Mistakes costly in Illini's bid to hand Penn St. its 1st loss

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - When the mist became too annoying Saturday night, some of the 109,626 crammed into Beaver Stadium ruined the effect of Penn State's "Whiteout" by donning blue ponchos.

As for No. 22 Illinois, it stood in the drizzle wishing it had brought a barrel's worth of Wite-Out to cover up all of its miscues.

On a night when No. 12 Penn State looked vulnerable for the first time all season, Illinois' wide variety of mistakes led to a 38-24 loss in a nationally telecast Big Ten opener.

"They're a good team, but we had some mental errors out there in all phases of the game and that hurt us," said senior middle linebacker Brit Miller. "You can't give a good team a break at all, and that's what we ended up doing.

"We let 'em off the hook and they did a great job of capitalizing."

Illinois' offense committed 2 turnovers and whiffed on a questionable fourth-and-2 sneak near midfield at the outset of the third quarter that led to a Penn State field goal.

The defense couldn't figure out how to get off the field on third down against the Nittany Lions' ballyhooed "Spread HD" attack.

And Illinois' special teams?

Just as in the opening night loss to Missouri, the kickoff-overage unit surrendered momentum by giving up a 90-yard-plus score to a superstar returner.

Moments after Matt Eller kicked a 44-yard field goal to pull Illinois within 24-17 at the end of three quarters, Penn State senior Derrick Williams brought back Eller's kickoff 94 yards for his fourth career touchdown return.

"I'm pulling my hair out on that one," Illinois coach Ron Zook said. "I don't understand that. They tell you where the return's going and we didn't make the play."

Williams added a 21-yard touchdown reception and 5-yard touchdown run to complete an unprecedented trifecta for Penn State (5-0, 1-0) during the Joe Paterno epoch.

And here's another piece of trivia Illinois fans wish could have worked out differently: On the December 2004 day when Zook was hired at Illinois, he made his first recruiting call to Williams, whom he had been pursuing for Florida before his firing.

"We pretty much had Derrick in check the last two years," Zook said. "But he's a great player. I've known Derrick since he was in high school and he did some serious things to us tonight."

And to think, the muggy night began with some serious promise for Illinois (2-2, 0-1).

After looking tepid two weeks ago against Louisiana-Lafayette, the Illini offense proved it spent the bye week wisely by cracking out touchdowns on its first two possessions.

True freshman Jason Ford flew over the pile from the 1-yard line to put Illinois up 7-0. Then Arrelious Benn (4 catches, 110 yards, 2 TDs) somehow kept his right foot inbounds for a 33-yard touchdown catch that needed a review from the instant-replay official in order to count.

But after racking up 120 yards and 14 points on its first two drives to take a 14-7 lead, Illinois managed just 45 total yards on its other four first-half possessions.

A pair of holding penalties negated 2 first downs on one drive, while Juice Williams' underthrown interception stopped another.

"We were able to execute early on," offensive coordinator Mike Locksley said. "Then penalties started killing us. Juice again threw a bad pick that shouldn't have happened.

"Somehow, I've got to get the offense playing smarter and taking care of the football. And those are the things we've preached since Day One."