Shortly after wrapping up his postgame radio show, Bret Bielema took to the presser podium to address the media following Ohio State's 34-16 win over the Fighting Illini.
Bielema mostly kept the focus of his answers and postgame remarks on how Illinois made too many mistakes to put the Fighting Illini in a position to win the game. He put the responsibility on himself and his coaches to identify what led to those mistakes and move to correct those issues during Illinois' upcoming bye week. One of those self-inflicted mistakes he noted later while answering questions was that he didn't deploy quarterback Luke Altmyer to run an up-tempo offense soon enough in the contest.
“i actually wanted to go tempo the whole freaking game, because they couldn't do shit with it.... it seemed like when we went tempo That things Really Began to work our way, we just Needed to go to it sooner.”
Even in defeat, Illinois became the first team this season to break into double-digit scoring against what had been a stout Buckeye defense to this point. The Fighting Illini in fact ended the day with 23 more total offensive yards than OSU, while also earning five more first downs. Altmyer threw for 82 more yards than Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin, largely fueled by having 14 more passing attempts.
Unfortunately for Illinois, turnovers and a lack of third-down execution put its team in an early hole and seemed to doom any prospect of an upset at home. Bielema credited Ohio State for making the most of those opportunities and the team not damaging itself with its own lack of execution, which he attributed to the Buckeyes' all-around talent but also the job Ryan Day has done building their program.
“I'm not giving Ohio State any advice. they're doing really good, they're number one in the country. they're a pretty good football team. they got a lot of good talent, their coach is exceptional.”
Bielema ultimately relayed that he has high hopes for Ohio State after this result and appears to want the best for the school given the prominent role the Buckeyes occupy in representing the Big Ten as a conference on the national stage. If he had any sour grapes about losing a rivalry game and its trademark turtle trophy to the other side, he certainly did not express them in front of reporters.
“Usually, in my experience, when you have teams like [Ohio State] , you can find something [to exploit] but they just... i think ryan [day] keeps them on edge. i'm excited because they're a big ten team and i think they can do a lot of things nationally that continue to make our conference what it is.”
After six straight weeks of play to start Illinois' schedule, the Fighting Illini finally head into a bye week to recoup and reassess what went wrong today and against Indiana before a road trip to face the Washington Huskies on October 25th.
