The Illinois football players should have worn "handle with care" labels Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

After getting off to their first solid start of their conference season against Michigan State, mistakes shattered the Illini's confidence — and any hope that the game against the Spartans was going to halt their season's downhill slide before it hit 1-6.

The now-No. 15 Spartans, however, left Champaign virtually undented and left the broken Illini with a 49-14 bruising, their worst defeat of the season.

"We came out with good energy and had a better start, it's just our confidence is so fragile right now, when something bad happens, it's like we lose all of our confidence," Illinois head coach Ron Turner said. "It all just kind of collapsed."

This week's breaking point came three minutes into the second quarter. The Illini defense had made two stops. The Illini offense magically re-found some of its rushing game and tied the score at seven, their first tie in three games. Then Spartans safety Eric Smith came crashing down on their mini roll. Smith picked off Illinois quarterback Jon Beutjer's first pass of the drive. Michigan State went on to score a touchdown — and five consecutive touchdowns after that.

"I saw clear land, and I got all excited, and suddenly that safety came out of nowhere," said Beutjer, who threw one more interception for a touchdown in the third quarter.

The Illini went into the locker room at halftime with a 14-point deficit and didn't score again until there was one minute remaining in the game.

"I thought we were going to come out strong (in the second half) because two touchdowns can be turned around in such a short amount of time," Illini linebacker Winston Taylor said. "It was disappointing to see that we didn't come out with the fire we had. But I think it comes from the games before when we were down by 21 and we couldn't come back from that deficit."

That lack of "fire" helped Spartans quarterback Jeff Smoker, the Big Ten's passing leader, to another solid performance. Against a thin Illini secondary without cornerbacks Alan Ball, who is injured, and Darnell Ray, who was suspended, Smoker completed 74 percent of his passes for 317 yards — a change of pace for the Illini who were run over by Wisconsin and Purdue.

Beutjer put up 146 yards along with his two interceptions before Turner substituted in redshirt freshman Chris Pazan in the fourth quarter because they "needed a spark," Beutjer said. Pazan threw for the final touchdown drive, but even a forest fire couldn't help the Illini at that point.

And now at this point in the season, the only thing that can help the Illini to the postseason is winning all five of their remaining games — which include three ranked opponents — in the next three weeks.

Turner, who has become the subject of scrutiny among dwindling fans, said his team will simply work to improve. And his team said they will just continue to play because they love the game.

"It's easy for guys to hang their head when things don't go our way or we have a bad play or a three and out. But that's where I have to come in and the seniors have to come in and keep the team in it," running back E.B. Halsey said. "We've got to keep leading this team."