CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Northwestern began the game against Illinois with a changeup, running the ball 29 times in the first half – more than it had in two entire games this season. But the Wildcats defense threw the Illini a curveball, reverting to early season form by giving up easy yardage and quick scores.

So in the beginning of the third quarter with the Cats (7-4, 5-3 Big Ten) up 24-21, NU coach Randy Walker called for the fastball.

Walker’s “fastball” is a fake field goal play he has used eight times in his career, and this time it led to redshirt freshman running back Gerard Hamlett running untouched down the right side of the field before diving into the endzone for his first career touchdown.

“I think that play just really broke their hearts,” Hamlett said. “They probably felt like they had a chance before that, but that just pretty much sealed it.”

The Illini (2-9, 0-8) mounted a drive their next possession, going all the way to the NU nine-yard line. But NU senior defensive lineman Barry Cofield read the screen pass that eventually came and positioned himself in the way, bobbling the ball before rumbling 16 yards and eliminating almost any chance Illinois had of winning its first Big Ten contest of the year.

“We need to make a play or two on defense, and we need to do it every game,” Walker said. “It was huge, probably the play of the game.”

Illinois couldn’t mount a consistent offensive attack the rest of the game while NU continued its offensive attack en route to the 38-21 win.

The Cats gained 596 yards and scored more than 30 points for the first time since scoring 49 against Michigan State on Oct. 22.

“The past couple of weeks we’ve been struggling a lot,” freshman running back Tyrell Sutton said. “We’d get rolling for one series and then we’d sort of stall. It felt really good to actually keep our offense rolling.”

Sutton rushed for more than 200 yards for the third time this season with 212 yards on 34 carries.

Senior quarterback Brett Basanez set an NU single-game pass completion record, completing 25-of-31 passes for 240 yards in blustery conditions, while throwing two touchdown passes. He also rushed 17 times for 85 yards, scoring twice more on the ground.

“He’s never really struggled in the wind,” Walker said. “We’ve had some conditions like that this year, and he’s always been pretty good.”

The NU offense seemed to be back to midseason form in the first half, but the defense followed suit, regressing to the form that led the team to bottom out as the nation’s statistically worst defense.

NU gave up 21 points to Illinois in the second quarter, which is more than the Illini totaled in seven contests this season.

“I think they just came out and gave us a good punch, knocked us on our heels,” Cofield said. “But we were able to gather ourselves and come out and put it together, cut out a lot of mental errors that plagued us in the first half.”

Even with the defense’s improvement in the second half, it was still the fake field goal that started the process of putting the game way.

“We’ve being doing it every other year or so for a long time,” Walker said. “It always works. It’s eight for eight now. It’s never been stopped. It’s really hard. Seriously, it’s never been stopped.”

Walker said he began to think about running the play on second down, with NU at Illinois’ 28-yard line against a stiff wind.

Because the “fastball” team is different than a normal field goal team, Walker said he has to make the decision quickly and get the correct personnel on the field without giving anything away.

Illinois noticed the changed in personnel and coaches and players began to yell ‘fake’ to no avail.

“You can yell fake all you want, but we’ll just execute it perfectly and it’s still going to work,” said sophomore fullback Chris Malleo, who received the snap on the play.

After Malleo received the snap, he placed the ball under Hamlett while Hamlett ducked down. Then, Malleo and sophomore tight end Frayne Abernathy, who began to run in motion well before the snap, and the offensive line all ran to the left side of the field.

“I got the ball and saw nobody on the edge, everybody was running the other way,” Hamlett said. “So it was off to the races.”

With the victory, Walker moved alone into second all-time in victories at NU. He is also the only coach since the 1929-1931 seasons when Dick Hanley accomplished the feat.

Reach Abe Rakov at [email protected].