Illini Suffer Road Setback at Virginia

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In Illinois' first road game of the season at Virginia, the Illini were unable to contain the Cavaliers' offense, falling 42-14, on Saturday at Scott Stadium. Despite QB Artur Sitkowski's 190 passing yards and a touchdown, the Illinois offense never found a steady rhythm.

Head coach Bret Bielema and the Illini will travel back home next week to host conference opponent Maryland on Friday night at Memorial Stadium.

Brown makes presence known
Illini running back Chase Brown made his first start after dealing with a minor injury to start the season. Brown looked strong in his return as he had Illinois' only rushing touchdown of the day with a 21-yard run in the third quarter.

Brown led Illinois' rushing attack against Virginia as he ran for 41 yards on seven carries.

Hansen brings the pressure
Known for his ability to force turnovers, linebacker Jake Hansen brought the energy for Illinois' defense. Hansen forced two fumbles and recovered his first fumble of the season against the Cavaliers.

Hansen now has 12 career forced fumbles and is just one away from tying the program record, held by Simeon Rice (13). On Saturday, Hansen passed Whitney Mercilus who forced 11 fumbles during his time at Illinois.

COACH BIELEMA PRESS CONFERENCE

TEAM NOTES

• The Fighting Illini fall to 1-2, and 0-1 on the road, to open the 2021 season.
• Saturday's loss moves the Illini to 2-1 all-time against Virginia. The Illini had previously beaten the Cavaliers in two bowl matchups at the 1999 MicronPC.com Bowl and the 1990 Citrus Bowl.
• Today's game at Virginia kicked off at 11:01 a.m. ET/10:01 a.m. CT, marking the earliest kickoff time in program history.
• The Illinois defense gave up 405 yards passing to Virginia QB Brennan Armstrong (27-36, 5 TDs). It marks the first 400-yard passer against the Illini defense in almost 19 years, dating back to Sept. 21, 2002 when San Jose State's Scott Rislov recorded 408 passing yards.
• Illinois captains: DB Tony Adams, OLB Owen Carney Jr., LB Jake Hansen, P Blake Hayes, OL Doug Kramer, OL Vederian Lowe

INDIVIDUAL NOTES

• Senior OL duo of Vederian Lowe and Alex Palczewski each made their 43^rd career starts (37^th consecutive for Lowe) on Saturday. They are now tied for 17^th on the Illini career starts list, five starts away from tying the Illinois record of 48.
• Freshman LB DJ Johnson played the first defensive snaps of his career on Saturday vs. Virginia. He had previously played on special teams in each of the Illini's first two games.
• Redshirt freshman WR Deuce Spann, a converted QB, scored his second touchdown in as many games on Saturday. The 33-yard scoring reception comes after hauling in the first of his career vs. UTSA from 31 yards last week.
• On the season, Spann has recorded three catches for 109 yards, an average of 36.3 yards per reception.
• Sophomore RB Chase Brown recorded a career-high with 4 receptions. His previous best was 2 catches (vs. Iowa on 12/5/20, and at Penn State on 12/19/20).
• Brown scored his first rushing touchdown of the season on Illinois' opening drive the second half, a 21-yard carry, to cut the UVA lead to 21-14. It was the fourth rushing touchdown of Brown's career. Brown finished as Illinois' leading rusher with seven carries for 41 yards and the touchdown.  
• Senior LB Jake Hansen forced two fumbles on Saturday, giving him 12 for his Illini career. He moves past Whitney Mercilus (11) into second place in program history and is one behind career leader Simeon Rice (13).
• Junior DB Kerby Joseph recorded his first-career interception with 9:30 to play in the fourth quarter. Joseph's pick ended the UVA drive at the 1-yard line.
• Freshman RB Josh McCray posted career-best totals with 7 carries for 33 yards.
• Redshirt freshman WR Isaiah Williams, also a converted quarterback, led the Illini in receiving for the second-consecutive game, finishing with five catches for 41 yards.
• Freshman WR Pat Bryant recorded his first-career reception in the fourth quarter of Saturday's game.

QUOTES

Head coach Bret Bielema

"There's just a lot of different things that we've got to get better at, and we've got to continue to reach high expectations as coaches. Obviously, I know all players have even higher ones, so completely unacceptable, especially some of the reactions late in the game that we can't have. Obviously to start the game the way we did defensively, giving up two quick scores, we battled ourselves back into it. Got the touchdown and then that late second half touchdown was tough to take. Talking at halftime about where we are and what we want to do, we deferred the coin toss and we'd take the field offensively. Thought the offensive staff and players came out fired up and took that first drive and took it down to score. Obviously, we did not hold them defensively. We had a few things go against us and the reactions weren't good, so, we've got a lot of work to do. But the good news is we have a Big 10 opponent coming this week; the two last weeks, this week and last week were learning experiences that are very, very difficult to go through. But unfortunately, where we are right now, that's part of the process.

Defensively, we've got to get guys who are ready to just pull the pin and go, react to what they see and make a play. There's a lot of things offensively they do, but the number one thing we've got to do is tackle and that's something I didn't see. Going back to last spring to this fall, we hadn't missed tackles and today we missed a lot of tackles.

(Brandon Peters) didn't get cleared until literally at the end of this week. He didn't get any practice reps. He threw and was at practice, but wasn't cleared until basically game time. And to put him in that position just isn't fair to him.

I thought one of our things (in the second half) was to get the ball on the perimeter and do some things there that I thought were good. When Josh (McCray) was in there, threw in some pass plays; we gave up on a couple different looks to them that we had shown earlier in the season and during the course of the game. But just playing with some confidence. We stayed ahead of the chains, I thought that was a big part of our game plan was to stay ahead of chains offensively. And we were able to do that on that drive, really any drive that we had success, that's what happened, we stayed ahead of the chains." 

Jamal Woods

"You know, we're kind of hurt right now. We put in a lot of work to come to this game and get a win. We prepared as hard as we could all week and to see the results, it's kind of heartbreaking."

"We know we have a good team. Once it all comes together, we're going to go out and do some great things. As of right now, it's been a slow start, and hopefully next week we all come together as one and do what we've got to do. I've been here for five years, you know, I can see the improvement from the younger guys to the older guys. We just have to lock in and do what we need to do."

"To be a successful team, you have to be a player-led team. We're the ones that are on the field, so we have to trust the eleven guys on the field. Coaches can call the plays but it's up to us to do the right things on the field. Tomorrow we're going to go in and study film and learn from our mistakes, and then on the practice field we just have to go out and be a player-led group and do what we know we can do."