Special teams are critical to the success of any football program. Just ask Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa Hawkeyes.

After stumbling through a miserable 1-6 beginning to their season, the Hawkeyes hoped to regroup with a home win over border rival Illinois on Saturday.

In the end, however, it was the Illini that came up with the truly special teams and a convincing 40-24 victory.

“Obviously, a good win for the program,” Illinois head coach Ron Turner said. “Today, this team showed some growth.”

Iowa opened the game with a 33-yard Tim Douglas field goal and later added a 47-yard Ladell Betts touchdown, but found themselves trailing Illinois 16-10 at the half.

In fact, they found themselves trailing Illinois kicker Neil Rackers 16-10 at the half.

In addition to drilling three field goals, from 37, 49 and a career high 50 yards, Rackers also caught a TD pass on a fake field goal early in the second quarter. After kicking that extra point, Rackers had accounted for all 16 first half points.

Turner said after the game that he didn’t hesitate to use his kicker’s trick-play.

“[Special teams coach] Greg [McMahon] came to me on Tuesday and said, ‘I think we can try this.’ We have been practicing it throughout the year,” Turner said. “I didn’t hesitate at all. We had it called earlier in the game but one of our guys forgot to call a timeout. Give credit to Neil. He’s a good athlete and [holder Steve] Fitts is a good athlete.”

Rackers couldn’t have been more thrilled with his contribution after the game.

“There’s no better feeling than a touchdown,” Rackers said. “I don’t know how to describe it. As soon as I caught it and got into the end zone, I had a nice smile.”

Before the game was over, Rackers added a fourth field goal from 37 yards out and a trio of extra points to push his single-game total to 22 points, the all-time Illinois record for a kicker — all of this after a four-game string of poor showings.

“Three misses in four games — that’s not a streak I was proud of,” Rackers said. “As a kicker, that gets inside your head. The thing that frustrated me was that even though I wasn’t doing my job, I wasn’t doing anything any different. I told myself all week, don’t change anything.”

Illinois scored the first 10 points of the second half thanks to a gift kickoff fumble by Iowa return man Tim Dodge.

After Rackers’ last field goal, Dodge fumbled the ensuing kick inside the Iowa 20 and Illinois QB Kurt Kittner needed just three plays to find the endzone with a 9-yard TD toss to Elmer Hickman.

Iowa fought back to within two at 26-24, but Illinois held strong, scoring the final 14 points of the game.

“When a team has momentum like Iowa had, somebody needs to step up and make plays,” Turner said. “I thought Kittner made great decisions and threw the ball where guys had chances to make big plays.”

Turner believed his team’s persistence after their heartbreaking loss to Indiana two weeks ago spelled the difference against the Hawkeyes.

“We were in this same situation a few weeks ago,” Turner said. “We had the lead, lost the momentum and couldn’t get it back, and lost the game. Today, we came back and won the game. I think that shows growth in the program and character for our team.”

Iowa was hampered down the stretch by poor defensive output and a crucial running-into-the-kicker penalty on fourth-and-four in the final quarter.

The Hawkeyes have lost 11 straight conference contests dating back to last season.