Long before The Game was Ohio State’s annual final game, the Buckeyes closed the regular season each year with this Saturday’s opponent, Illinois. The Buckeyes haven’t had too much trouble with the Fighting Illini during Urban Meyer’s tenure at Ohio State, going 3-0 with a combined score of 167-81. But history shows us that it would be unwise to overlook Illinois with the two schools from the Mitten State looming on the November horizon.
The first meeting came in 1902 and the Illibuck Trophy—once an actual live turtle, of course—tradition started in 1925. The wooden turtle goes to the winner of this traditional rivalry game, which hasn’t felt much like a rivalry since 2007.
According to the college football data warehouse, Ohio State is 66-30-4 in the all-time series against Illinois. If you count the 2010 vacated game, which totally happened (I know this, because I watched it), the Buckeyes improve to 67-30-4. But some of those 30 losses were crushing, inexplicable defeats to inferior teams.
The best example of that is the Buckeyes’ 2007 loss in Columbus, 28-21. It was the only regular-season blemish for a team that went to the National Championship against LSU and quite possibly would have won the title if not for the complete lack of awareness that Beanie Wells was still on the Ohio State football squad after the first quarter of that game. The 2007 loss was a frustrating, maddening groin kick that featured an obvious fumble by Illini running back Daniel Dufrene that somehow got missed by the officials, just before Illinois scored its opening touchdown.
It also featured a whole lot of Juice Williams running up the middle for three to four yards every time, somehow squeaking out first down after first down against the heart of the Buckeye defense. As I said, it was maddening and frustrating. Williams regressed significantly over the course of his college football career and never again looked like a mixture of Tom Brady and Herschel Walker.
2007 Nightmare fuel.
The 1994 game saw Ohio State enter with only one loss—a 25-16 road defeat at No. 25 Washington—and yet the Fighting Illini, who would finish 7-5 (4-4 in the B1G) won 24-10 at the Shoe. Bobby Hoying threw three interceptions and Johnny Johnson completed 16/21 for 224 yards and two scores. You don’t remember Johnson and neither do I, and neither does anyone else, but he won that day and the Buckeyes would lose again at No. 1 Penn State and then not again until the Citrus Bowl against No. 6 Alabama—by one score.
In 1992, the Buckeyes fell at home, 18-16. Ohio State fumbled six times that day, losing three of them. Future Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George dropped the ball three times, proving that Illinois is capable of witchcraft and should always be closely monitored.
And it can be just as bad, if not worse, on the road. Ohio State is 37-11-0 at Illinois (counting the vacated 2010 win) with an average score of 22-11 in favor of the Buckeyes.
There have been plenty of miserable Ohio State performances against Illinois in Memorial Stadium. It’s a freaking wind tunnel and weird things happen there. Just four years ago Ohio State squeaked out a 17-7 win on a day in which Braxton Miller attempted only four passes and completed only one. It helped that the pass was a touchdown to Jake Stoneburner.
In 1993, the No. 6 Buckeyes eked out a 20-12 win in Champaign, against a team that would finish 5-6. Hoying was 7/12 for just 86 yards. In 1991, it was a 10-7 loss with the Buckeyes failing to score for the game’s first 57 minutes, until Kent Graham finally found Joey Galloway for a 44-yard score. That tied the game, but Ohio State couldn’t hold and Chris Richardson’s 41-yard field goal won it in the final minute. Tim Williams missed a 24-yard field goal that day, which is a lot harder to do than to make a 24-yarder. That Illini team finished 6-6, while the Buckeyes went to the Hall of Fame Bowl (losing to Syracuse, 24-17).
In just nine games, the 2015 Fighting Illini have half as many conference wins as Beckman led them to in three seasons, and nearly half the overall victories.
Oh, and that was the fourth of five consecutive losses to the Illini from 1988-93, by a combined score of 124-69. At least some of those Illinois teams were pretty decent. The Illini finished the 1989 season in the AP top ten, and second in the Big Ten, with a 10-2 overall record and a 7-1 B1G mark. The next season they finished at No. 25, going 8-4 (6-2).
But, for the most part, Illinois has been a mediocre football team, at best, during the modern era. The Illini have still managed to either beat the Buckeyes or play them closely many times since the end of the Woody Hayes era. Eleven of the Illini’s 30 wins in the series have come since 1983.
This year, Illinois fired Head Coach Tim Beckman a week before the season began. Beckman had gone just 12-25 (4-20) as the Illini boss. In just nine games, at 5-4, the 2015 Fighting Illini have half as many conference wins as Beckman led them to in three seasons, and nearly half the overall victories.
The Illini will be a tough out on Saturday. They just blasted Purdue, 48-14, and are one win shy of becoming bowl eligible. Illinois gave Iowa all it could handle and beat the Nebraska team that just upended Sparty. The Illini are 4-1 at home in the wind tunnel.
So don’t be surprised if this game is closer than it should be on Saturday. Weird things happen in Champaign. And the Illini know how to deal with them.
