Final score: Rutgers 35 Illinois 24

Quick recap 

This was kind of a worst-case scenario for Illinois. Yeah, it was pretty well known that the Illini weren’t very good this season, but to get torched on their home field by Rutgers is somewhat embarrassing.

Credit the Scarlet Knights, who were messing around in Champaign. They got a ton of pressure on Jeff George Jr., eliminated the run game and were able to force three turnovers in the contest. Those were areas Chris Ash’s team control a season ago.

Rutgers set the tone early — Raheem Blackshear completely obliterated an Illinois defender on his way to the end zone in the first quarter — and never took its foot off the gas. It’s the only time the Scarlet Knights have played with that much dominance aside from a few FCS games.

Saturday wasn’t a great outing for either team, but Rutgers looked much better than Illinois.

Key play: Carmoni Green’s fumbled punt return in the third quarter

Calling it a fumbled punt gives Green a little too much credit. Rutgers punted the ball away and Green looked happy to let the Scarlet Knights down the ball. Instead, at the last second, the Illinois punt returned attempted to fall on the football with several Knights surrounding him.

That didn’t work out too well.

Rutgers recovered the ball at the Illinois 21-yard line and punched it in two plays later to go ahead 28-10. That play kind of summed up the Illini’s day.

Stat of the game: Illinois’ 86 rushing yards.

With Mike Epstein out for the game — and possibly the season — Illinois rushing attack was bound to suffer. But the Illini couldn’t do anything on the ground, which really hindered their ability to move the ball in any capacity.

Rutgers’ won the battle at the line of scrimmage and completely eliminated that aspect of the offense for Illinois. It’s hard to win in the B1G when you can’t run the football.

The Scarlet Knights’, by the way, rushed for 280 yards in the win.

What it means

Rutgers is making some progress. This was the first B1G win of the Chris Ash era and it came in (somewhat) convincing fashion. Not to hammer the point home, but this is a team on the rise, even if the progress is slower than anticipated.

Illinois, on the other hand, is further behind. That’s not too surprising, as the Illini are playing a record number of freshman this season. This is a process, something that Lovie Smith and athletic director Josh Whitman understand. Still, it’d be nice to see a little better performance against a bad team at home.

Both teams will continue to struggle moving forward, but this was a nice win for Rutgers as Ash can finally stop worrying about when his first B1G win will come.