Our defense held Illinois scoreless on half of their possessions*.

wheeee count me in

You managed to make the whole "65 points given up" thing sound semi-good. That's impressive.

at the end of the first quarter that this might be the first time all year that we forced 2 punts AND made a field goal in one quarter.

It's awesome to win despite this, but man.  We need to be more careful with the ball.  Or force more on the D side of the ball.

Given the -4 turnover margin and suboptimal special teams play, holding the Zookarati to 45 in regulation is actually a significant upgrade from the PSU debacle. Avg. starting field position is part of the story.

And the "Made FG" drives for ILL consisted of 40 yards, 7 yards, and 39 yards. Not terrible.

By my Yahoo! data, ILL had 17 drives in regulation, and averaged 27 yards per drive.

On their 5 TD drives, they averaged 51.8 yards per drive.

It is definitely weird to say after giving up 65 points, yeah, that may have been as good as a defensive showing as we've had this year, but I would say that was the case.   We got burned a couple of times-- but they played really well at times too.   Hope it carries through for a strong showing against Purdue.

Our 5 turnovers might have contributed a tad to the high scoring Illinois offense. 

I noticed that as well.  And for all the "argh, 65 points" by the defense, Illinois's defenses, which averaged about 12 a game, gave up 67, and 45 in regulation.  So yeah, not a great defensive day across the board, but certainly not limited to UM.  

you guys think any of RR defensive coaches will stay on board next season?

ok, this makes me feel better. i couldn't help but feeling that our defense kinda sorta played a decent game. but seeing 65 points on the board made me question my sanity. so either i'm not insane, or there is a large group of people who have lost their mind with me.

The 3rd quarter was the most surprising.  The D didn't give up any points.  When was the last time we went a whole quarter without giving up any points?

Illinois started a drive at our 37 yard line once during the third quarter as well and came away with no points.  That was probably the most shocking thing that happened all day. 

I thought heard the announcers say Illini starting field position was from their own 48. Tough to keep points off the board when you give them half a field to work with ... on average.

I would go so far as to say the defense had a much better day than they did last week.  Considering the field position Illinois routinely had to work with, not bad.  Illinois scored five regulation touchdowns and the average drive start was at midfield on those five.  Both early FG drives started in Michigan territory - those six points not being 14 is just huge.

And the defense made key plays when they had to.  If Vinopal doesn't make that tackle on 3rd down to force a punt, game over.  I think they got the job done today, however ugly it looked.

First half was brutal watching the D lose contain time and time again.  In the 2nd half they finally figured out how to contain, especially on the option pitches.   Losing contain has been a big theme so far this year, and especially against MSU.  If we could fix that, this defense would be much improved.

Illini score 25 in the 2nd quarter and 20 in OT, if my math is correct, that leaves 20 points over the other 3 quarters.

I sincerely hope we have reason to retain GERG by season's end. That would mean that they ended their season on a hell of a streak.

The reason he probably won't be around, though, is that the D will perform below expectations next week. And perhaps the next two weeks after that. That's just the way this year has been.

If they were consistently good, bad, or mediocre, you could surmise that he was having an impression on them. But they are wildly inconsistent.

500 Yards and 45 Points! Before OT!

And someone thinks the D doesn't suck?

Where can I get some of those herbs???

If UM could trade their shitty defense for a crappy defense, this team could be playing for the Big Ten or NC game.

halftime adjustments it is undeniable that we outcoached em in the 3rd quarter.  It doesn't mean the entire performance was good but I like looking at bright spots.

I feel like this was Michigan's best defensive performance, even though they gave up 65 points total, 45 in regulation.  I like the 4 down linemen and the aggressive defense.  If you're gonna get beat, get beat throwing everything at the QB.

other than the conversion stop in 3OT of course, was that Zook punted late in the 4th quarter on the 4th and 1 from their own 42. Obviously he had just enough respect for them that it wasn't an automatic go for it call. He goes there and gets it, it's either at least 2 more minutes off the clock or burned Michigan TOs.

That game was absolutely nuts. Nothing at all about it was normal. 

It sure takes a whole lot of spin to make that defensive effort look to be anything less than bad.  First, I only see 44 points on your slate of stats.  That's 21 short of what really happened.  Second, wasn't this the most points we've ever given up?  And we're celebrating? 

I'm very happy that we won today, but it's depressing to see just how low the bar has been set for "success".

Let's also not forget that Illinois' average offensive starting position was somewhere around midfield.  Our defense was better than people think - definitely FAR from good, but better than the score indicates.