Posts tagged JuiceWilliams at FanHouse

1. James Laurinaitis, LB, THE Ohio State University: I hope Laurinaitis is ready for the backlash, because after we all decide we're sick of being sick of hearing about T** T***w, Laurinaitis is probably next on our scorn list. Pity. In a league that always has a sampler platter of great linebackers, Laurinaitis is a standout among the standouts, and there isn't much left for him to accomplish. He already has a Nagurski Award and a Butkus Award to go along with more conference-based awards than just about any defensive player ever. So, yeah, he's pretty good, even if we're all going to be sick of hearing Brent Musberger talk about him by, say, late September. Or at least we would be, if not for all the time Musberger is sure to spend talking about ...

2. Beanie Wells, RB, THE Ohio State University: This guy must be part cyborg. At 6'1" and somewhere in the 230s, he's just another prototypical Buckeye running back. You know the type. Big, not overly flashy, and about as easy to tackle as a 40-foot oak tree. Wells, however, has that magical 6th gear, the one that changes the sound of his motor from "vroooooom" to "Oh no you don't!" Wells is on every Heisman watch list out there; if anybody can knock off T** T***w, here he is.

The Fighting Illini were quite the surprise in college football last season, going 9-4 overall and 6-2 in the Big Ten a year after finishing 2-10. The quick turnaround in Champaign resulted in the first Rose Bowl berth for the Illini since 1983, and the team celebrated by getting their butts kicked 49-17 by USC.

Still, despite the embarrassment handed them by the Trojans, the 2007 season can't be considered anything less than a raging success at Illinois.

The question is, will the Illini be able to carry that success into the 2008 season? History suggests they won't as they've generally followed every winning season with a losing season in Champaign, but that was before the recruiting machine that is Ron Zook came to town.

So will the Illini continue their climb to becoming a Big Ten powerhouse, or will they return to the back of the pack?

Curtis Painter is mediocre

Ah, mediocre football. The annual rite of late summer where fans of middling programs congregate and tell each other things like "if our offensive line is solid then I don't see why we can't go to a New Year's Day Bowl." Soon, of course, love and hopes are, well, amended.

By "amended," of course, we mean "discarded in favor of bloodthirsty savages on sports talk radio complaining about the coordinators and accusing the team of not wanting to win." It's a strange reaction to a 7- or 8-win season, of course, one that ends up in a warm climate in late December (grisly exception: Motor City Bowl, war-torn Bosnia Detroit). The fans never seem to get it: it could be so, so much worse. Look at Minnesota last season.

While Michigan, Ohio State, and (usually) Penn State represent the perennial powerhouse typification for the Big Ten, the conference usually hosts quite a few more mediocre programs. 2008 is no exception. Let's look at some of the programs that, let's be honest, don't stand a prayer of taking the Big Ten crown this season.

I already said earlier this week that Illinois running back Rashard Mendenhall would be skipping out on his senior season to enter the NFL draft, and now Rashard has gone and done something I haven't been able to do in 20 years or so.

He made me look smart.

Illinois junior running back Rashard Mendenhall will enter the NFL draft, a source close to him said Saturday.

Mendenhall, the Big Ten Player of the Year, made his final case as a pro prospect in the Rose Bowl, where he gained 155 yards rushing and added 59 receiving yards in the Fighting Illini's loss to Southern California.

Rashard's mother, Sibyl, says there's a press conference on Thursday at her son's old high school, Niles West.

While Mendenhall's absence is going to be a tough void to fill in Illinois' offense next season, Ron Zook actually sees his early departure as a good thing for the program.

Zook said he not only has no problem with [Rashard's departure], but also is looking forward to having more Illini leave Champaign early. Because that will mean Illinois is enjoying success as a team.

''We're going to get to a point in the program where we're going to have that issue. That's what you want. We have some other guys on this team that are going to have the opportunity possibly to do that.''

I have a feeling Ron may not feel the same way next season when he doesn't have Rashard around to bail Juice Williams out.

You would think that in a college football season that currently has Kansas ranked #2 in the BCS for a possible matchup with LSU, voters would start thinking outside the box. I mean, South Florida was ranked #2 earlier this season.

For the most part, I've been impressed by the AP voters and coaches for their willingness to adjust to the ever changing landscape of college football, but there's one team out there that still isn't getting any respect in my opinion.

The Fighting Illini are currently ranked 18th in both the AP and Coaches poll. It's my opinion, and one I used in my Blogpoll ballot, that the Illini are a top ten team right now.

Sure, they're 9-3 and nobody in the top ten has three losses, but I don't think losses are the end all be all of a team's ability. Oregon has only two losses, but without Dennis Dixon, are they a top 10 team? They sure didn't look like one against Arizona on Thursday night.

I know Hawaii is 10-0, but they're Hawaii. They needed a last second field goal to beat powerhouse Nevada on Friday night. I know the Illini are better than Hawaii, yet they're ranked three spots below them in the polls.

But let's take a look at what Ron Zook and his boys have done this season.

It's not exactly the most covered quarterback controversy in the country, in fact most didn't even realize there was one, but the Illini had a question to answer this week. After Juice Williams was knocked out of Illinois' season opening loss to Missouri, his backup Eddie McGee came in and played pretty well. Nearly leading the Illini to victory in the fourth quarter.

McGee's performance had many Illinois fans wondering if maybe Juice Williams was the right man for the job. McGee appeared to be more accurate, and could move just as well as Juice. The problem was McGee's Grossman-like tendency to commit turnovers at the worst times.

He had one fumble at the goal line that Missouri safety Pig Lewis returned 100 yards for a touchdown. Then, in the fourth quarter, as the Illini were driving to take the lead McGee threw a game ending interception.

All of which means that Juice Williams isn't going to lose his job.

"Juice got his eye dinged up, but he's fine,'' Zook said. "He had as good a practice (Monday) as he has all summer. There's no problem there.''

Zook said Williams will play Saturday against Western Illinois despite a solid effort by backup Eddie McGee against Missouri.

However, that doesn't mean that this possible controversy has been squashed.

They aren't the dregs but nor are they real threats to win the league. They could lose to Iowa State or a MAC team and I will watch their crappy December bowl games pulling for them to win just so everyone can finally shut up about how much the Big Ten suxxxx; I will usually be disappointed about the outcomes of these games. Ladies and gentlemen: the mediocre of the Big Ten. A veritable cornucopia of the average. A smörgåsbord of the typical. A vast array of another noun used to denote something sort of good and sort of bad.

THRILL to the sartorial stylings of Illinois linebackers

BOGGLE at just how Joe Tiller hasn't yanked his starting quarterback over and over the past few years

WONDER what is up with Iowa, anyway? Shouldn't they be better?

All of this... and more! After the jump.

SORT OF. Examine if you will the graphic below. Notice anything ... unusual?



Holy crap! Ron Zook may not set the world on fire as a coach, but his legendary salesman's rep continues to grow.

An explanation:

The Fighting Illini football program has enjoyed a generous season ticket sales increase with more than 10,000 new seat holders already on board for the 2007 campaign. The increase is the second-best number recorded nationally, behind only Rutgers University, which has sold more than 12,000 this offseason. No other institution offered a new season ticket number comparable to the increase Illinois.

Well there you have it. Juice Williams and his 39% completions are still at quarterback, but at least the Fighting Illini will have a few more fans in the stands.

Last Year: 2-10, 1-7 Big Ten... but a much better awful year than 2005. Illinois was actually in a fair number of games and didn't, like, lose by 30 all the time.

Fans Are: Cautiously optimistic after Zook's miraculous recruiting class and equally miraculous but much less publicized turnaround of the previously inept defense.

Expectations: Failure, failure, and more failure for the man termed [NAME REDACTED] in the blogosphere.

1. Is Juice Williams actually a quarterback?

Despite the copious evidence available that he is -- played it in high school, listed as such on the team roster, generally plays the position when on the field -- his 40% completion rate suggests otherwise. Williams' legs helped Illinois to the tenth-best rush offense in the country, but his arm condemned them to dead last in passing efficiency. He has many excuses for this: being a true freshman from a high school running offense,Ron Zook, and wide receivers less pedestrian than roadkill. With a year of experience and remarkable recruiting class featuring Arrelious Benn, the nation's top wide receiver, Williams figures to improve.