Illinois vs. Indiana football preview

Fighting Illini look to bounce back in hosting IU

It has been a long time since a 5-1 team celebrated with jubilance after winning a game in Champaign, IL. It shows Ron Zook’s program is making strides to become a respectable football program. It also shows the Fighting Illini lost a winnable game last Saturday. After thumping the Wolverines in Ann Arbor the prior weekend, the Illini moved to 3-2 and their schedule set up nicely to make a push in the Big Ten standings. With back to back home conference games against Minnesota and Indiana the Illini had a lot to be optimistic about. However, this isn’t last year’s Golden Gopher team. Minnesota stole one from Illinois last week winning 27-20. Now, The Illini must try to salvage at least one of these 2 games before heading up to Wisconsin.

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Indiana is sitting in the Big Ten cellar after losing 4 straight games including blowouts at the hands of Iowa and Ball State. The Hoosiers have looked very unimpressive after coming into the season with a lot of momentum after coming off of an appearance in the Insight Bowl. Juice Williams was impressive, however, in last week’s loss. This is the 2 nd time this season Juice has thrown for over 400 yards, both resulting in marks in the loss column. The Hoosiers gave up 227 yards rushing last week in a 45-9 loss to the Iowa Hawkeyes in Bloomington last week. I see Illinois making a strong effort to get back to the running game this week after only giving Daniel Dufrene 10 touches in the backfield last week. The Illini should find some leaks in the Hoosier defense in the Iowa film and I expect them to get back on track nicely.

Prediction: Illinois 33 - Indiana 13

By Zack Estes
BigTen-fans.com Illinois Correspondent

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