Coach Bret Bielema Offers Stark Assessment of Illinois After Ohio State Loss

Outside Illinois football's friendly confines – Champaign, Central Illinois and Chicago – Bret Bielema catches a lot of hell. Whether it's his late substitutions, on- and off-field trolling or general outspokenness, the big man rubs plenty of folks the wrong way.

But one of the reasons Illini fans tend to appreciate Bielema is that he's willing to turn that heat back on his team – or even himself. Example: Saturday's mistake-littered loss to top-ranked Ohio State, for which Bielema and his crew prepped intensely and fully expected to be competitive throughout. But a 10-0 first-quarter deficit quickly spun out to a 20-3 halftime margin that even an exceptional opponent wouldn't have closed on the Buckeyes. And Bielema made it clear in the aftermath that his then-No. 17 Illini (5-2, 2-2 Big Ten) currently fall well short of exceptional.

Bret Bielema's frank assessment of Illinois' performance

"We lost that game," Bielema said in Saturday's postgame press conference. "It was just too many things that we gave them, a good football team like that. You can't – you can't spot them opportunities and expect to have success.

"So we fought our ass off to get to this point, to make this a game that drew some attention – not just because Ohio State's coming down, but because we had two ranked teams, and I'm not going to diminish that. I'm super-proud of what we've accomplished. But it also is a good indicator that we're nowhere close to where we need to go to get this thing to be more consistent."

Where the Illini go from here

Illinois gets a bye this week, ahead of arguably the toughest remaining date on its regular-season schedule – at Washington. Bielema expects his Illini to use the break to heal up – but also to take careful inventory after a loss that, despite not rising to the level of the Week 4 Indiana debacle, still got away from them.

"We got to learn from it. We got to grow from it," Bielema said. "You know, I think for us, as coaches, we got to take a deep dive into why those things popped up. We can't just say, 'Oh, we had a turnover or, you know, we've got to get off the field.' Like, why, right? Like, are we putting our players in the best positions? Are we asking them to do something they can't do?

"I don't want to just, you know, dismiss everything, right? Like, we played really, really bad, and to lose by that score and play as poorly as we did against the No. 1 team. Like, I'm not looking for any anything other than, it shows that we can do this. But we can't give away freebies."

#illini Bret Bielema after Ohio State loss

Wants less turnovers & better late down defense

"As coaches we got to take a deep dive into why those things popped up. We can't just say, Oh, we had a turnover.

"Are we putting our players in the best positions? Are we asking to do… pic.twitter.com/FJk3GrMesa
— Carson Gourdie (@GourdieReport) October 12, 2025