[Music] this saturday the 1-0 virginia cavaliers traveled to champaign illinois to take on the illinois fighting illini last week the hoots took down the richmond spiders at scott stadium 34-17 in the season opener meanwhile illinois has started the season off with a 1-1 record with a 38-6 win over wyoming at home in week zero and then a 23-20 loss at indiana to open big ten play last week overall this illinois team should be a challenge for the whos and the eli and i are currently sitting as a four and a half point favorite over virginia so what are the keys to the game the biggest key to this game for me is uva's run defense last year uva's run defense was a disaster giving up nearly 240 rushing yards per game which ranked 125th of 130 fbs teams through one game this year uva's run defense hasn't looked much better giving up 170 rushing yards on 35 carries against a richmond team that isn't exactly anything special the who's lack of run defense will make this game really interesting because while illinois's offense is certainly not great throwing the football with quarterback tommy devito the one thing they do really well is running the football the running back chase brown is one of the best running backs in the big ten and has been red hot to start the season in week zero brown ran for 151 yards on 19 carries for two touchdowns he then followed up with an even better performance last week with 199 rushing yards on an absurd 36 carries with how good illinois has been with the rushing attack the cavalier defense will have to do a good job winning the battle up front against a solid illinois offensive line and the who's will also need to do a good job tackling with their linebackers and defensive backs in order to get stops on defense my second key to this game is uva's passing attack led by quarterback brennan armstrong last week against richmond brennan armstrong became the all-time leader in career offense at uva with a solid performance against the spiders for the who's to win this game against the illini they will definitely need armstrong to be at his best last year against illinois and scott stadium armstrong lift the illini secondary up throwing for 405 yards with five passing touchdowns and just one interception on 27 of 36 passing and a 42-14 blowout win for the whos in that big win in 2021 uva star wide receiver don tavion wix caught two touchdowns from armstrong and one of his many great performances from last year even though i think illinois's defense has taken big strides since then i still think that their biggest weakness on defense is their secondary last week indiana quarterback connor basilak had plenty of success against the illini throwing for 330 yards with a td and an int on 28-52 passing as a result i think that armstrong and uva's talented wide receiver corps which includes ketone thompson and billy kemp should be able to have success against the illinois secondary so what is my prediction for the game well this is definitely a very tricky matchup for the whos i think the cavaliers will ultimately come away with a close win overall i think that uva's passing attack will be too much for illinois secondary and i think that uva's defense will find a way to get enough stops to come away with a 31-27 road win in champaign [Music] you