Texas Bowl Preview: The Fighting Illini and Baylor Bears

When the Illini began this season, fans could pretty much agree on one thing: the Illini had to get back to a bowl.The program had been in free fall it seemed from the high water mark of the Rose Bowl appearance in 2007. The 2008 and 2009 seasons were marked by huge letdowns and two losing seasons of 5-7 and 3-9.

Looking at it through that lens, this bowl appearance seems like it is a fairly major accomplishment, and in plenty of ways, it is. 6-6 and a trip to the Texas bowl may not be the best of all possible outcomes, but it is sure as hell better than not going at all.

There is a great deal of value after all in what the experiences of a bowl game can mean to a program trying to make its way up out of the cellar. Extra practices can allow players to relearn their positions, to implement new plays, and to readdress fundamentals that they haven't been working on since camp Rantoul. For a player like Nathan Scheelhaase, who seems to have hit a freshman wall as of late, it is a great opportunity to really concentrate on the passing game and work with coach Brohm to get back what he seemed to have earlier in the year.

For the defensive secondary too, Trulon Henry, Patrick Nixon-Youman, Justin Green, and anyone else who we might end up rotating in, this will be a great opportunity to work on pass coverage, which seems to have fallen apart down the stretch.

Win or lose, I am at least looking at this game as hopefully a stepping stone to future success, where the added experience and practice the players pick up here will translate into an even more prepared team next year. That is the hope any way. And hey, I want to see the first bowl victory for the Illini since Kurt Kittner won us the MicronPC.com bowl way back in 1999.

Standing in the way of this goal could be one Robert Griffin III, the one man offense for Baylor that has been compared to Vince Young (the college VY, not the crazy NFL VY.) For the season, Griffin has completed 66% of his passes, for nearly 3200 yards and 21 touchdowns, as a runner he has 591 yards and 8 touchdowns, these are quite imposing numbers.

The Baylor offense has been the key for their success all year, and rank in the top 30 in passing, rushing and points scored. Even aside from their threat in Griffin, their top running back, Jay Finley has ran for over 1000 yards and 11 TDs himself. This could very well be the best offense next to Michigan's we have seen all year.

On the bright side, just like against Michigan, they have a defense that is susceptible to being scored upon as well. Baylor has lost its last three games, giving up 55 points, 42 points and 53 points respectively.  Granted all three of those losses were to ranked teams with pretty good offenses, but at the very least it seems we wont be lacking in opportunities to score.

In those three games, the Bears were taken down by very solid passing attacks, and that is something I hope we can see from Nathan Scheelhaase and the Illini as well. We haven't exactly been scaring anyone with the pass these last two games, but the extra practice might result in just enough improvement to keep the Baylor defense honest.

The game plan, unless something monumental has happened in the last three weeks, is going to be the same as it always has been and should have been: get the ball to Mikel Leshoure and let him run all over the other team. Mikel only needs 168 yards rushing to break Rashard Mendenhall's single season school rushing record, and I think if we give the ball to him 25 or more times, he will definitely get it. Hell, in the Fresno State game, where we were trailing for most of the game and the field conditions were awful, Leshoure got 142 yards off of 19 carries.  He is one of the better running backs that this Baylor defense will have seen all year, and they have been giving up 160 yards on the ground on average. I predict a lot of success for Mikel in this game, and if the Illini can keep him going they will be successful as well.

What I do fear is what I have seen dual threat QB's do to this team. NIU's Harnish had a ton of yards on the ground, Terrelle Pryor went for over 100 on the ground, just when we thought we had it figured out, Denard Robinson throws for 300! We have been at a disadvantage whenever we neutralize our defensive line by asking it to try and contain a running QB, but by the same token, our aggression on the d-line has led to some runners making big plays. It is unfortunate and I don't see that aspect at least changing.  I doubt we can really contain all of Baylor's receivers the way our defensive secondary has been playing, so in my opinion pinning our ears back and just going after him with the defensive line seems like the better option and plays to our strengths. I would rather see Griffin run for 100 than pass for 300 plus, at the very least with Martez and Ian Thomas at LB we have some speed to catch him.

This game has the makings of another Michigan. A high scoring game where who ever has the ball last, wins. Games like that make it very difficult to predict, (take the team who wins the toss?) But I am an optimist, who thinks that Mikel Leshoure wants to drive up his draft stock with a big game, so 200 yards for #5, and a 47-42 victory for the Illini.