Here's what we learned from Week 2 of college football, where key parts of the Illinois and NIU offenses have emerged.
Illinois:
The Illini are figuring it out, and just in time.
This is a season with massive amounts of expectations for the Illini. A Week 1 game against Western Illinois was a warm up. Week 2 brought the real challenge.
A road tilt against Duke showed us what this Illini team is made of.
Illinois was up 14-13 at halftime on Duke. The Illini then outscored Duke 31-6 in the second half to run away with a 45-19 win. What helps is that Illinois proved it’s a team that can make plays.
The Illini, on the road, were plus-five in the turnover battle. That’s usually a good recipe to win a game.
Matthew Bailey, Tanner Heckel and Gabe Jacas all forced fumbles. Heckel also intercepted a pass for good measure. But, when a team gets the opportunity to make plays, that team actually has to make plays.
In the Illini’s search for a No. 1 receiver, Hank Beatty is beginning to emerge. Beatty led Illinois with eight catches for a career-high 128 yards. We went over 100 yards last week, too, and showed how deep he goes into the Illinois playbook by scoring on a 25-yard rushing touchdown.
That’s what Illinois needed out of Saturday. This is a team that’s taking care of business because they’re getting ready for what’s next.
"That's what we're going to see in the Big Ten, the speed and the edges," Illinois head coach Bret Bielema told reporters after the game.
Notre Dame:
With a week off, the Irish have a chance to lick their wounds from the season-opening loss to Miami.
The Hurricanes owned the trenches on both sides of the ball. That can’t be something that happens against Texas A&M. The Aggies’ offense has put up 86 points in two games.
But, the one stat to keep in mind is that Texas-San Antonio rushed for over 200 yards in Week 1 against A&M. If the Aggies’ run defense is suspect, Notre Dame should do everything it can to take advantage of that.
The Irish can. Jadarian Price and Jeremiyah Love should both have 15 carries next Saturday, minimum, in what’s become a must-win game for Notre Dame.
Northwestern:
There’s an old basketball cliché that football teams like to borrow when it comes to seeing their offense click.
Sometimes, a team just needs to see the ball go through hoop to get momentum going. In other words, a team just needs to see it click once to know what it looks like to execute the plays successfully.
For Northwestern, that might be what the doctor ordered. The prescription was a 42-7 win over Western Illinois.
"Just like seeing a shot go in, honestly, like the snowball effect of like you score one, you have a momentum and you just keep going and going," Northwestern receiver Griffin Wilde said. "Drives just kind of put themselves together."
The ‘Cats saw a handful of shots go in Friday night. They were 5 for 5 in the red zone. They scored two touchdowns of 40+ yards. They had 526 total net yards and 42 total points.
That’s what Northwestern needed after Week 1, where the offense turned the ball over five times and scored just three points on the road at Tulane. NU head coach David Braun said he liked how the team approached the week with their heads up after the loss. Especially quarterback Preston Stone, who had to rebound from a four-interception game.
Stone threw for well over 200 passing yards and tossed two touchdowns.
It’s easy to overlook Western Illinois. The Leathernecks are an FCS program that has given up 94 points in two games. But, Northwestern can’t overlook any FCS team. They’ve lost to FCS teams Southern Illinois and Illinois State in the past decade.
That’s not the case under Braun; The Wildcats have a 3-0 record vs FCS teams and are 5-0 against Group of 5 teams at home. The floor is higher under Braun, but they still needed to see it come together on the field.
"We've all known we were capable of," Stone said. "I could speak for the whole offense that there wasn't any disbelief or doubt in what we could put together."
Northern Illinois:
After struggling to hold off Holy Cross at home to open the season, the Huskies went on the road for a Friday night tilt against a Big Ten team.
NIU went into College Park and made Maryland sweat. The Huskies lost 20-9.
"It’s a disappointing result," NIU head coach Thomas Hammock said after the game. "We didn’t make enough plays to win the game, and that’s what it comes down to. We chose some moments to be aggressive and got stopped."
Showing some road gumption is encouraging for NIU. The biggest revelation is the two-headed running game NIU has with Chavon Wright and Telly Johnson.
Wright rushed for a game-high 90 yards on 27 carries. Johnson added 86 yards on 10 carries. Seventy-four of those yards came on a third-quarter touchdown. The 176 rushing yards between the two is a sign the Huskies can lead with those two on offense.
The passing game still needs to come into its own. NIU had 91 passing yards and took four sacks. With Mississippi State next, the Huskies can lean on its strengths – the run game and defensive line – as it looks to improve the pass game.
"We have to get a lot better and I look forward to see how we improve over this bye week," Hammock said.