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An Illini football program on its bare hands and naked knees desperately searching for an identity found one Saturday on the sun-kissed shores of Lake Michigan.

Too bad it came in a heartbreaking loss.

If you wash down your Sunday morning coffee with the claim that you knew the Illini would take South Florida to the final play of the game, you’re either a bald-faced liar or Mrs. Lovie Smith.

Nearly every indicator going into Saturday’s game pointed to a lop-sided Illini loss. That long, long list includes the continued absence of five suspended players, three of whom are starters and all of whom should be ashamed they’ve let their team down the way they have.

It includes an injury list that has already claimed wideouts Mike Dudek and Edwin Carter, defensive tackle Jamal Milan, defensive back Sydney Brown and that Saturday made room for its starting quarterback, A.J. Bush.

Throw in the fact that Illinois is 0-4 on these trips to Soldier Field and that the opponent this time was a South Florida program that won 21 games the last two seasons and that arrived in Chicago as a 10 ½-point favorite.