I watched the WIU vs Illinois game this week. I was not impressed with either team as a whole. Illinois is not expected to win a Big Ten game this year and I can see why. They were sloppy and not cohesive. They won this game just on talent alone not football efficiency. Illinois started getting some space and using speed and strength to just out talent WIU. WIU made silly mistakes. Nobody even touched the defender on the blocked punt. Mcguire is a good player but makes some risky throws. Some times they are "wow what a throw" some times they are "what was he trying to do". Their run game had like 60 yards on Ill. They didn't have much blocking and 40 of those yards came from their speedy WR. They have a linebacker..Moon... He was good. He was in on a ton of plays and he is one I would look out for. Their punter is good. averaged 45 yards i think on 5 punts. Illinois ran all over WIU. They threw to open up the run and once it was open it was ugly. 240 yards on the ground, about 30 of those were from the backup freshman QB that played after the starter went down early.
Overall WIU from their first 2 games look like a physical and talented football team that has some major weaknesses. Similar to us to be honest. Their O line gave up only 3 sacks but 7 TFL vs Ill but 4 sacks and 9TFL vs MSU. They have play makers but they are inconsistent. The QB is good but has 4 Ints this year. Their Special Teams coverage is hit or miss. Their Special team return is pretty good. Overall, this WIU team could be very good if they can fix the stupid errors. They have talent but are missing some key pieces. We are very similar teams but we have been better at not making big mistakes and capitalizing on others. After watching WIU twice...We either win by 2 scores or they win by 2 scores. I don't see this being a final series type of game. From watching the games, I think we are more complete team than they are. But our OLINE is so bad so far that it could just kill us at some point.