The Illinois State Redbirds knew what Eastern’s weakness was entering Saturday’s game and did everything they could to exploit it.

“Defensively, we wanted to test their offensive line,” ISU head coach Denver Johnson said. “We knew the youngsters they play in the middle of that line might not be able to handle the blitzes we were throwing at them.”

All three of the young starters Eastern has play on the inside of the offensive line. Eric Johnson and Jon Rueter, the two starting guards, are both red-shirt freshmen and the center Pascal Matla is a sophomore.

What all three have in common is they are seeing their first action on the football field as regular starters this year.

Knowing this going into the game, Johnson said his aggressive style of defense had an even better chance to succeed against the inexperienced offensive line Eastern was starting.

The gameplan Johnson devised called for his two defensive tackles to split to the outside instead of pushing straight to the middle. This separated Eastern’s line and made room for the blitzing linebackers, who were usually ISU’s two middle linebackers Boomer Grigsby and Gene Gilot.

The results were typically what Johnson expected as Grigsby, a senior and a Buchanon Award candidate for the best linebacker in Division I-AA, again led the team with eight tackles and added one sack in the defensive onslaught.

His counterpart at middle linebacker, Gilot, added five additional tackles.

An additional problem caused constant pressure up the middle as to force the tackles on the offensive line to be isolated against the defensive ends. The offensive line’s only help was a running back if Andre Raymond stayed in the backfield.

The man to take advantage of this the most was ISU senior defensive end Ray Robinson, who finished the game with six tackles and three sacks on junior quarterback Andy Vincent.

ISU was able to sack Vincent three more times in addition to Robinson’s effort as the Redbirds had constant pressure on the junior quarterback.

The pressure caused Vincent to either take the sack or throw the pass earlier than he wanted.

“I should be able to make those kind of plays,” Vincent said. “Any kind of real man would say hey, I have to get it done.”

It also was tough for Eastern to balance its offense when sacks were taken or yards were lost early in the set of downs. That forced the Eastern offense into even more passing downs because of long yardage situations.

“It is tough to have an efficient offense on second and third and long,” Vincent said.

The efficient offense Eastern was looking to find against ISU was missing in the second half as the Panthers were kept off the scoreboard.

“Blitzing is going to hurt us until we learn how to beat it,” Eastern coach Bob Spoo said. “It’s the same thing we just haven’t learned how to handle it.”