And there’s still five more games

As of Sunday, there are only 30 days until the Illinois men’s basketball regular season opener. Unfortunately, it’s only the beginning of hot garbage football season.

Getting shutout 24-0 is bad enough, but that doesn’t even come close to showing how historically bad Illinois played on Saturday. They gave up 491 yards while only gaining 93 of their own. It was Illinois’ worst offensive performance since the Carter administration.

This was worse than the 63-0 game! On that awful day, Illinois gained 216 yards and gave up 400, for a net difference of 184 yards. Yesterday, they were outgained by 398 yards. I mean, college football twitter probably won’t talk about 491-93 for years to come like they do with 63-0, but I wouldn’t put it past them!

The quarterback situation is in complete disarray. Sure, Wisconsin dominated the line on both sides of the ball, but the Badgers only got one sack. Brandon Peters looked scared to death and got flushed out on basically every play. By the time Art Sitkowski replaced him, the Illinois line figured out how to block some of the stunts that the Badgers line was executing so well. There were several snaps where Art had at least five to six seconds and either overthrew his target or was nearly intercepted.

How did Bret and Tony Petersen react to this awful quarterback showing? By throwing the ball 34 times and running 13 times. This is what happens when your quarterbacks can’t make accurate passes and your coaching staff can’t execute a basic collegiate option offense.

This debacle falls completely on the offense. The defense had no chance. Illinois had the ball for a grand total of 17 minutes, and its first play in Wisconsin territory wasn’t until 8:28 left in the fourth quarter. And did you know that five of Illinois’ nine first downs were on Wisconsin penalties? Gee thanks, Mark Followill!

Kerby Joseph played out of his mind. God bless Isaiah Williams. Bless his little heart.

Get ready for more disappointment. Illinois has a bye week this week followed by Penn State, Rutgers, Minnesota and Iowa. I just hope Northwestern doesn’t see us like this. It would break me.

Anyway, I’ll have a beef and cheddar.