,573 yards and 13 touchdowns and has not thrown an interception this season. Hank Beatty (32 catches, 569 yards, 2 touchdowns) is second in the Big Ten in receiving yards. Running backs Ca'Lil Valentine and Kaden Feagin have combined for 639 yards and 8 touchdowns. Illinois has not seen a defense as good as OSU's yet this season. It has enough play makers on offense that it is not impossible that it could become the first team to score more than one touchdown against OSU this season. But the Illini also have some problems on offense. They have allowed Altmyer to be sacked 19 times and they are averaging only 3.7 yards per carry on rushing plays. Ohio State's offense against Illinois' defense could be the match-up that quickly takes the air out of a sellout crowd at Illinois' Memorial Stadium with upset hopes on its mind. Among Big Ten teams, only Purdue and UCLA give up more yards total offense than the 387.5 yards a game Illinois has allowed and the Illini rank last in the conference in passing yards allowed at 252.3 yards a game. The prediction: Ohio State 35, Illinois 14.