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Eastern Illinois (0-2) at Illinois State (1-1)
Hancock Stadium (13,391)  •   Normal, Ill.
September 17, 2022   •   6:30 p.m.   •   TV: Marquee Network / ESPN+

EIU Game Notes  |  ILST Game Notes  |  Listen Live  |  Live Stats  |  Watch on ESPN+

NOTES TO KNOW
• Eastern Illinois and Illinois State will meet for the 110th time in the Mid-America Classic on Saturday night.  The rivalry is the eighth longest played non-Ivy League FCS series between schools (16th overall among FCS schools counting Ivy League).  The schools first met in 1901 with EIU winning 28-0.  The schools began playing for a traveling trophy in the rivalry with the 100th meeting of the series on Sept. 1, 2011 (a 33-26 EIU win).  The two schools have missed playing just three times since World War II - in 1996 due to conference realignment, in 2001 due to 9/11 and in 2020 due to COVID.

• Eastern Illinois head coach Chris Wilkerson and Illinois State head coach Brock Spack have a long standing relationship.  When Spack was an assistant coach at Eastern Illinois under head coach Bob Spoo, he recruited Wilkerson to play at Eastern Illinois in 1990.  Spack served as Wilkerson's position group coach when Wilkerson redshirted the 1990 season at EIU before Spack left for an assistant coaching stop at Purdue.  

• Jonah O'Brien passed for two touchdowns in Saturday's loss to No. 10 Chattanooga as he passed for 183 yards.  O'Brien now has five touchdown passes this season which ranks him 12th in the FCS in touchdown passes.  O'Brien has connected with five different receivers for touchdown passes.  Last season EIU's offense had just eight touchdown passes for the entire season with four different players scoring with touchdown receptions. 

• Punter Trey Wilhoit had a solid day for the Panthers against No. 10 Chattanooga as he had six punts for an average of 46 yards per punt.  He had a long punt of 62 yards while pinning another punt inside the 20-yard line.   In the season opener at Northern Illinois, Wilhoit had one punt for 54 yards.  He is one punt attempt shy of qualifying for the national FCS leaders where he would rank tied for second at 47.1 yards per punt. 

• Colin Bohanek led the Panthers defense with ten tackles against No. 10 Chattanooga including a first quarter interception that led to the opening EIU score.  It was the second career interception for the sophomore linebacker.  The ten tackles marked the fourth time Bohanek has recorded double digit tackles in his EIU career.  Last year he was second in the OVC with 89 tackles.