Last year, Juice made huge strides as a passer, throwing for over 3000 yards and averaging 8.33 yards per pass attempt, ranking 15th in the country in YPA. He certainly has come a long way from his freshman year when he completed under 40% of his passes. However, he also threw 16 interceptions to just 22 TDs. Thus, his AYPA was 7.59, which is still solid, but much lower than his raw YPA. In AYPA, Juice ranked 31st rather than 15th. Correspondingly, Illinois was just 40th nationally in points per game, despite ranking 19th in yards per game.
If the Illini offense is to be as explosive as I hope, Juice will have to continue his improvement. He has proved that he can generate yardage. Now he will have to cut down on his mental errors and improve his consistency, as some of his worst games of last year were against small-school teams like Eastern Illinois, Louisiana-Lafayette and Western Michigan. Fortunately, I have confidence in his ability to produce a stellar senior season. His AYPA has improved from 4.84 to 5.48 to 7.59 in his 3 years at Illinois, and by all accounts, he is a hard worker and wants to be remembered as an Illini great. Plus, the receiving corps should be a strength, as I will detail below.
Arrelious Benn
Thus far in his career, Arrelious Benn has lived up to the hype associated with being the #1 ranked receiver in his high school class. After a promising 54 catch, 676 yard season as a freshman, he followed up with 67 catches for 1005 yards as a sophomore.
I went back through play by play logs for last year and found that Benn was targeted on 104 passes. He caught 64.4% of them and averaged 10.1 yards per attempt. These numbers far outpace the numbers of the passing offense as a whole.
| Illinois Passing, 2008 | C | A | Y | C% | Y/A | |
| Passes to Benn | 67 | 104 | 1055 | .644 | 10.1 | |
| Passes not to Benn | 156 | 273 | 2177 | .571 | 8.0 |
* It should be noted that Juice's 16 interceptions are not included on this table, as I can't always determine which receiver he was trying to throw to from the play by play. I don't think this affects things too much, unless he was targeting Benn on all of his interceptions.
Needless to say, Benn was a key reason that the Illini offense stayed on course and perhaps even improved after the defection of Rashard Mendenhall. Considering his physical gifts and rate of improvement thus far, it is well within the realm of possibility that Benn will enjoy a superlative season in 2009. He is capable of 1500 yards and I predict that he will finally catch a lot of TD passes as well (just 5 in his career so far). He is currently projected as a 1st round pick by nfldraftscout.com.
The major question mark with the passing offense is the offensive line. Illinois allowed 2.08 sacks per game last year (71st nationally) and lose two senior starters, including fifth-round pick Xavier Fulton. It is tempting to blame Juice for the sacks, but considering Illinois allowed just 1.23 sacks per game in 2007, it is clear that a lot of the struggles were the fault of the offensive line. This unit is not lacking in talent, however, and the three returning starters should show improvement, especially Jeff Allen, who took on a large role in just his second year with the team. I am optimistic that the line will show improvement this year, as they offer a fine blend of experience (Allen, All-Big 10 guard Jon Asamoah) and young talent (redshirt freshman Graham Pocic).
Overall, Illinois' passing offense is its biggest strength. As stated above, Juice ranked 31st nationally in AYPA and 15th nationally in YPA in 2008. If anything, the passing offense should be more potent this year with the addition of highly-touted Florida transfer Jarred Fayson, an older Arrelious Benn trying to impress NFL scouts and strong third and fourth receiving options in Jeff Cumberland and Michael Hoomanawanui. Guys like A.J. Jenkins, who averaged 26.1 yards per catch as a freshman (albeit on 11 catches) and freshman Terry Hawthorne, rated as the #6 WR in his class by rivals.com, will have a hard time cracking the receiving rotation due to its depth. If Illinois wants to contend for the Big 10 title, they will need to be unstoppable through the air, and they have a good chance at being just that.
