Illinois 45, Illinois State 17

I apologize for the long hiatus from this blog but my overly optimistic season preview appears to have been rendered moot by Illinois' 37-9 loss to Missouri. Fortunately, there is still hope for the season and the Illini rebounded with a 45-17 victory against the Redbirds of Illinois State.

Despite losing Juice in the first quarter to a thigh bruise, Illinois racked up 548 yards of offense, including 384 on the ground. I have no complaints about the Illini offense in general, as they averaged 9.6 yards per pass and a stunning 8.3 yards per rush. Eddie McGee overthrew a receiver and was intercepted in the end zone in the first quarter, but otherwise was quite solid. The offensive line overpowered the ISU defensive front and with so many talented RBs on hand, there was no stopping the Illini today.

Still, I have my concerns about whether the team's coaching is getting the most out of the talent on hand. Even in a blowout win, Illinois racked up 13 penalties for 115 yards. And they also allowed ISU QBs to throw for 354 yards, averaging 6.8 yards per attempt. Illinois won big because they dominated on the lines (allowing just 2.2 yards per rush), not because of coaching or playcalling. This reflects the talent Zook has brought in, but they won't be able to assert their superior talent so visibly against Big 10 competition.

I want to be a voice of moderation, but I am still skeptical about the direction this team is headed in after last week's loss to Missouri. There is a lot to like about Ron Zook, most notably his recruiting prowess and enthusiasm for his players. Yet he is also too stubborn about his way of doing things. He ought to admit that designing plays is not his strength, and delegate more responsibility to his coordinators, while focusing on motivating his players to give 100%. His coordinators do call the plays now, but they are locked in by the philosophy Zook espouses. Furthermore, Zook is always good for a boneheaded two-point conversion attempt or a fake punt that fools nobody.

The head coach does not have to have the last word on all decisions. Look at Penn State, where Joe Paterno's assistants run the show behind the scenes. Zook would be better off sticking to recruiting and motivation, while hiring some talented assistants to manage more of the in-game aspects. Unfortunately, that scenario will almost certainly never happen. I think Illinois is capable of beating Ohio State in two weeks, but it will take a great effort and a well-called game to get there.

Projecting Illinois Basketball, 2009-10

Today I am taking a break from my ongoing Illinois football preview and looking way ahead - to basketball. I was prompted to do this thanks to an interesting post over at Vegas Watch. Using Vegas Watch's projection system, I wanted to take a look at what we can expect from the 2010 Illini squad as well as how they performed against their projections in the past.

Year	Prev Pyth	% Return	Projection	Actual	Diff
2005	.953	92.0	.979	.982	.003
2006	.982	40.9	.882	.940	.058
2007	.940	65.7	.913	.932	.019
2008	.932	57.9	.891	.900	.009
2009	.900	67.8	.894	.911	.017
2010	.911	57.0	.876	???	???

Key:
Prev Pyth = Previous season's Pythagorean Win Percentage. Check out Ken Pomeroy's website for more info.
% Return = Percentage of previous season's minutes returning to the team.


I think this is pretty interesting stuff. The success of the 2005 Illini turns out to have been predictable, as they returned 92% of their minutes from a team that was already very good. The simplicity of the system shows up in the 2006 projection, which really undersold that team since it only returned 40.9% of minutes, but couldn't see that it was bringing back 2 excellent players in Dee Brown and James Augustine. Otherwise, the projections for the past 3 years have been more on the mark, albeit with a consistent trend of over-performance by the Illini. I am a big Bruce Weber fan, so I will speculate that Illinois' consistent ability to exceed their projections is attributable to his coaching skills.

So what can we expect in 2010? Probably a little bit of decline from last year, as Illinois returns just 57% of its 2009 minutes. The system projects a Pythagorean win percentage of .876, which last year would have put the Illini squarely on the NCAA bubble. However, even if you throw out 2006, where the projection for Illinois was clearly way too low, Illinois has out performed their prediction by .012 points per year (.021 if 2006 is included). Taking into account that bump puts their projection at .888, which would put them more squarely in the tournament, although they probably wouldn't be seeded as well as last year. Ultimately, it will depend on how quickly the highly touted freshman class can develop.

For Illini fans, the season to look forward to is 2011, where the team will likely return over 90% of its minutes. Even if their Pomeroy rating is a disappointing .888 this year, returning 92% of minutes (a la 2005) would result in a .941 projection for 2011. Giving that projection the same Bruce Weber bump yields a projection of .953, the same rating as this year's national runner-up, Michigan State. It's my job to be an optimist, but I think Illinois will return to the NCAAs next year and then be a legitimate Final Four contender in 2011.

Passing Defense

Despite the presence of first-round draft pick Vontae Davis in its secondary, Illinois did not have a very good passing defense in 2008. The team ranked just #71 in the country in Pass Efficiency Defense. A big part of the problem was the utter lack of interceptions by the Illini secondary - just 6 in 12 games. Losing Davis shouldn't be a big setback in this regard, since he only picked off 2 passes all year.

Unfortunately, the secondary was not distinctive in other areas either - ranking 66th in yards per attempt allowed (6.93) and 61st in completion percentage allowed (58.48%). Even more disturbing is the fact that the 2008 Illini generated a pretty good pass rush, ranking 17th nationally in both sacks and tackles for loss, yet the passing statistics were still grim.

On the linebacker front, Illinois does lose do-it-all MLB Brit Miller (132 tackles), which is a big concern, but returns the talented Martez Wilson. If Wilson can put it all together (and he does have a lot of starting experience), the linebackers' pass coverage will be improved.

Wilson will also have to play a big role in the pass rush, as Illinois has lost its top 4 pass rushers (in terms of sacks) from last season. There is still a lot of talent on the defensive line, but it's hard to envision a scenario where the pass rush will be as effective as in 2008, putting even more pressure on the secondary.

Interestingly, Illinois' performance against #1 receivers was not spectacular. The average #1 receiver Illinois faced averaged 4 catches and 58 yards per game, yet these same receivers averaged 5 catches and 75 yards against Illinois. Illinois did have some good performances against #1 receivers, holding first-round draft pick Jeremy Maclin to 4 catches and 31 yards, and Ohio State's Brian Robiskie to 2 catches and 9 yards. Yet there were also some miserable performances, as Michigan's Martavious Odoms went for 7 catches and 129 yards against Illinois, Northwestern's Eric Peterman for 8 catches and 111 yards, and Western Michigan's Jamarko Simmons for 11 catches and 174 yards, surely a big factor in Western's upset of the Illini.

The key question for 2009 is whether Vontae Davis was the one player preventing the secondary from being an outright disaster or if his athletic gifts weren't actually translating into on-field production. Most likely, losing Davis will hurt. Yet with some caveats, the team's performance against #1 receivers is an indicator that Davis wasn't playing up to his potential. He was a shutdown corner against Missouri and Ohio State but failed to staunch the bleeding against less renowned opponents like Northwestern and Western Michigan. This jibes with the reputation of Davis as a player who didn't always work hard. Indeed, Davis was even benched against Iowa because Ron Zook felt that he wasn't playing up to his potential.

Overall, the prognosis is mixed for the Illini pass defense. The secondary is deeper than last year, assuming the healthy returns of Miami Thomas and Donsay Hardeman to join returning starting corner Dere Hicks. But if the offense is as good as I think it will be, this unit will only need to be passable for Illinois to win a lot of games.

Illinois Football, 2009 Preview

Even after last year's disappointing 5-7 record, I am excited about the 2009 Illini football team. National expectations are not particularly high as most analysts are unable to look beyond win-loss record. Yet Illinois outgained its opponents by 85 yards per game last year, meaning they were a lot more talented than their record suggests. Accordingly, Phil Steele, the most statistically astute of the preseason magazine writers, has Illinois ranked #19 in the country in his preseason Top 25. And perhaps even more significantly, Illinois is currently listed with an over/under of 8 wins at vegasinsider.com, meaning that the betting market is counting on serious improvement for Illinois this year.

I believe that Illinois is capable of winning the Big 10 this year. I also believe that while they will almost certainly finish with a winning record, a disappointing 6-6 season is not out of the question. To gain a better idea of Illinois' strengths and weaknesses this year, I am going to preview the different Illinois units and then examine how they will coalesce.

Passing Offense
Rushing Offense
Passing Defense
Rushing Defense
Special Teams
Coaching
Schedule
Forecast

The Illini Rushing Offense

Although Illinois' passing offense improved markedly from 2007 to 2008, the rushing offense was disappointing. The team dropped from 257 yards per game (5th nationally) to 170 yards per game (38th nationally). Not surprisingly, none of the Illinois running backs could match the production of first-round draft-choice Rashard Mendenhall (262 C, 1681 Yds, 17 TDs). Instead, the Illini took a running back by committee approach, with mixed results.

Juice was actually the leading rusher on the team, with 150 carries for 882 yards (5.88 y/c). His production was similar to 2007, and was actually slightly improved. (I have taken sacks out of his rushing figures - sacks are pass plays!!) The running backs, however, totaled just 1120 yards on 239 carries (4.6 y/c) vs. 2215 yards on 346 carries the year before (6.4 y/c). Although Ron Zook and Mike Locksley called on the running backs less often, they were still significantly less effective on a per-carry basis.

That said, the rushing offense is still a strength for this team. The entire backfield returns and ought to be improved. I don't think that the team necessarily needs one running back to take the bulk of the carries, a la 2007. Indeed, the two RB attack of Daniel Dufrene and Jason Ford was pretty effective by normal standards, just not Rashard Mendenhall standards. Dufrene averaged 5.7 yards per carry and Ford was a beast near the goal line (8 TDs on just 81 carries). Although Ford's yards per carry figure was low (3.6 y/c), I have to think that this mostly reflects the fact that he was used in short-yardage situations. Ford is projected to emerge as the top RB this year, and I believe that he will prove to be able to handle a bigger load than Dufrene, who will still be one hell of a change of pace back. Whether this unit will emerge as a force again will depend on the improvement of Jason Ford.

The Illini Passing Offense

Juice Williams

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.

Adjusted Yards per Passing Attempt

Generally, yards per pass attempt is the best simple method of evaluating the success of a quarterback (don't get me started on the esoteric QB Rating formula). But on this blog, I will use a formula called adjusted yards per attempt (AYPA), which also takes into account passing touchdowns, interceptions, and sack yardage.

AYPA: (Passing Yards + 20*Passing TDs - 45*Interceptions - Sack Yards Lost)/ (Sacks + Pass Attempts)

This formula is a good one on a number of levels. It includes sacks as pass plays rather than run plays, which is the correct distinction and one that NCAA statkeepers fail to recognize. It gives a moderate boost for passing TDs and a severe deduction for interceptions. It makes sense to me that an interception should be a bigger deduction than a passing TD is a boost. There are many situations where a QB doesn't have to do much to get a passing TD. An interception, though, is almost always crippling. It can give the opponent great field position, give up a potential offensive touchdown, or both. Still, I like the idea of giving some credit to the QB for a passing TD, as it does take skill to put the ball in the endzone even after marching most of the way down the field.

P.S. For my purposes in this blog, I will usually use the formula without sacks, since sack data is difficult to obtain for NCAA.