I got married on May 28, 2005.  Despite the hail, it was a beautiful outdoor ceremony.  Mrs. CriticalMass is great – I made the perfect choice.  ((segue))  Choice?  Yes, another choice was made that day.  Juice Williams chose to play his football at the University of Illinois.  He was the warning shot fired across the bow of the Big Ten.  Ron Zook is here, and all your recruits are belong to us.

So Juice and I have always been kind of matrimonically linked.  At least in my mind. The reason I never approached him to have something signed at Camp Rantoul?  I wouldn’t have been able to prevent myself from blurting out “I got married the same day you picked Illinois!” And the Farleyesque “remember that Northwestern linebacker you ran over at the goal line? That was AWESOME!” moments that followed would have been embarrassing, even for me.

Truth is, I started talking about 2009 right after I got home from my honeymoon.  Everyone knew that Juice would start as a true freshman, and everyone knew he would struggle.  “But by 2009″, we told ourselves, “can he be fighting for a spot in New York?” I still say yes.

So here we are, 13 days before the 2009 season begins.  We’ve followed Juice from the very low (Rutgers 2006) to the high (Ohio State 2007) to the higher (missouri and Michigan, 2008) and the lower (Western Michigan, Northwestern 2008).  And everywhere in between.  So what can we expect in 2009?  To honor the number 7 on his back, a defense of Isiah John Williams, in seven parts:

1. Enough about the interceptions already

On a day where I was home sick with an ear infection a month ago (what am I, 7?), I spent the afternoon watching all of the “Illinois Football – The Journey” episodes on Hulu.  And using the game footage, I took some notes on Juice’s interceptions.  All I’ve heard for the last 9 months has been “…but 16 interceptions”, so I wanted to take a good hard look at as many of them as I could.  I couldn’t find film of (nor could I recall) two interceptions: The second interception in the EIU game (late in the first quarter), and the second interception in the WMU game (second quarter).  But as for the rest, here goes:

#1 missouri – Weatherspoon jumped a route. Juice locked in and didn’t see him jumping the route, and Chris Duvalt tripped, but still a bad throw.
#2 missouri – I still boggle at this being an INT. Dufrene catches the ball, turns without tucking it in, and has it stripped out by Weatherspoon. INT? What? Take a good look at the picture over there – that was ruled an “interception”.
#3 EIU – first drive – worst throw of the year. Didn’t see the corner cutting back in to the zone and threw it right to him
#4 EIU (unknown – end of the first quarter)
#5 ULL – Locked in on his receiver and the corner jumped it. Bad throw.
#6 PSU – PSU’s Scirrotto made a diving INT on a poorly thrown ball.
#7 MN – This one’s on Jeff Allen. Allen gives VanDeSteeg the outside, and he wraps around and reaches out to catch Juice’s arm as it’s going forward. Floater gets picked. You could say Juice should have tucked it, but Allen needs to finish that block.
#8 WI – Sykes ran a poor route, and then didn’t even try for the ball. Juice threw it high, but Sykes could have at least tried for the ball. Why didn’t he? He saw a safety coming his way.
#9 WI – Juice threw a jump ball to Cumberland, and Langford picked it off 52 yards down field.
#10 WI – The famous Fred Sykes single alligator arm. Over the middle, Sykes nonchalantly tries for it with one hand and tips it to a cornerback. Juice was livid – as he should have been.
#11 IA – Juice hits Jenkins a little high on a slant, but Jenkins had both hands on the ball and should have come down with it. Instead, Jenkins tipped it right to a safety.
#12 IA – Yet another jump ball bomb called by Locksley that was picked off at the two.
#13 WMU – Almost as bad as Sykes’ alligator arms. Cumberland goes into his 7 yard in, the corner is playing him to the inside, so he STOPS. Keep running and not only does the corner not pick it off, Cumberland gets the PI call on the corner. Awful.
#14 WMU (unknown – second quarter)
#15 OSU – Arrelious gets dragged to the ground (you remember this play – you were screaming at officials, either at Memorial Stadium or on TV), and Kurt Coleman is there for the INT.
#16 NW – Bomb to Judson who gets out-jumped by the safety.

In summation, of the 14 INTs I watched:

~ 5 were poor decisions/bad throws/arm-hit-as-he-threw
~ 1 was a fumble inexplicably called an INT
~ 3 were basically punts (jump balls 45+ yards downfield)
~ 4 were on the WR’s (2 on Sykes, 1 on Cumberland, 1 on Jenkins)
~ 1 was a pass interference non-call (Benn and Jenkins inadvertently had their feet tangled up? I don’t think so.)

Not exactly Mark Hoekstra.

Am I trying to say that Juice really only had 5 interceptions? No.  Every QB has to deal with alligator arms and jump ball losses.  But in Juice’s case, 16 isn’t really 16.

And let me also Bing this: Could we BE any more unlucky with INTs last year? 6 of these hit our receiver first, and 2 were hit-as-he-threw. INT’s by our defense like that? One. How we can be 17th nationally in sacks and have zero hit-as-he-threw interceptions is boggle worthy. But I digress…

Conclusion: My blood has every right to boil when commentators make jokes about Juice’s 16 INTs. And my eyebrows are sufficiently raised in the direction of Jim Pry’s WR coaching.

2. Seniors sometimes put it all together, you know.

As a junior, Dennis Dixon was a hot-button issue for Oregon Ducks fans.  A former 4-star recruit with a great arm and quick feet, he was once the future savior of the program.  But after three years of ups and downs, 4 TD games followed by 3 INT games, Ducks fans mostly lost hope that he’d ever reach his potential.  He just doesn’t have “it”, they’d say.

And then he became a senior.  And then he threw 20 TDs with only 4 interceptions.  And then he led the Heisman race for a few weeks (until a knee injury ended his season).  And then everyone called him Akili Smith II, putting it all together for a fantastic senior season.

Can Juice to the same?  Absolutely.  All but the injury part.

3. If this were Oregon, he’d be a redshirt junior.

Continuing the Oregon parallels for a bit, say Juice had picked the Ducks.  He would have redshirted in 2006, sat behind Dixon in 2007, and likely beaten out Masoli and Roper last August to find the field for the first time as a redshirt sophomore.  After a couple years growing/learning on the job, Oregon fans would be drooling over his potential as a senior.  They’d be all over the “Smith… Dixon… Williams.” angle.

But Ron Zook didn’t have that luxury.  He had Tim Brasic.  So Zook had to throw Juice out there in the Rutgers game and let him learn on the job.  As an extremely raw true freshman.  Instead of bounced passes happening on the back practice field with the scout team, his bounced passes were happening on ESPN.  Instead of years getting to learn the playbook, it was a cheat sheet on the wrist and a single, locked-in receiver.

I remember the interview on the field with Zook after the Ohio State upset in 2007.  The question was something about Juice “finally” putting it together, and Zook answered correctly: “Well, he’s only a sophomore”. People had seen so much Juice WIlliams on their television screens that they were expecting some type of progress by now. Truth is, he was a 19 year old kid who had to grow up fast (and before our eyes).

Do I want you to feel sorry for Juice?  No.  Well, maybe a little.  But most of all I want you to understand that doing what he has done – starting his first game as an 18 year-old behind a shaky line with very few talented receivers – is not the recommended path for a college QB.  But sometimes, the payoff at the end can be huge.

4. It’s it. (What is it?)

Someone, somewhere (I wish I could find the article right now – maybe it was just a lame message board post) made the comparison between Juice Williams and former Penn State QB Anthony Morelli.  “He just doesn’t have ‘it’”, they said.  And I agree about Morelli.  Loads of talent, solid arm, and seemingly never making the big play when needed.  Illinois fans surely remember that side of Morelli – his four (4!) turnovers in the last 16 minutes of our 2007 contest handed us the game.  Ask any Penn State fan, they’ll tell you.  All the talent in the world, but he just never had “it”.

So is that the case with Juice?  Can we look at the four plays after AJ Jenkins got us to the Western Michigan 18 yard line as a resounding answer that Juice Williams doesn’t have “it”?  I say no.  Why?  Ohio State in 2007, and Iowa in 2008.

A guy without “it” doesn’t make those three “I know how many yards I need, and I’m getting a few extra” 3rd down runs against the #1 team in the country (on the road).  Let alone throw four touchdown passes (on the road). He showed signs of “it” that day.

And a guy without “it” doesn’t lead us down the field for the winning field goal after his defense gave up a 15 point 4th quarter comeback to Iowa.  Iowa had a really solid defense last year, and Juice took us from our 20 to their 24, completing two crucial third-down passes along the way.  It.

And the four plays after AJ Jenkins got us to the 18 yard line against Western Michigan?

5. Juice and Locks – a divorce made in heaven.

It’s easy to blame the guy that left.  We would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for that meddling offensive coordinator.  The old guy sucked, the new guy is awesome, and we’ll never not convert another third and three.  But, in this case, it’s TOTALLY TRUE.

I shed not a single tear when Mike Locksley left for New Mexico.  Sure, the connection to Dunbar High in DC might suffer, but I was finished with him after the Western Michigan game last year.  Our four rushes in the 4th quarter of the Western Michigan game?  5 yards, 6 yards, 6 yards, and 14 yards.  But that was it. Four running plays and twenty seven pass plays in that fourth quarter.  We’re down by 6, he panicked, and we abandoned the run game.  Western Michigan knew this, started blitzing nearly every play, and we were done.  Those last four plays from their 18?  Juice never had a chance.  I knew what Locksley would call, and so did the Western Michigan defensive coordinator.  And when you’re outsmarted by the Western Michigan defensive coordinator, it’s time to move on to New Mexico.

But it gets worse.  That raw-but-talented true freshman mentioned above?  His tutor was a man who had never coached another quarterback in his life.  One Mike Locksley.  I feel sorry for Juice (see a theme here?) that his quarterbacks coach was learning on the job.  He deserved better.

And this year, he gets better.  A new tutor who has coached quarterbacks and receivers most of his career (Kurt Beathard), and an offensive coordinator (Mike Schultz) who, according to my TCU friends, would rather lose than call 27 passes in 31 plays.

6. “I don’t have to be careful – I’ve got a gun.”

And a gun he doth have.  As a freshman, he had no idea how to use it.  As a sophomore, he didn’t really excel until he took a little off it (and sometimes too much).  As a junior, he used it to perfection until defenses figured out that it would fire prematurely if they blitzed.  As a senior?  My guess is he finally learns how to use his power for good – the Hancock of collegiate quarterbacking.

In high school, Juice was raw.  Watch some high school film of him. He made poor decisions with the ball, he skipped passes, and he tucked and ran way too much.  So why was he so highly regarded?  That cannon attached to his right shoulder.  Why was he invited to the Elite 11 camp?  The cannon.  Why was he so heavily recruited?  The cannon.  Why should you care about cannons?  Because they allow you to call plays that other teams can’t.

Now that he knows how to use it – and especially because it’s his last chance to use it – I’m completely bullish on a huge senior season from Mr. Williams.  I would much rather go into a senior season with a rocket-armed QB who hasn’t reached his true potential yet than a decently-armed QB who has probably maxed out his.  Upside.  And Juice still has it.

7. What do you want, Colt McTebow?

I think I made this argument here before, but say you were to approach a random Illini fan at Memorial Stadium in the third quarter of the Penn State game in 2005.  And say you were to tell that person this:  “In 2008, Illinois will have a quarterback who will finish 7th in the country in total offense.  As a junior.  However, mostly because of a tough schedule that season (opponents were 84-57), a poor turnover ratio, and horrendous special teams play, leading to a 5-7 finish, most Illini fans will be so-so about said quarterback’s senior season.  Some will even be ‘I won’t shed a tear when he’s gone’ about it.”

Would it even be 3 seconds before he slaps you in the face and calls you a liar?  2005, Penn State-debacle-attending Illini fans would never dream of having a quarterback as talented as Juice Williams wearing orange and blue. And yet here we sit, with message board rumblings about “looking forward to the Charest era” and “Juice just can’t help but make the bad decision”.

In that sense, I don’t think those Illini fans will ever be happy.  They’ve forgotten 2005 (and 2004, ’03, and the majority of the late 90′s).  They’re BCS or bust. They simply won’t be happy until a Sam Bradford or a Colt McCoy is connecting on 70% of their passes in Memorial Stadium.

As for me, give me Isiah WIlliams.  Give me a Northwestern linebacker throwing up on the sideline after getting leveled by a QB built like the Grange Rock. Give me a quarterback who can throw a frozen rope on the 18 yard out (and a 58 yard out).  Give me 431 yards of total offense at Michigan Stadium. Give me my seats in the Rose Bowl endzone and the raw quarterback who got me there.

I got Juice.