I feel like everyone will focus on the defense in this thread, and rightly so, HOWEVER the Gophers had five...FIVE possessions in a row against Illinois that resulted in no points. I am not going to bother to look it up, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's the first time that a team has failed to score on Illinois five straight time. This was a complete disaster on both sides of the football. The strange decisions to run the ball down 21 in the 2nd half were baffling as was the punt from near midfield down 28 in the 3rd quarter (the Gophers would get a break here when the punt hit an Illini player and still fail to score). The capper of the day was PJ using to need a timeout after a kickoff because the play clock was running out on his offense. This game ranks up there with the Gophers, in Kill's best year, allowing Illinois to break their years long losing streak in B1G games in pure WTF? moments. In terms of an overall debacle it's much worse and ranks with losing to New Mexico State, South Dakota State, North Dakota State, etc, etc. The team looked totally inept in all phases of the game and it speaks very poorly of Coach Fleck.
We also need to acknowledge that the Gophers are putting some very bad football players on the field. You don't get blown out by Illinois without it being a combination of bad coaching and lack of talent. The scary thing is, I don't think any of us know where the upgrades are coming from at LB or S. You can maybe point to some promise on the DL with the Juco DT's coming in and the big time DE out of Illinois and another year in the weight room for Mafe and Big E, but that's the best I can do as far as optimism.