The grimace on Lonnie Hurst's face as he was carted off the Memorial Stadium field Saturday said it all.

The Illini not only continued their seven-game losing streak with a 36-10 homecoming loss to Minnesota, but they also added another few names to the string of injuries that is unraveling their season.

"It just seems like every week you look up and somebody else is missing a game and somebody is hurt," Illini fullback Carey Davis said.

Hurst was one of three key players that was driven away from the Illini sidelines mid-game in an injury vehicle that is beginning to rack up as much mileage as the Minnesota running backs did Saturday.

The Illini's starting receiver left the game in the fourth quarter with an ankle injury that left him struggling to even get in the injury trailer.

He was preceded to the trailer by the Illini's other starting receiver, Kelvin Hayden. Hayden left the game with a high ankle sprain after notching a 39-yard pass play in the third quarter. A few plays later, starting running back Pierre Thomas left the game when he took a helmet to the leg for a deep bone bruise.

The Illini will know more about the players' status for next Saturday's game at Iowa later this week.

"We've been banged up, and now it's worse," Illinois head coach Ron Turner said. "Usually it works when you start getting them, you get them all at the same position. Some years you don't get any. I've gone through seasons where we don't have any, but we've gotten a lot. That's part of it. You've just got to keep going."

That carry-on attitude seemed to be working in the first half of Saturday's game.

With quarterback Jon Beutjer sidelined for the rest of the season with a back injury and starting running back E.B. Halsey out with a sprained knee, the Illini still managed to put together some offense early.

Thomas looked strong in his relief role, putting up 59 rushing yards in the first half (70 total).

And after falling behind 17-0, senior quarterback Dustin Ward replaced starter Chris Pazan in the second quarter to give the offense a spark and lead the Illini on a touchdown drive.

But then the same old story set in.

Down 17-7, Ward led the Illini to the Minnesota 10-yard line with about two minutes to go in the first half. But a botched pass to Hayden was intercepted by the Golden Gophers' Justin Isom, and the Illini went to the locker room without their second score.

"(Hayden) got tripped up a little, and I missed him," Ward said. "It floated a little on me and kept going, and I didn't see what happened from then on. I just know they got it. That's a lot of momentum. It would have been nice, real nice."

Add a third-quarter touchdown pass to Mark Kornfeld that would have brought Illinois within nine points of Minnesota as another thing that "would have been nice" for the Illini.

Kornfeld caught a 10-yard pass from Ward, but officials ruled that he stepped out of bounds in the end zone and re-entered to catch the pass.

"It was just disappointing because it's not like I gained an advantage by anything I did, but the fact is that's the rule and I have to have better awareness and make sure I don't do that," Kornfeld said. "That would have been a big momentum change."

But it wasn't.

Illinois scored a field goal and didn't score again, and Minnesota continued to run all over the Illini defense for 338 rushing yards (575 total).

"We were hanging in there for a while and had a chance before the half. And then we just got worn down," Turner said. "They just kept running the same plays and pounding us and we got worn down."

The Gophers' Laurence Maroney and Marion Barber III did most of the damage, combining for 308 of those yards.

"They don't wear down," Illini linebacker Winston Taylor said. "They weren't really physical, but they were just really good at getting in your way ... I think they have three really good backs. They have good vision. I didn't know which one was which. They just kept rotating them."

Rotation is not much of an option for the Illini these days after suffering a string of defensive losses — and now a separate string on offense.

But the Illini said the only thing they can do is keep working as the losses — of games and players — keep piling up.

"We're not going to use that as our crutch. We're not going to make that as our excuse," Davis said. "It's football — people get injured every day. People are going to have to step in and make plays for those that get hurt."