'I’m about to go tear these guys’ heads off': Corbin’s Halftime Speech Inspires Illini Upset Win

Illinois tailback Reggie Corbin provides on-field inspiration and a memorable halftime locker room speech during upset win over Wisconsin

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- At halftime Saturday, Reggie Corbin simply became fed up with being a loser.

The Illinois senior tailback immediately took the stage at halftime to express his frustration with being 30 minutes from another Big Ten Conference loss, which would’ve been his 27 in 31 conference games. In that short but powerful speech, Corbin became the living embodiment of what Illinois head coach Lovie Smith had wanted out of his veteran leaders.

“We don’t need anyone else,” Corbin said when asked what he told his teammates in the locker room during the halftime break. “We have each other.”

Illinois, led by Corbin’s 83 rushing yards on 17 carries, quickly became the talking point of the entire college football community with a stunning 24-23 upset of No. 6 Wisconsin Saturday. With his team down 13-7 after 30 minutes of play, Corbin verbalized the motivating factor the Illini coaches attempted to play up the underdog role all week. Illinois offensive coordinator Rod Smith put up the number 31 on the whiteboard of his meeting room earlier this week to symbolize the point spread the Badgers were favored by.

“People tend to forget, we dominated Michigan for a period of time, we had a 14 point lead against Nebraska,” Illini head coach Lovie Smith said. “We are a little bit closer than people give us credit for. We have been going to work, and there was a sense of hey we are going to win this. Those guys in that locker room aren’t shocked.”

For Corbin, close wasn’t going to be good enough anymore. The 5-foot-10, 200-pound tailback, who publicly said he wasn’t pleased with his play over the last two weeks, backed up his locker room talk with a 43-yard touchdown run in the third quarter to cut the Illini’s deficit to 20-14 with just under 16 minutes left in the contest. Corbin had 56 of his rushing yards in the second half and was instrumental in setting up for James McCourt’s game-winning 39-yard field goal as time expired.

“We’ve been underdogs all whole lives, everybody in that locker room. That’s where we thrive,” Corbin said. “A wise man told me (this week) sometimes when you go back to square one, it’ll take you from a 10 to an 11. His point was to go back to being myself and just go play.”

Corbin’s talk and subsequent play hit a cord with several members of the Illini roster including junior offensive tackle Alex Palczewski. The 300-pounder from Mount Prospect said he stopped using Twitter and Instagram for the last two weeks because he was tired of reading comments about his coaches and school. Palczewski was staring down his third straight loss to the hated Badgers, who are considered the standard-bearer of the Big Ten’s Western Division,

“I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m about to go tear these guys’ heads off.’ It would’ve been dangerous if it was right before we went out because we actually would’ve killed someone out there,” said Palczewski said about Corbin’s halftime speech. “This was a big (expletive) you moment. Nobody believed in us except the people in this locker room.”

If the “guys in that locker room” who Lovie Smith deserved did believe this kind of win was coming, not too many others did. Whether you were wearing Illini orange and blue or Wisconsin red, it’s safe to assume a small percentage of the announced crowd of 37,363 at Memorial Stadium expected much more than a solid effort from the home squad. For several weeks, Illini players had felt on an island where media doubted the progress of the program in the fourth year of the Lovie Smith era and fans were wondering if a leadership change was going to be needed to find hope.

“Everyone counted us out last week and the week before that,” Corbin said. “Last summer, we were the only people in here. Coaches weren’t even here. So I just told them to give it your all.”