Bret Bielema 'extremely pissed off' with officiating in loss to Michigan

Give Bret Bielema credit — the Illinois coach had his team prepared and ready to play against Michigan Saturday. The Illini gave the Wolverines all they could handle in a 19-17 loss that wasn’t decided until grad student Jake Moody kicked the game winner from 35 yards out with 9 seconds remaining on a frigid day.

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But to say he didn’t handle the loss well would be an understatement. Bielema was giving the officials an earful throughout the game, and he took exception to at least a few calls down the stretch. One, a pass to reserve running back Isaiah Gash on a fourth down play, kept a Michigan drive alive. It appeared as though the coach wanted the Wolverines called for a pick, but a flag never came.

To all #ILL players, coaches and especially for our fans…. We will work all week in practice to defend this play especially on 4th down #famILLy https://t.co/bJhpShjbcY

— Bret Bielema (@BretBielema) November 19, 2022

“I’m extremely pissed off,” Bielema said. “Very angry. Very upset. I think our kids did a lot to win the football game, and to continually have things go against us … very frustrating.

“You have to stand up for the people you believe in. I believe in that locker room big time. I know they’ll rise up to the challenge once again.”

But they won’t win the Big Ten West, having faded in their last three games.

To be fair, the Illini benefited from some calls, as well, including one that changed the game. Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy thought he had a free play in the third quarter when an Illini defender jumped offsides — replays showed he did — on a fourth down play. He threw a deep ball on fourth and 6 from the Illinois 37 that sophomore receiver Andrel Anthony should have caught anyway, but it went through his hands.

Illinois took the momentum and scored in a handful of plays to take a 17-10 lead.

Still, Bielema was more concerned about the calls that didn’t go his way.

“Very frustrated,” he said when asked about the officiating. “I think I always look forward to film on Sundays as a coach, but I keep getting answers I don’t love, a it doesn’t help us during the course of the week. We hopefully will play a cleaner game. Some penalties have really hurt us in the last three ball games. We have to correct that internally. Iff we’re doing something illegally, then we’ve got to correct that. I’m very, very frustrated with the ending of that football game.

“I’m afraid to put [my players] in here with you guys because I don’t think they’re going to handle questions well. I think they’re angry; I think they’re frustrated. I think as coaches we have to guide them and put them through. We always talk to them about how we have to earn the things we get. I think we earned an opportunity to get a victory today. Obviously, we came up a little short. We can definitely correct some mistakes and move forward and when we’re in this position again, we can come out on top.”

Just not Saturday.

But again, the Illini played well. The defense gave up only one touchdown, and that was on the opening drive. The Wolverines moved down the field with ease to open the scoring.

Michigan also hurt the Illini with a couple screen passes, something the offense hadn’t shown much this year.

“We missed some tackles on that first drive for sure,” Bielema said. “In the first quarter, people were ramped up. We missed some uncharacteristic plays. Their screen game hurt us and we were being overly cautious to the screen game. Really, it wasn’t a lot of vertical routes. It was a lot of pick routes, mesh routes. We’ve got to play those a little bit better.

“Defensively, (Illinois defensive coordinator) Ryan (Walters) and his staff did a nice job. Especially in that second half, I thought we controlled their run game, especially when their running back (Blake Corum) wasn’t in there anymore. We thought we could do some things there.”

Corum left with a knee injury just before the half and couldn’t return. He had a couple carries in the second half before calling it a game, and the Michigan running game stagnated after that.

Bielema insisted the close loss wasn’t a moral victory for his program, noting, “I didn’t come here to lose to Michigan.” He came in confident, he insisted, and thought his team could win.

“From [listening to] the outside world, I wasn’t sure that we were [confident about the gameplan],” Bielema said. “But I was fairly certain we were going to play well. When I started watching film on Sunday last week, I took a look at these guys during our second bye week, we hadn’t seen a lot of them on crossover games. I thought it was going to be a good matchup.

“I like the way our defensive line matched up with their offensive line. I thought our offense was going to create some issues for them. We did a lot of good things and in the end, fell a little short.”