Illini at Minnesota preview: part of the plan all along.

I suppose it is finally time to stop riding the happy train of victory that has kept me going all week and to start actually focusing at the game at hand.

In Minnesota, the Illini find themselves once again up against a team that sits at 5 wins, on the verge of going to a bowl, after Illinois, the Gophers play South Dakota state and Iowa which alternatively look like a lock for a win and a lock for a loss. You could say then that their season and hopes for a bowl bid are dependent upon this game. As I mentioned earlier this week at 6 losses and national coverage for being a disappointment the Illini have found themselves potentially playing spoiler to all the opponents left on their schedule. A loss to the Illini is a bad loss, and could be detrimental to a 6-6 team hoping to get into a last tier bowl. With SD State, Minnesota is assured 6 wins, with Iowa they are guaranteed a 5th loss. A win over Illinois then would make Minny almost sure to get 7 wins and a decent bowl a loss, no more than 6 wins and a bad loss hanging around your neck like an anchor.

The Illini nation, as Ron Zook often refers to it, has already begun to cling to the idea of "hey, if we win out, we are in a bowl." Despite Loren Tate's advice of being a bit more realistic in our dreams, many of us fans have already convinced ourselves that the fabled 2009 Illini from the preview magazines have finally arrived, and that they shall roll convincingly over the remaining competition to the most unlikely 6-6 bowl season ever. Yes that means we would be beating #5 Cincinnati. But hey doesn't that just tell you how badly we want this team to be better?

By this time on Sunday however we could wake up to a cold dose of reality, a 7th loss, a season without any remaining purpose and alot of questions in need of answering.

Until then however, we are perfectly happy delaying any of the not fun questions until this team is no longer celebrating a win.

Minnesota provides the opportunity for the team to prove whether or not they truly have gotten over what ever mental hurtles were preventing them from being successful throughout the first half of the season. We now know that a the very least it is possible for this team to go on the sort of explosive offensive runs and tough defensive stands we once had assumed.

Against a Minnesota team that also rolled out 500 yards of total offense the week before, they are not going to have the benefit of a full half of mediocre football. Last week Minnesota QB Adam Weber threw for over 400 yards and 5 touchdowns, all without sure thing first round WR Eric Decker, the guy that rocked us last year.

The defensive game plan this week is going to be much different than Michigan. Minny is going to throw the ball all over the field and the secondary is going to have to step up like they did last week. All of the sudden, Illini fans are ecstatic that Terry Hawthorne was moved to defense. Maybe even more important is the play of Clay Nurse, Corey Liuget, Josh Brent and Doug Pilcher. The defensive line played better than at any point all year against Michigan. Getting into the backfield and pressuring, sacking, and hurrying Weber will go a long way in taking pressure off of the secondary.

For the first time, I feel pretty good about our offense. I believe that they can do what they did last week, and that is run, run run with Leshoure and Juice in every imaginable way. Options, end reads, keepers and plain old I formation hand offs. Just as key however will be Juice's passing in key situations. Against Michigan Juice was 8-11 with no INTs, the model of efficient QB play. If he can get a line like that this week, I think this Illinois team wins.

See what a difference a win makes? I'm already back to my overly optimistic ways.