BLOOMINGTON - As debaters, John McCain and Barack Obama didn't get high marks from a sampling of Twin City university students who watched the presidential candidates face off Friday night.

An Illinois Wesleyan University political science major and two Illinois State University debate team members agreed the two senators needed to stay focused and offer more specifics.

"I think it was a little bit too much of a free-for-all," said IWU junior Scott Black, Mount Prospect. "I'd like a little more structure."

He said Obama, D-Ill., was more specific on answering policy questions while Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., favored sketching a broad conservative philosophy. He noted both candidates frequently were talking at the same time and described some exchanges as bickering.

When asked what he'd give each candidate for a grade, he replied, "I'd give them both D's."

Moderator Jim Lehrer, the veteran PBS news anchor, did not seem to have control of the debate, Black said.

Black was among more than 100 IWU students who watched the debate on a large screen at Beckman Auditorium in the Ames Library on the Bloomington campus.

Among students watching at ISU in Normal were two members of that school's debate team.

"I'd say McCain came off a lot stronger," said Robert Kosic, Naperville, a debater and senior political science major at Illinois State University. "McCain talked over Obama a lot. Obama acquiesced a lot."

He said he would give McCain a C-plus and Obama a C for overall performance.

Neither candidate offered much in the way of new ideas to address the economic crisis, and national security issues were covered only superficially, Kosic said. The debate was supposed to focus on foreign policy, but the current economic crisis dominated early discussion.

He said he thought Obama smiled only when angry with McCain, but McCain seemed to smile throughout.

While Obama had a better persuasive narrative, McCain was stronger on facts and historical perspectives, said Alex Berger, an ISU senior philosophy major from Rock Island who also is on the debate team.

He said at the outset neither candidate was very specific about what they would do the address the country's economic crisis. That seemed to set the tone for the entire debate, which lacked specifics throughout, he said.

Berger thought Lehrer "did a good job - at least trying to force the candidates to differentiate their positions."