IOWA CITY, Iowa — There were signs that Illinois' Halloween-weekend game at Iowa was going to be another cursed one even before the opening kickoff.

As the Illini warmed up at Kinnick Stadium on Saturday, defensive end Derrick Strong looked like he was about to be added to the Illini's full list of injured players. While running a drill, Strong "tweaked" an ankle that had bothered him before and had to limp to the team trainer.

He said he recovered after five minutes and was able to play for the Illini.

But the problems continued.

Strong's injury was the first in a string of sour events that ended with a 41-10 Illini loss to the Hawkeyes and extended their season-long curse to 1-9.

"That was unbelievable," Illinois head coach Ron Turner said of Strong's injury. "That's kind of the way the year has gone ... I didn't know what was going on. The team was saying that, "What's going on here?'"

Illinois' frightening weekend continued with the Hawkeyes' opening drive, which lasted for nine minutes, contained five penalties and resulted in the first of Iowa's seven scoring drives.

The Illini even looked to have stopped the Hawkeyes' drive on a third-and-17 play, but were called for a pass interference that kept the drive alive. Iowa exhausted the Illini with eight different receivers catching at least one pass for 261 yards and 10 different players combining for 244 rushing yards.

"(The opening drive) was a huge strain," Turner said. "That first drive took up a ton of time, and then offensively we couldn't get anything going. We've got to get some first downs and move the ball and get our defense off the field."

The Illini offense was hexed with injuries last weekend that kept out their three starting running backs and two starting receivers, struggled to just 36 rushing yards in the first half (59 total) against one of the best rushing defenses in the country. In his first start, true freshman starting tailback Marcus Mason recorded 42 of those yards and 1 fumbled.

The passing game wasn't that much better. Starting quarterback Dustin Ward mustered 108 passing yards in three quarters and also fumbled once.

And even when the Illini did manage to get into scoring range, the plague continued.

Illini kicker John Gockman watched as bad luck struck his field goal attempt — and the left upright — twice to leave the Illini with no score. He missed a 48-yarder when the ball bounced away from the goal post at the end of the second quarter and missed a 43-yarder when the same thing happened in the third quarter.

"Both kicks felt solid off my foot," Gockman said. "Both felt real good, the best I've hit the ball in a long time. It's easy to say that's just the way it's going, but part of that's on me."

Backup quarterback Chris Pazan entered the game in the fourth quarter to provide some offensive relief. He put up 98 yards and one touchdown and set up Gockman for a recovery with a 24-yard field goal in the fourth quarter. But the damage was already done.

"It seems to be contagious this year. Every time we seem to catch a break or get something going, something bad happens right away to take that away," Illini receiver Mark Kornfeld said. "I don't have the magic formula to break it ... Things are just contagious. They just constantly keep going in the wrong direction."

And Illinois has two games left to turn it around. The Illini, who enter their final stretch without a Big Ten win, have only games against Indiana and Northwestern to try to repair injuries and egos — and lift whatever curse there might be.