ILLINOIS 38 (5-4, 3-3), RUTGERS 10 (2-7, 0-6)
MEMORIAL STADIUM • CHAMPAIGN, ILL.
NOVEMBER 2, 2019 • ATTENDANCE: 35,652
 
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Rutgers football (2-7, 0-6) scored the last 10 points of the second quarter to even the game heading into halftime, but Illinois (5-4, 3-3) scored three touchdowns in the third quarter on the way to a 38-10 win Saturday at Memorial Stadium. It was the Scarlet Knights' third trip to Champaign and second for a Big Ten contest.
 
With RU down 10-0 in the second quarter, junior Mohamed Jabbie scored his first collegiate touchdown on a 31-yard pass from redshirt freshman Johnny Langan on a third down. Jabbie finished the game with a career-high 64 receiving yards on three catches. On the ground, freshman Aaron Young averaged 5.2 yards per carry with a season-best 67 yards on 13 attempts. Langan added 41 yards after running the ball 23 times.
 
Both sophomore CJ Onyechi and junior Julius Turner registered sacks on defense. Redshirt freshman Christian Izien recorded a team-high with nine tackles.
 
Junior Justin Davidovicz converted a 25-yard field goal for his fourth-straight successful attempt. He is now 14-for-15 in his career on attempts inside 40 yards.
 
FIRST QUARTER
After each team went three-and-out to start, Illinois used an eight-play drive capped by 10-yard rush by Dre Brown to take a 7-0 lead with 8:38 left in the opening period. James McCourt converted a 33-yard field goal on the next Fighting Illini drive to make it 10-0.
 
SECOND QUARTER
The Scarlet Knights found the end zone with 12:25 left in the second quarter when Langan found Jabbie for a 31-yard completion on third-and-13 to cut the game to 10-7. The play ended an 11-play scoring drive that spanned 75 yards over 5:03.

🚨 FIRST TD ALERT 🚨

Mohamed Jabbie hauls in his first @RFootball score. pic.twitter.com/CShqtCCZOI

— Rutgers On BTN (@RutgersOnBTN) November 2, 2019

The defense used sacks by Onyechi and Turner to stifle Illinois drives, as Rutgers took the ball with 4:59 left in the half and drove down for a tying field goal. Young had 43 rushing yards on five carries to setup up a successful 25-yard attempt by Davidovicz that made it 10-10 at halftime.
 
THIRD QUARTER
After Brandon Peters picked up 54 yards on the ground, Brown scored from two yards out to give Illinois a 17-10 lead at the 9:08 mark. The Fighting Illini then took advantage of two RU fumbles to build a 31-10 lead.
 
FOURTH QUARTER
A 54-yard interception return by Dele Harding went down as the final score in the game.
 
UP NEXT
Rutgers is off next weekend before hosting No. 3 Ohio State on Nov. 16 at SHI Stadium in a game presented by RWJ Barnabas Health. The kickoff time and television network have not been announced.
 
PARTICIPATION

QUOTES
Rutgers Interim Head Coach Nunzio Campanile
 On the first half: "Absolutely. It was exactly the kind of the game we wanted, we were right where we wanted to be in the game, tied at halftime going into the third quarter, getting the ball. That was a big deal, the wind was a big factor, I don't know if anyone scored offensively going into the wind this game, it definitely was a factor throwing the football, and that hurt us a little bit in the third quarter. But, we were where we wanted to be going into the third."
 
On what happened in the third quarter: "Obviously the fumble for the touchdown was really big, and when we still thought we were in it we turned it over again. Those turnovers were critical for field position, and then we turned it over twice for touchdowns, obviously that's tough. I honestly thought Johnny played a pretty good game and did all the things we wanted him to do, but you know those two turnovers were just critical."

On how Illinois forces fumbles: "They attack the football every play. Obviously, he's been doing that for a long time, Coach Smith, it's been the calling card of his teams, and they did a great job of it."
 
On how his team has gotten better in the past couple of weeks: "Yeah, I definitely think we are. I think we actually played like seven pretty good quarters. You know, the end of the Minnesota game I thought our guys kept playing and played really hard, last week we played four really good quarters on both sides of the ball, and then this week I thought we played a great first half, and honestly I thought we played pretty well on defense the whole game. We gave up a couple big plays that hurt us and that's been a bit of an issue for us all year and it's something that we got to clean up, but yardage wise we did a good job, we just didn't come up with enough points."
 
On the decision to kick the field goal at the end of the first half instead of going for it: "When you look at how much time was left, and the opportunity to make sure we were tied going into the half and getting the ball, I just thought it was the best thing for our team at that time, we needed to make sure that we were going to score. If we got the first time we'd have about 25 seconds, we're not really built as a great no-huddle 2 minute team right now, so I didn't think getting the first down would really guarantee us a touchdown."
 
QB Johnny Langan
On what they took away from the first half that were positive: "We just really played hard, we executed and had some clean drives in the first half. Really promising going into halftime.

"Mo [Jabbie] played a great game, I'm really happy for him."

On what happened on the play he fumbled: "I was looking right, we had more defenders coming than we could handle, I pump faked. I got out and as I was in the process of tucking the ball, he hit my hand and the ball popped out. That's football."
 
On if it is a good time for a bye week: "Absolutely. Knock on wood, we haven't been hit by the injury bug too bad so a bye couldn't come at a better time than now."

WR Mohamed Jabbie
On the feeling of getting his first collegiate touchdown: "It's a great feeling. I just want to thank god for everything, my teammates for being able to guide me and help me get to where I am now. The last two weeks, I was out and I was happy that I was able to come back and be able to help the team."

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