Fighting Illini Secure Season-Opening Win Over UAB

Thursday, September 3

Champaign, Ill.

8 PM CT

University of Illinois

1-0 , 0-0

UAB

0-1 , 0-0

Team	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Final F
UAB	3	10	3	7	23
Illinois	14	7	7	14	42

September 3, 2026 | Football

Box Score

RECAP

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Illinois opened the 2026 season with a 42-23 victory over UAB at Gies Memorial Stadium on Thursday night.

With the win, the Fighting Illini prevailed in their season opener for the sixth straight year while extending their nonconference winning streak to 10 games.

Collin Dixon marked his first-career multi-touchdown game with 70 yards on six catches and two receiving scores. On the ground, Ca'Lil Valentine rushed for 88 yards and a touchdown.

In his Illinois debut, Katin Houser went an efficient 13-for-17 with 211 total yards of offense and four total scores, including three through the air and one rushing score.

Ismael Kante returned the first interception of his Illini career for a touchdown, which came with just under six minutes remaining in the contest.

After forcing a punt on the Blazers' opening possession, the Illini capitalized on a 65-yard Mac Resetich punt return and needed only three plays to find the end zone for the first time. Houser connected with a wide-open Dixon for the 18-yard score, giving the hosts a 7-0 advantage just over seven minutes into the contest.

UAB got on the board on its next drive via a field goal, but Illinois quickly responded with a three-play, 75-yard scoring drive. Valentine accounted for 68 yards on the possession, capped off by a career-long 51-yard touchdown rush to extend the Illini edge to 14-3.

The Blazers scored the game's next 10 points before the Orange and Blue found the end zone once again before the break. A 54-yard last-second strike to Ty Robinson as the first half expired saw the Illini go into the locker room with a 21-13 lead.

The Illini double-dipped by scoring to start the second half, marching 75 yards down the field on 11 plays before Dixon hauled in his second touchdown of the night. The drive, which spanned 4:45 of game time, pushed the Illinois lead to 28-13.

A Blazer field goal cut the visitors' deficit to 12, but the Orange and Blue countered with their fifth touchdown of the night. Houser's 6-yard rushing score brought the home side's advantage to 35-16 with 12:25 to play.

On UAB's ensuing possession, Kante corralled his first interception as an Illini, returning the takeaway 59 yards to add to the Illini's lead with six minutes remaining.

A late Blazer touchdown saw the Fighting Illini finish with a 19-point victory.

Illinois (1-0) continues its season-opening three-game homestand in Week 2 against reigning ACC champion Duke. Kickoff from Gies Memorial Stadium is slated for Sept. 12 at 2:30 p.m. CT and will air nationally on FS1.

HIGHLIGHTS

PRESS CONFERENCE

POSTGAME NOTES

Team Notes

Illinois won its season opener for the sixth straight season under head coach Bret Bielema.
Illinois is 13-2 at Gies Memorial Stadium over the last three seasons (2024-26).
Illinois is 20-7 overall over the last three seasons (2024-26) and has the fourth-best winning percentage in the Big Ten (.741).
Illinois has won 10 straight nonconference games dating back to 2023.
Bret Bielema is 38-26 during his six-year Illinois career. His .594 winning percentage trails only Robert Zuppke's .618 for the best in Illinois history (50 game minimum).
Bielema is the first Illinois head coach to win his first six season openers since Robert Zuppke from 1913-18.
Nine Illini made their first career starts at Illinois: QB Katin Houser, WR Brayden Trimble, LT Christian Martin, LG Maika Matelau, C Jake Renfro, DB Jakwon Morris, LB Ismael Kante, LB Mason Muragin, DL Darrell Prater.
- 27 players made their Illini debuts in the win.
Illinois is 19-0 when leading at halftime over the last three seasons (2024-26).
Illinois is 20-6 in games with more than six days rest since Bielema's arrival in 2021, including 18-4 over the last five seasons (2022-26), a 10-2 record over the last three seasons (2024-26), and a 5-1 record since 2025.
The Illini needed only three plays to score their first points of the season, their fewest since needing only two plays to score their first points against Wyoming in 2022 (8/27/22).

Player Notes

Collin Dixon finished with six receptions for 70 yards and two receiving touchdowns.
- First game with two receiving touchdowns - the sixth and seventh of his career.
  - First of the night came on the Illini's third offensive play of the night.
  - Second score came on the Illini's opening drive of the second half, giving the Illini a 28-13 lead with 10:15 to play in the third quarter.
Ca'Lil Valentine scored on a career-long 51-yard rush to give the Illini a 14-0 lead at the 1:18 mark in the first quarter
- Sixth rushing touchdown of his collegiate career.
- Previous career-long rush was 25 yards at Purdue (10/4/25).
Ty Robinson hauled in a 54-yard Hail Mary from Katin Houser as time expired in the first half to give the Illini a 21-13 lead.
- First-career reception as an Illini
- Previous career-long reception was 27 yards at Kentucky (9/2/23) during his junior season at Ball State.
- First Illinois Hail Mary TD reception to end any half since 2019, when Brandon Peters hit Josh Imatorbhebhe for 46 yards to pull the Illini to 28-10 at half.
  - Illinois went on to win the game, 37-34, for the largest comeback in school history (25 points).
Katin Houser went 13-for-17 with 211 total yards of offense and four total touchdowns.
- Threw touchdown passes to Collin Dixon (2) and Ty Robinson (1).
- Recorded the 16th rushing TD of his collegiate career (first as an Illini) on a 6-yard scramble to give the Illini a 35-16 lead with 12:25 left in the fourth quarter.
- Was the sixth four-touchdown game of his career.
Ismael Kante recorded six total tackles and an interception return.
- Was the first interception of his Illini career.
Ean Rhea recorded five total tackles and registered a sack.
- Was his first sack as an Illini.

Quotes

Head Coach Bret Bielema

Opening Statement:
"I want to thank the fans. A home opener on Thursday night I didn't know exactly how it was going to be. Especially shout out to the students since we had 12,000 of them out there. When I first got here, I think we had 2-3,000 and to build it into what it is now with the energy they brought. I've always been lobbying to call them the Orange Krush, I know that's a basketball thing. They showed up in a good fashion and did a nice job giving us energy, especially in the first half when they came back and it got close.'

'To close out the second half I thought Katin had great composure. The guy gets better every game. He puts himself in position to be successful. I think the end of the first half play was a great example of that. Defensively we have some things we need to clean up. I knew there'd be some hiccups, but I like some of the guys and the way they played. I thought Will Holmes and Joe Barna did some great work up front. Back end wise, Xavier Scott got back out there, and Matthew Bailey made a couple nice pops. We got a lot of good guys in the second half getting them into rotation. A lot of guys had played on special teams. We had nine new starters and over 30 guys that had never played for us got some reps out there tonight. Ethan Moczulski hit the ball extremely well on his kicks.'

'I couldn't be happier with the start considering a lot of players had all new coaches and I had a lot of new staff as well. Happy to get out of here with a win and turn the page to ACC Champion Duke now next Saturday in Gies Memorial Stadium."

On what he liked about the offense:
"I think they just continued to answer the challenge. Offensively, we had a big return. We talked about how one of the goals was to play complementary football: offense, defense, and special teams. To have the defense stand up, make a stop, to have the punt return go for a big hit with Mac (Resetich), and then to have our offense get in the end zone quickly. I came in at halftime, and I always watch plays in my office. I think we had 22 offensive plays in the first half compared to 50 on defense, so I knew they had the time of possession. It's just the way the game flowed. I don't think we could've asked for anything better."

On the wide receiver room:
"I give a lot of credit to Barry (Lunney Jr.). I give a lot of credit to (Justin) Stepp. Every year, we have a different guy step up in that wide receiver room. Thankfully, Collin got two. To be honest, Brayden Trimble was someone who I really had my eye on. … It was cool to see him step up in a big way. He's been practicing extremely well. I give Collin a lot of credit. Every time I turn around, he's been sitting next to Katin (Houser) since January."

On what he learned about Katin Houser:
"What you saw tonight was Katin for the first time. The thing that I get a lot of joy in as a head coach, especially in the QB room, is when the guy you see preparing every day shows up on game day. That's exactly what happened. … He's extremely confident. He does get a little agitated – which comes with good and bad – but he was very confident in his preparation, which I think led to today."

Ismael Kante

On his Pick Six:
"As soon as he dove, I knew I was scoring. They weren't stopping me."

On what he learned in his first reps as an Illini:
"It felt great to just play football, trusting my reads and executing the calls. We've been game planning for these guys all week. It was great and I'm looking forward to making more plays in the future.

On the defensive adjustments:
"It wasn't a great performance and we know that. We'll clean that up and we know it. That's why we practice. We need to trust our eyes and trust what we practice throughout the week. Clean up some tackling. I felt myself miss some tackles out there tonight, so moving forward I need to be better with that."

Will Holmes

On the defensive mindset:
"Just confidence, we knew what they were going to do for the most part, and we have been studying those guys, we were confident going out there and just playing football."

On improvements needed to be made:
"Definitely reacting to different moves, we did okay tonight, but I definitely missed some key plays that I could've gotten some TFL's and impact plays. We will definitely get that through practice and film."

Collin Dixon

On his first touchdown:
"When I saw both of them run by me, it worked out pretty well. I was really excited to start the year off like that."

On getting more targets and being a go to guy:
"Just showing up every day, showing them I can be the guy. That I can get more targets and be someone they can depend on so that when moments like this happen, I am ready for it. But I think they trust me to come out here and be a guy like that."

Ty Robinson

On his Hail Mary catch:
"It was crazy, I'll never forget that. I've been a part of a few Hail Marys but that was the first successful one. I was going out and I was supposed to be the jumper, so I'm supposed to just go get the ball. I went out there, I was ready and did my job."

Katin Houser

On his first start as an Illini:
"I thought it was very calm. Obviously, I had some nerves going into the first game. I put in a ton of work since January to get to this point. I thought we had a good win. The start wasn't as clean as we'd like it to be. We have a good opponent in Duke coming in next week. I'm going to enjoy this one tonight, look at the film tomorrow to get it corrected and move on to next week. I thought it was a good win to start off the season."

On the Hail Mary:
"We had 18 seconds left and I wasn't sure if we were going to try to run out the clock and go into the half. Coach B and Coach Lunney decided, 'Hey, we're going to go try to take a shot at this thing.' I threw the ball out, got a big gain, and then we got down to it and thought, 'Alright, let's just go take a shot.' I haven't thrown a Hail Mary in I don't know how long. I saw they had one rusher and everyone deep, and I thought, alright, let's take a shot. I saw a UAB defender have hands on it and just bat it around and Ty Robinson made a great play at the end of the half to come down with it. One of the coolest plays of my career so far. That was awesome."