Illinois downs #19 Kansas in front of sold out crowd

[Music] [Applause] a crisp September night soldout Memorial Stadium and an opportunity to get revenge on a ranked opponent the Ali taking on number 19 Kansas tonight Illinois embracing every ounce of the orange out this evening hoping to best The Jayhawks on their home turf this year they wasted no time pressuring defensively Jaylen Daniels is picked off by Xavier Scott Illinois would go to drive down the field and are able to attack on three points under four to go in the half now tie game Jayhawks in the Red Zone Daniels hooks up with Luke Grim In The End Zone Kansas goes up 10 to3 Illinois not backing down though altm looking downfield airs it out and a snag by zakari Franklin with one hand up to set up by field goal next possession whoop I'll be taking that says Xavier Scott once again and this time it's a house call pick six to close the half Illinois up 13 to 10 skip ahead to the fourth quarter KU back in front by four give it to the big dog Kaden Fagan he punches it in for the touchdown Illinois holds on 2317 and is 2-0 for the first time since 2019 defensively uh I would say three things right they're extremely intelligent um so what you tell them they literally regurgitate everything we ask them to do part of playing really good defense is understanding what your weaknesses are uh offensive coaches look for your weaknesses they attack your flaws right and a year ago in this game that's what they did and think the awareness to make a game plan adjustment around that has been really good and the third thing I just think these guys play with an playing extremely clean Illinois forced four turnovers against the J Hawks tonight the last time they had at least that many beating Northwestern Wildcats to close out the 2022 regular season when they had two guys named Devon Witherspoon and cydney brown each who had two picks