COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Illinois found a way to get the its first conference win against a 5-1 Maryland Terrapins team 27-24 in College Park, Maryland, Saturday.
Illinois head coach Bret Bielema made it very clear that when he took the Illinois job, he would find a way to keep the top talent in the state at home.
One of the top running backs in the country is from a small town in-state. Kaden Feagin, a 6-foot-3, 250-pound freshman from Atwood, Illinois, had his coming out party today. Bielema made it crystal clear to the Feagin family how important he was to the future success at Illinois. Saturday evening, the country saw why.
The All-State running back picked Illinois over Indiana, Iowa, Miami, Michigan, Minnesota, Notre Dame, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
Illinois was able to secure its running game again behind a great performance from Feagin Saturday. He finished with a career-high 84 yards rushing on 19 attempts. Coming into the game, Illinois ranked 11th in the conference in rushing at 126 yards a contest — most of that through sophomore quarterback Luke Altmyer.
Feagin said after his first career start, "We have been trying to put this together each week, so to finally execute was nice. We still have stuff to work on. Our locker room was crazy–guys dancing, all of it, we needed this."
Illinois' victory was a lot of first-time events, including Feagin's first scoring touchdown, first conference win, first road win and first victory on NBC sports.
Bielema was aware of those accomplishments but said in his post-game press conference, "I'm excited for our guys, they have been through a lot, they stuck together and they practiced extremely hard. I told them everyone is trying to tell you why you can't, I'm here to tell you why you can."
"It seemed like the team fed off my play a lot, it seemed like they did. I'm a (true) freshman, I'm just trying to bring the energy to the team," Feagin said. "It's hard to win in this league, Coach Bielema tells us that all of the time."
Illinois is now 1-3 in conference play and 3-4 overall. It will take on the Wisconsin Badgers for Homecoming Saturday at 2:30 p.m. CT on FS1.
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