CHAMPAIGN, Ill., As the Badgers walked quickly off the Memorial Stadium turf, looks of dejection filled their helmet-ridden faces. This look has been present several times this season, but this time the 42-35 loss to Illinois was actually painful for the Wisconsin squad to bear.
“It hurts,” defensive lineman Wendell Bryant said. “It hurts. It hurts a lot.”
Bryant’s feelings were backed by receiver Lee Evans, who went as far to say that this loss was even harder to swallow than the 63-32 beating UW suffered at the hands of Indiana two weeks ago.
“This is not like the Indiana game where we got beaten,” said Evans, whose nine receptions for 150 yards gave him the new UW record for receiving yardage in a single season. “We played a tough game. Everybody came out, competed hard, played hard. We just came up on the short end.”
What makes the loss to Illinois worse than the previous losses is the way in which it came.
After battling back from a 22-7 deficit at the half, the Badgers scored four touchdowns in the second half that propelled them into a seven-point lead with 12:48 left in the game.
But as Wisconsin soon learned, 12 minutes is a lot of time.
Illinois was able to shift the momentum back to its side with the help of the rowdy Homecoming crowd of 70,904 on hand.
Following UW’s go-ahead touchdown the Fighting Illini answered right back, using a long kickoff return to jump-start their scoring drive. Christian Morton fielded Mike Allen’s kickoff and handed it off to Mike Hall, who ran for 45 yards before being forced out of bounds. Starting on the 50-yard line Illinois needed only two plays (a 36-yard pass for IU quarterback Kurt Kittner to receiver Brandon Lloyd, and a 14-yard completion to Brian Hodges) to score a touchdown and tie the game at 35.
According to UW quarterback Jim Sorgi (who took over the quarterback duties after starter Brooks Bollinger left the game late in the first half with groin and hip-flexor injuries) it was this Illini scoring drive that switched the momentum back to Illinois.
“It kind of saw the wind come out of our sails a little bit, kind of saw the momentum swing back to them, and we just really couldn’t bounce back from that,” said Sorgi, who completed 10 of 20 passes for 157 yards.
After the Illini’s special teams and offense tallied the quick seven points, its defense came up with a key stop that prevented UW from pressing ahead. The Badgers went three and out with an incomplete pass to Evans, a rush for no gain by running back Anthony Davis and a Sorgi sack.
This brought the Illini’s offense back on the field, a place they had become quite accustomed to. With a combination of UW’s small secondary unable to stop Illinois downfield and the defensive line struggling up front with the absence of Delante McGrew (he suffered a sprained knee during the first play at the line of scrimmage), Kittner was able to throw for a career-high 401 yards, keeping his offense on the field for 36:37 minutes.
Kittner’s unit started its charge with 10:25 left in the game. The Heisman hopeful fired the ball to Walter Young on the first play of the drive. Young was hit hard by UW cornerback Mike Echols and appeared to have fumbled the ball, but the pass was ruled incomplete by the officials.
“It looked like a fumble to me,” UW head coach Barry Alvarez said. “But I’d have to look at it on film. But it looked like a fumble and I thought everyone around it thought it was.”
After keeping possession of the ball, Kittner was able to move the Illini down the field 64 yards and score the go-ahead touchdown. His drive was capitalized by a 22-yard touchdown completion to Lloyd, who had eight receptions for 129 yards on the day.
That would end up being the final scoring play of the game, as Illinois held on to the 42-35 lead.
“It hurts,” Alvarez said of his team’s loss. “We were short-handed in some areas, yet the guys battled. Then we had momentum and got some quick strikes, guys making plays. You like to finish it up that way. It is disappointing when you can’t quite finish it.”
