Will 2011 Be A Return To Old School Illini Air Dominance?

If you look at the last decade of Illinois football, well, at least at the two real high points, the Sugar Bowl and the Rose Bowl, you will see too massively different teams. In 2007 the team was led by a young quarterback in Juice Williams, whose passing skills were still at best, raw and unreliable, but was as fast evasive and tough as any running QB in college football. That team also had future first round draft pick Rashard Mendenhall, before he was making regrettable tweets, and the two combined for a massive;y effective running game.

Way, way way back in 2001's Sugar Bow; though, there was a much different team on the field, and a different coach on the sideline to boot. The QB then was Kurt Kittner, who, before the record was broken by Juice Williams, set the record for career total offense at Illinois, as well as hold the top two spots for passing touchdowns in a season. With future NFL wide receiver Brandon Lloyd bringing down those TD's, Ron Turner's Illini were often a pass first, pass second and pass third team.

Each team wracked up huge numbers of yards, and similarly won many games, when the defense was at their best. so there isn't really any historical need for Illinois to rely on any approach more than the other. Nonetheless, with the likes of Pierre Thomas, Rashard Mendenhall and most recently Mikel Leshoure taking the lion's share of the yards these past few years, relying on Nathan Scheelhaase, a passing wunderkind will certainly be a change of pace.

If there is any hesitation on my part as to it being a smooth transition from star running back to maybe still raw QB it is because I remember the last time I made that assumption, the 2008 season. We assumed that Juice had gotten enough of a handle of the offense and was ready to take the team over himself, without the need of a premier running back. He was returning with the offensive coordinator who had been with him since the start and with three years in the system, he wouldn't be learning much new. When it came to spreading the field Juice could do it very, very well, and games against the secondaries of Michigan and Missouri made the offense sizzle. But the mid-range passing game, the bread and butter of the offense, never seemed to come to him, and we were left with a five win season to show for it.

Flashing forward to today, we have a somewhat similar situation, as Mikel has left early for the NFL and it is left to Scheelhaase to take the reins for himself. There will be a shift to the air this year, that much is clear. Though Scheelhaase is a fast enough runner, no one wants to see him take the pounding that Juice took, and offensive coordinator Paul Petrino is way to smart to run him much. With A.J. Jenkins as the team's fastest and best wide receiver as well, it would seem a waste to spend too many downs running up the middle on a QB draw.

Jason Ford certainly has been around long enough to to be the heir apparent to the number one running back gig, and since neither Bud Golden nor Donovan Young have the size or the experience that Ford has Ford will probably get most of the carries. But the three of them together probably wont be able to give Zook what Lehoure gave him last year, and handing the ball off to the running backs too often would be, in my opinion a colossal waste of the talent in the receiver core.

Saying that might put me in the position to be very mad at the offensive scheme again this year, as last year I thought they didn't use the team's best player Mikel Leshoure, nearly enough, with the exception of the game at Wrigley Field, where he broke just about every record we had. Getting each back a minimum number of touches without proven results this year will likely have me pulling my hair out all over again.

I take heart in this though. Paul Petrino is a much better OC than his two predecessors, at least as I have seen so far, and his track record is proven with both quarterbacks and wide receivers. The offense will have had two full off seasons under his scheme, and many extra practices from the Bowl game as well, this offense is in the best position it can be in, and I have no doubt that if Nathan has the gun to make the plays, Petrino will have him firing it often.