This Illinois muffed punt against Rutgers is one of the sadder football things you’ll ever see

The saddest punt muffing of the year, bar none:

Rutgers and Illinois are playing a very sad football game on Saturday. They’re the two worst teams in the Big Ten, and they entered a combined 3-7.

“How could this get more morbid?” someone might ask.

The answer: Illinois freshman punt returner Carmoni Green could let a punt bounce for a while, then decide to scoop it up and run with it just as a couple of Rutgers coverage men converge on him. The two Rutgers players could make a human sandwich out of Green, and the ball could squirt loose, then get recovered as a fumble by Rutgers.

(This is the point in the program where we must pause to praise Rutgers’ punter, Ryan Anderson. This thing went in the books as a 60-yard punt before the Illinois fumble, which is excellent stuff. College football fandom rule No. 6: Watch otherwise-boring Big Ten games just so you’ll see some good punts. Salute to Rutgers on that.)

Anyway, this was a bad choice. Illinois’ coaching staff should probably do more to impress upon its players that trying to pick up the ball and run on plays like that is not smart.