EVANSTON-Northwestern played its season-finale against Illinois on Saturday. The Land of Lincoln Trophy and in-state bragging rights were on the line.

But the game seemed like an afterthought for a Wildcat program already looking to put a dreadful 2022 season in its rearview mirror. The Wildcats certainly played that way, anyway.

Illinois sent the Wildcats to their 11th straight defeat with an easy, workmanlike 41-3 victory in front of a Ryan Field crowd that was considerably more orange than purple. The Wildcats turned the ball over six times and became just the fourth team in school history to lose 11 games in a single season, joining the 1980, 1981 and 1989 teams that all finished 0-11.

The Wildcats, who haven’t won since the season opener in Dublin, Ireland, exactly three months ago to the day, have now lost 17 of their last 18 games dating to last October.

After Northwestern won six straight Hat trophies from 2015-2020, Illinois claimed it for the second straight year, a sign of the shifting of power in the state of Illinois. Bret Bielema, in his second season as the head coach in Champaign, has 8-4 Illinois in a bowl game. They were a Purdue loss away from winning the Big Ten West.

Pat Fitzgerald’s Wildcats, meanwhile, have gone 4-18 over the last two seasons since claiming the 2020 West division crown. They’ve lost the last two games to Illinois by a combined score of 88-17.

Defensive back Sydney Brown was the unexpected star for Illinois, scoring two touchdowns, on a scoop-and-score and a pick-six in the third quarter, to lead the Illini in scoring. He also had an interception. Chase Brown and Reggie Love III combined for 146 yards and two touchdowns rushing.

Northwestern quarterback Cole Freeman finished 12-of-22 passing for 93 yards and four interceptions. He was relieved late in the third quarter by freshman Jack Lausch, who threw the final interception late in the fourth quarter.

Northwestern running back Evan Hull entered the game needing 140 yards for a second straight 1,000-yard season but could muster just 54 yards on 19 carries.

The Wildcats seemed to be going through the motions on Saturday. There would be no performance boost from playing their rivals and send the seniors out on a high note, like the 2019 team that went into Champaign 2-9 and emerged with a stunning victory. This team continued what has been its M.O. all season by getting outplayed from whistle-to-whistle.

In the first quarter, Illinois star Chase Brown, the nation's leading rusher, was helped off the field with an injury. So Love III came in off the bench and carried the ball six times for 43 yards and a TD to give the Illini an early 7-0 lead.

On their next drive, Illinois showed just how much respect they have for the Wildcats when punter Hugh Robertson decided to make a dash for it on fourth-and-12 from his own 25-yard line. He made it easily, running for 23 yards to move the chains.

Northwestern got into a bit of an offensive rhythm and drove 59 yards to the Illinois 21-yard line in the first quarter. But it ended there, as so many drives have all season, with a turnover. Freeman’s pass got picked off by Devon Witherspoon, who returned it to the NU 28-yard line. Illinois eventually got inside the NU 5 but had to settle for a Caleb Griffin 23-yard field goal to make it 10-0.

There may not have been a better play to symbolize Northwestern’s season than Freeman’s next interception, when his second-quarter pass bounced off Evan Hull's hands, then Illinois LB Alec Bryant's hands, then down Bryant's back and into the arms of Brown for the pick.

Illinois stretched its lead to 17-0 on a Tommy DeVito one-yard run with 1:25 left in the first half. That just about put a bow on it for the Illini, as the Wildcats hadn’t scored more than 13 points since a 31-24 loss at Maryland on Oct. 22.

Illinois tacked on a 43-yard Griffin field goal in the third quarter to make it 20-0 after Northwestern surrendered the ball on downs at its own 47-yard line.

Things went from bad to worse after Brown picked up a fumble off of a bad exchange between Freeman and Andrew Clair and ran 53 yards for the scoop-and-score to make it 27-0. Brown then tacked on a 39-yard pick-six later in the third to extend the lead to 34-0 and cross the threshold to embarrassing for the Wildcats.

Chase Brown added a one-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter for the Illini.

Fitzgerald now has some decisions to make to ensure that 2023 looks substantially different than 2022. He called this season “unacceptable” two weeks ago, especially after the $270 million Walter Athletic Center opened in 2018 and plans for an $800 million rebuild of Ryan Field have already been announced. That’s a lot of money for very little return on investment.

He said after the game that he would evaluate everything from "the macro level" this coming week. Everything, it would seem, should be on the table.