Illinois Head Coach Admits They Had Tackling Issues Against Duke

The Duke Blue Devils are now 2-0 on the college football season thanks to a 31-27 win at Illinois over the Fighting Illini on Saturday.

While Duke entered the game as underdogs and the experts picked against them, they answered the call with a big win. Quarterback Walker Eget had a bounce-back performance, while running back Nate Sheppard continued to play really well early in the year. 

Coming off a game against Tulane in which Sheppard had over 200 rushing yards, the Illini wanted to key in on him. While their game plan was likely to try and limit him, it didn't work well.

Sheppard ran for 147 and a touchdown while adding two receiving touchdowns, putting together another monster game. A big reason why was his ability to break tackles and pick up extra yards. That's something that Illinois head coach Bret Bielema pointed out in his post-game press conference. 

"20 is a really good player. He can make people miss, but also no excuses for us. We got to wrap up," Bielema said. "I thought there were several times where we had guys stopped and they fell forward for five, six, seven yards or even ran through some tackles and not just running our feet. There was a big emphasis on that on Wednesday especially. I had everybody do a drill that basically brought our feet from a tackling standpoint. I think we're going to have to double down and go that more. Most of the tackles that we're missing are just that we're not continuing to drive our feet. We're just wrapping and reaching. We're not finishing our tackles."

Illinois knew they needed to make sure they wrapped up and took Sheppard to the ground but he still managed to break free more than once. It's clear he, along with Eget was a big difference maker in this game. 

As Duke moves forward this season, those two are going to be keys to success for the Blue Devils and what they want to do with this offense.  And with their hot start, the Blue Devils are taking this momentum into the ACC schedule.