CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The Fighting Illini dropped a 20-17 heartbreaker to Maryland on Friday night after a back-and-forth battle at Memorial Stadium ended with the Terrapins hitting a game-winning field goal as time expired.
True freshman running back Josh McCray led the Illini offense, rushing for 60 yards and his first-career touchdown.
RBs lead the way
McCray, Chase Brown and Reggie Love III all stepped up for the Illini offense on Friday night. McCray had a career night in just his fourth collegiate game, scoring his first-career touchdown on a season-long 38-yard run. The true freshman averaged 7.5 yards per carry to lead the Illini backfield.
Brown added a team-leading 57 yards after making his second consecutive start of the season. Both Brown and McCray added strength in the passing game as they recorded 54 and 40 receiving yards, respectively.
Then early in the fourth quarter, Love rushed the ball for 25 yards to the Maryland 38-yard line before fumbling. Instead of turning the ball over, Illini wide receivier Casey Washington scooped the ball up and ran it in for a touchdown.
Coleman brings the heat
In his first start of the 2021 season, redshirt sophomore Seth Coleman stepped up big time for the Illini defense. With Maryland deep in their own territory, Coleman ripped the ball from the Terrapins, forcing and recovering a fumble.
On the following Maryland drive, Coleman tipped a pass near the goal line and the Terrapins were forced to punt two plays later. In addition to his six tackles (three solo), Coleman had one tackle for loss and a pass breakup.
Friday night also marked Coleman's first-career start at outside linebacker after starting four games at defensive end in 2020.
HIGHLIGHTS
Coach Bielema Press Conference
Team Notes
- The Fighting Illini fall to 1-3 to start the season and move to 1-1 in Big Ten play.
- Friday's loss moves the Illini to 0-2 in the series vs. Maryland.
- Tonight's game marked the fourth Friday night game in the last five years for the Illini. (also 2017 at #22 USF, 2018 vs. #10 Penn State, 2020 at Wisconsin).
- The Illini defense held Maryland out of the end zone in the first half Friday night. The Terrapins entered the game averaging 46.0 points per game overall, and had averaged 29.0 points per game in the first half of each of their first two games.
- The Terrapins entered Week 3 13th in the country in scoring, but were held to a season-low 20 points by the Illini defense.
- The Illinois defense forced Maryland's first turnover of the season in the third quarter, halting a Terrapins drive that had covered 66 yards in seven plays by forcing a fumble at the Illini 7-yard line.
- The illini offense out-rushed the Maryland ground attack, 150-131 on Friday night with four different Illinois players recording at least 30 yards on the ground.
- 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 44th career starts (38th consecutive for Lowe) on Friday. They are now tied for 13th on the Illini career starts list, one starts away from the top 10 and four away from tying the Illinois record of 48.
- Senior QB Brandon Peters returned to the starting lineup for the Illini after missing the two previous games (vs. UTSA and at Virginia) following an injury suffered in the second quarter of the season-opening victory over Nebraska. Peters finished the game 10-for-26 passing for 185 yards.
- Senior LB Jake Hansen recorded his first sack of the season on Friday night. Hansen finished with a game-high 12 total tackles (11 solo).
- Junior DB Jartavius Martin caused the first turnover of the season for the Maryland offense when he forced Terps running back Tayon Fleet-Davis to fumble at the Illini 7-yard line. It was the first forced fumble of the year for Martin (second career). Martin also finished with double-digit tackles, tallying 10 total tackles (7 solo).
- Junior DB Kerby Joseph recovered the Maryland fumble by Tayon Fleet-Davis, the first fumble recovery of his collegiate career.
- Maryland lost their second fumble of the third quarter on their next offensive possession when redshirt freshman LB Seth Coleman ripped the ball away from Maryland RB Peny Boone. It mark the first forced fumble and fumble recovery of Coleman's Illini career.
- True freshman RB Josh McCray's 38-yard touchdown run in the third quarter tied the game at 10. It was both McCray's first-career TD and the longest carry of his career. He is the first true freshman RB to score a touchdown for Illinois since Ra'Von Bonner (at Minnesota, 10/21/2017). McCray finished the game as the Illini's leading rusher with a career-best 60 yards on the ground.
- Sophomore WR Casey Washington was credited with 30 rushing yards and his first-career rushing touchdown, for his recovery and score on the Reggie Love fumble to give the Illini a 17-10 lead at the 14:13 mark of the fourth quarter.
- Sophomore RB Chase Brown went for more than 100 yards of total offense on Friday night, recording 57 yards on 14 carries on the ground, and adding two catches while leading the team with a career-most 54 receiving yards.
Quotes
Head Coach Bret Bielema
Opening Statement…
"Obviously very disappointed for our players, our coaches, our fans, everyone in the stadium. Credit to Maryland, obviously they did enough in the end to execute to win. I thought our guys, on a short week, did a lot of good preparation and to get where we want to be. Defensively, I thought we came out and did some things in the first half to limit their opportunities offensively. Unfortunately, we stalled out in some red areas, had that first blocked field goal, never got to see the replay on that but I knew that was a key point in the game.
Went in at halftime obviously talked about what we wanted to do in the second half. Unfortunately, they came out and converted that touchdown to start the half that got us reeling a bit defensively. Offensively we came back and reacted and responded very well. We felt good, took the lead, and unfortunately, they were able to come back and score that last touchdown and tie it up and the last series was completely opposite of what we want to accomplish. I told our coaches let's go win this game, not play for a tie but let's win this game. It's important for us as a program to try and go win games and not just play in them, and that's why we approached things a certain way. We can't take lost yardages and penalties, and both of those happened on that last series that put us in a hole.
I thought a number of our guys responded and came in the game, Chase Brown and Josh McCray, to have them both do some good things but unfortunately both of them got knocked out. Jakari Norwood and Reggie Love III came in and did some good things, and the heads up play by Casey Washington to scoop that ball up and score, a very opportunistic play there. The play by Seth Coleman gets me very excited about a guy that came into his first starting role and did some really good things. I did like the way our defense responded overall from the past few weeks to go and play the way they did, but a really hard one to take.
One that is definitely a learning experience for us, and again for us to get to a point where we are winning games, they have to smell it, touch it, see it, whatever you want to say, they have to be able to do that. Once that happens, I think things will turn to a very positive way, but until that happens, we are going to continue to have failure in key moments, which is something we can't have. I don't know anything injury wise, Chase Brown had an injury to his other side, not his previously injured shoulder. Josh McCray was taken to the hospital and I don't know the results of that, so we will see where that is going."
On his approach to the message to the team…
"We're two games into the Big Ten season, and believe me I wish we had a win today, but you can't force the process. You can't get them to learn anything they haven't learned, and as coaches as well there's things we need to go through to understand better. I think to stick to the message is exactly what we want to do, not change it."
On the performance of Seth Coleman, Tahveon Nicholson, defense…
"Those guys have been playing and practicing well. Tahveon Nicholson has been an impressive guy going back to last spring. Without a doubt, Seth Coleman was a guy that through the first three games every rep we have given him he seems to be getting better and better. He just plays with a passion."
Jamal Woods
"We prepared this whole week to try and get the dub this weekend. It didn't come out the way we wanted it to, but I can tell you one thing, we have a team that's gonna fight. We fought to the whistle, so it was heartbreaking that we got this loss, but we'll just look back at what we did wrong, fix those things and take it onto Purdue."
"I can tell my team's still got some fight in them. My team's never gonna give up. When you have two good Big Ten teams coming to face each other every week like that, you suspect a close game. That was a great team, we're a great team and there's gonna be hard-fought battles like that."
"We got some dogs on the field. We got back to the quarterback a lot today and that was great because last week we didn't really get back to the quarterback. Being able to do that this week should carry over to the Purdue week and we just gotta be more disruptive."
Reggie Love III
"It's a tough pill to swallow. We feel like we definitely could've won that game. There's things that everybody could've did better, including myself, to go out there and win the game. Definitely a tough pill to swallow but we gotta move on to next week."
"Turnovers, mental errors and penalties, that hurt us tonight. We had one ball security issue that could've actually led to a turnover, but it kind of blessed us with a touchdown. Just going out every week and doing our own job, that's all we can do."
