St. Louis ? A seemingly safe 24-point lead in hand, Missouri nearly self-destructed over the final 20 minutes of Saturday’s season opener against Illinois.

It took a leaping interception by Cornelius Brown at the one-yard-line with 51 seconds to play to salvage the Tigers’ 40-34 win.

“Certainly disappointed in the comedy of errors that we made,” Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said. “It certainly wasn’t from a lack of effort. We made plays when we had to, and fortunately, we found a way to win it.”

The Tigers survived bad tackling, costly penalties, a blocked punt for a touchdown and another punt for zero yards after a bad snap.

Then again, Illinois had five turnovers on three fumbles and two interceptions and had both a fumble and a punt returned for a touchdown.

“You can’t turn the ball over and you can’t give up a punt return for a touchdown,” Illinois coach Ron Zook said. “Those things can’t happen. If you don’t do that, it would be a completely different ballgame.”

Chase Daniel threw three touchdown passes for Missouri, leading the Tigers to a big third-quarter lead.

In fact, the Tigers seemed on their way to a runaway win after freshman Jeremy Maclin ran back a punt untouched 66 yards for a score that made it 37-13 with 6:11 to go in the third quarter.

Then Illinois redshirt freshman quarterback Eddie McGee – in the game after starter Juice Williams was lost after a blow to the head in the second quarter – shook off the jitters.

McGee scored on a 16-yard run to make it 37-20 with 4:08 to play in the third quarter. After Missouri fumbled on a double-reverse, McGee needed just one play to score again, this time on a 41-yard pass to Kyle Hudson.

Illinois got within three early in the fourth quarter. Daniel was blind-sided near his own goal line and fumbled. Two plays later, Rashard Mendenhall scored from the four.

Jeff Wolfert’s 32-yard field goal with 8:32 to play gave Missouri some breathing room, but Illinois had one final chance.

Taking over with 2:51 to play, McGee converted on a fourth-and-10 and led the Illini to the Missouri 22. But on first down and with 51 seconds to play, he lofted a ball toward the end zone. Brown leaped high and held on at the 1, and the Tigers ran out the clock.

“I just threw a bad ball,” McGee said. “I should have thrown it down.”

Illinois scored first when Vontae Davis blocked a punt at the two, recovered it himself, and scored. Then Missouri closed out the half with 23 straight points.

McGee was 17-for-31 for 257 yards and a touchdown, but lost two fumbles and was intercepted twice. One of the fumbles came when McGee was inches from scoring on a quarterback draw in the second quarter. Missouri safety Pig Brown scooped up the ball and ran 100 yards for the score.

Daniel was 37-for-54 for 359 yards and threw touchdown passes of one yard to Chase Coffman in the first quarter, two yards to Will Franklin in the second and 25 yards to Maclin in the third.

Martin Rucker caught 10 passes for 86 yards for Missouri. Danario Alexander had nine catches for 82 yards, but is expected to miss one month after dislocating his wrist late in the game.

Mendenhall rushed for just 33 yards on 11 carries, but scored twice, including a 25-yard run on Illinois’ first possession of the third quarter.

Williams was scrambling near the sideline early in the second quarter when he appeared to take a helmet-to-helmet hit from Missouri cornerback Hardy Ricks. No penalty was called.