Tyler Griffey. DJ Richardson.

Those are the two names I want to add to the first list. The list of “guys who put it all together as seniors.” I love nothing more than a Nate Bussey-like senior year. Relative obscurity, never quite there, and then BOOM senior star. Here’s my recollection of each player from that hastily-put-together list:

Chris Gandy

Gandy is the best example of what I hoping to see from DJ and Tyler. He never quite found his place under Henson, but in his senior seasion, with Lon taking over, suddenly he’s our go-to post player with a pure baseline jumper. That was a fun season in 1996/97. Kiwane’s final year where he climbed to #2 on the all-time scoring list, Gandy surprised, Heldman/Hester/Turner showed why they’d be vital pieces the following season, and we found ourselves ranked and playing a 14 seed for a shot at the Sweet 16. I won’t tell you how that ended.

Kevin Turner

And then the next year, BOOM, Kevin Turner scores 33 at UCLA and suddenly the tag-along recruit we signed with Bryant Notree is a first-team All Big Ten performer. I’m totally going from memory there. Maybe he scored 31. Might have been USC or something. And maybe he was only second team. But at least in my head, it’s 33/UCLA/1st Team. That was another fun season. And if we’re looking for an example of two players who put it all together at the same time, why, look no further than…

Jerry Hester

Quick, what’s your first thought when you think of Jerry Hester? You said the game at Indiana where Teddy Valentine kicked Bobby Knight out of the game and Hester took over in the second half, didn’t you? Well, to be honest, that’s not what I’d say – I’d say overtime of the 1996 Missouri game where Hester took over and we broke our 4 game losing streak and Larry Connelly screamed “I’m telling you he’s the guy” on ESPN. That’s what I think of. But that’s because I watched that game on VHS approximately 50 times.

I picked Hester, but I could have said several other players on the 1998 Big Ten Championship team. What a perfect time for the seniors to step up. Hey, speaking of seniors stepping up.

Jack Ingram

Quick – how many minutes did Jack Ingram play in the two Final Four games in 2005? Would you believe 51? All season Big Jack kept progressing and progressing until he was firmly entrenched as our 6th man. And if he doesn’t tip the ball away against Arizona, we’re looking back on 2005 as a huge disappointment. Tyler Griffey – go watch some film of 2005 Jack Ingram and then do exactly that next season. Including the two dagger threes at Wisconsin.

Warren Carter

WarCat! Averaged 2 points per game as a sophomore, averaged 4 points per game as a junior, and then BOOM 2nd team All Big Ten as a senior. Completely out of nowhere. With a Gandy-like baseline jumper. Now is when I want DJ to listen. No, I’m not comparing you to WarCat. But remember that baseline floater you loved in high school but couldn’t ever use in the motion offense? Rediscover that. You’ll be glad you did.

Trent Meacham

I saw Trent Meacham at Custard Cup once. There’s nothing more to that story – just that I saw Meacham at Custard Cup and now The Cup has found it’s way into Illini meme lore what with Bruce leaving his presser and immediately heading out for a Berry Delightful Parfait and I thought that was somehow significant.

OK, so maybe this is a good goal for DJ. Meacham increased everything his senior year – his shooting percentage, his 3-point percentage, his free throw percentage, everything. Most of all, I remember his senior year as the first time he really looked comfortable on the court. My recollection of that season was simply Chet and Trent gelling as a backcourt and everything falling into place from there.

There are other examples that aren’t coming to mind, I’m sure. The name Craig Tucker keeps popping up in my head, although I was too young to really remember anything back then. And Larry Smith had a great final season in 1991. I’m sure there are others.

My point: I want DJ and Tyler to be the next two on this list. A new offense, a new coach, a new start. I’m hoping the urgency of their senior seasons combined with the new mindset from a new coaching staff will produce a Chris Gandy/Kevin Turner result.

I’d add BP3 to this list, but he was our leading scorer last season, so it’s hard to see a breakout season in the future. Although, if he wanted to, say, turn his 14.7 points per game into 19.7 points per game, I won’t complain.

I say that because the genesis for this post is not my brain – it’s my friend Tom’s.  After the NFL draft a few weeks ago, he opined that it really is remarkable that Ron Zook had this much talent and a 34-51 record.  Actually, I don’t think that’s exactly what he said.  We were discussing Illini football on the internet, I was all “seven picks in the first three rounds the last two years and we went 14-12″ and Tom was all “oh what could have been if we had only average special teams and and average number of interceptions” and I was all “that feels like a post” and then a few days later Tom was all “where’s my post” and I was like “dude it’s May I’m lazy”.

So here’s your post, Tom.  What could have been if Ron Zook had taken all that talent and…

…put together even average special teams

Even though I told you all to memorize these numbers in case there was a quiz, I’m going to give them to you again.  Back when new Special Teams coach Tim Salem was hired, here’s what I wrote comparing his special teams at Central Florida and Ron Zook’s special teams at Illinois:

Illinois was 120th out of 120 teams last year in kickoff returns, averaging a hard-to-believe 15.71 yards per return. Central Florida, where Tim Salem was the special teams coach? 3rd nationally, averaging 26.93 yards. Think about that. That’s one first down the offense doesn’t have to gain on every single drive. 42 kickoff returns for UCF, meaning 42 drives with one less first down required. 11 less yards needed to get into field goal range. 11 yards closer to setting up the other team with poor field position even if you go three-and-out.

And if you think it was just a fluke, in 2010 UCF’s kickoff return teams were #1 nationally, averaging a stunning 27.78 yards per return. 2009? Oh no – only 13th nationally.

Kickoff coverage? UCF was 9th last year (Illinois was 82nd). Fluke? Nope. In 2010 UCF was 3rd, and in 2009 UCF was 10th.

Let’s recap all of this. Kickoff returns the last 3 years – Salem: 3rd, 1st, 13th. Zook: 120th, 101st, 105th.

Kickoff coverage the last 3 years – Salem: 9th, 3rd, 10th. Zook: 82nd, 84th, 90th.

What about punt returns? Salem: 60th, 12th, 29th. Zook: 118th, 117th, 114th.

I know, right?  Numbers that are still just as stunning as they were five months ago.  So think about it – think about what these Zook teams could have done with Salem’s special teams numbers.  Actually, don’t even give him Salem’s numbers – just give him the national average.  Give those teams a modest 8.4 yards per punt return and 21.8 yards per kickoff return.  That’s 6.4 more yards every punt return and 6.1 yards every kickoff return.  What is that – maybe 50 additional yards of field position per game?  That’s huge.  And that’s just going with the averages.  Put some Frank Beamer special teams in place, and we’re probably talking 80-100 yards per game.  Yards that Zook’s teams simply pissed away because special teams weren’t a priority.

So what if he also…

…taught his players how to intercept the ball

Remember the big wins over Penn State and Ohio State in 2007?  Want to know the main reason we won both games?  Interceptions.  Against Penn State, Anthony Morelli turned the ball over four times in the last 16 minutes – three interceptions and a big forced fumble by (I want to say) Kevin Mitchell.  Take away one of those, and they probably get the go-ahead score.

Ohio State – it was Miami Thomas.  A huge deflection in the end zone that Antonio Steele intercepted, and then the key interception right before our eight minute drive.  Interceptions can flip a game like that (see: Hunger Bowl, Kraft Fight), and, well, Ron Zook teams were possibly the worst in the country over the last 7 years.  Maybe there are two or three teams who were worse, but I haven’t found them.  I challenge anyone to beat these numbers:

Year/interception ranking out of 120 teams
2011: 73rd
2010: 66th
2009: 117th
2008: 113th
2007: 25th
2006: 86th
2005: 117th

Yes, some of it is bad luck. A large part, actually. Some interceptions are simply right place/right time, where a defensive lineman gets a hand on a pass and it deflects directly to a teammate instead of falling harmlessly to the ground. But Ron Zook teams had a habit of not being in the right place at the right time. Seven seasons don’t lie – his teams were awful at getting game-changing interceptions.

But they still could have pulled out a few more victories had Ron Zook…

…actually cared about the field position battle

I dabble a little in NERDstats.  Only enough to get my toes wet and then it’s back to my lounge chair while the nerds are in the pool.  But I do like some of the FEI ratings put together by Bill Connelly and Brian Fremeau at Football Outsiders.  OK, fine, I love these NERDstats.  But don’t tell anyone.

My favorite, at least as far as “if Ron Zook even cared a tiny bit about these things he’d be a great coach” goes, is the FPA stat – Field Position Advantage.  Want to find a stat where you can separate the undisciplined coaches from the others (you know, besides wins and losses)? FPA.

Football Outsiders describes Field Position Advantage like this:

FPA is a description of which team controlled field position in the game and by how much. Two teams that face equal team position over the course of a game will each have an FPA of .500. Winning the field position battle is quite valuable. College football teams that play with an FPA over .500 win two-thirds of the time. Teams that play with an FPA over .600 win ninety percent of the time.

It makes sense, doesn’t it?  Win the field position battle; win the game.  It starts with kickoffs – solid returns and impenetrable coverage gives you an advantage right away.  Same with punt returns (and having a great punter that can pin people deep).  But it’s also turnovers (remember how we didn’t let Wisconsin score from their end of the field but lost 28-17 because we gave them four drives that started in our own territory?).  And at its core, to have a solid FPA you obviously need an offense that can move the ball and a defense that can force three-and-outs.  I’m sure there’s a big correlation between third down conversion rate and FPA.

So all of that plays in, but more than any other stat, I think FPA mostly reveals which teams had awful special teams and poor turnover margins. Take last year for example.  We were one of the top teams in the country at stopping our opponent and forcing a punt (theoretically setting our offense up with solid field position throughout the game), but that was balanced out by an awful offense that would give the ball right back.  So we should be around the middle in FPA, right?  Wrong.  111th out of 120 teams.  Why? Awful returns, awful coverage teams, -.46 turnover margin.  What should have been 8-4 or 9-3 became 6-6 simply because we didn’t do the little things.  Any of them.

And that rests on Zook.  Here’s our FPA for every season since Football Outsiders started tracking it in 2007:

2011: 111th
2010: 36th
2009: 91st
2008: 96th
2007: 96th

What made 2010 decent? At first glance, I’d say it was Anthony Santella (14th in the country in punting) and turnover margin (.62 turnover margin, 22nd nationally, helped by being 3rd in the nation in fumble recoveries).  Recover a fumble at the 22, and you just tilted the FPA in your favor.  Other than that season, though, we were in the bottom quarter every single year.  Again, this stat isn’t the end-all, be-all; we went to the Rose Bowl in 2007 ranking 96th in this statistic.  But if you want to find teams that should have been much better than they were, look at FPA.

Ask a Georgia fan about their FPA in 2009: a top-12 team preseason sunk by awful special teams, drive-killing turnovers, and an FPA ranking of 96th.  Or these crazy-talented teams that Butch Davis recruited at North Carolina – why did they always lose 5 or 6 games?  Their FPA the last three years: 98th, 114th, 77th.

My North Carolina friend looks back on the Davis recruiting classes and wonders what could have been (actually, he wonders when Midnight Madness starts).  Georgia fans wonder why their top-10 recruiting classes didn’t produce top-10 results.  So many of those answers can be found in doing the little things, which leads to winning the field position battle, which leads to winning games.

And that’s how I’ll remember the Zook era.  More talent than probably any other era in Champaign outside of the late-80′s.  And 34 wins in 85 games.

In the mid-nineties, I thought we might take the Linebacker U title from Penn State. But after Howard, Holocek, Rice, and Hardy left, we didn’t really follow with any NFL linebackers, and that quickly faded. I had a brief “all we do is put receivers in the NFL” phase, followed by “our last eight offensive linemen are all on an NFL roster”, and recently have settled on “one-tenth of the NFL starting running backs are Illini” (a stretch, given Mikel’s injury). But that’s as close as we’ve ever come to having a thing.

Iowa has tight ends, going all the way back to Dallas Clark. The reason they were able to pry CJ Fiedorowicz away from us a few years ago was their tight end tradition. Dallas Clark, Scott Chandler, Tony Moeaki… you too can be the next NFL tight end from Iowa. Same thing with Purdue and quarterbacks – they point to Bob Griese and Drew Brees and Kyle Orton and tell recruits that they can be the next great Purdue quarterback (it hasn’t worked very well of late, but stay with me here). Penn State is Linebacker U. Northwestern has… well, Northwestern has nothing but WISCONSIN has the offensive line thing going. Go to some random barber shop in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, ask the guys in there why Wisconsin football has been so successful the last 20 years, and I guarantee they say “offensive line”. It’s their thing.

I want defensive line to be our thing. Correction – defensive line is probably already our thing, and I want to build on it. In 10 years, I want to walk into that same Elizabeth City barber shop, ask those same gentlemen why Illinois football has been so good the last 10 years, and hear them say “defensive line – they always have a great defensive line”.

Last year, Corey Liuget went in the first round to the Chargers. This year, Whitney the Mercilus went in the first round to the Texans. Next year, Michael Buchanan will be drafted. The next year, Akeem Spence (actually, Spence will probably leave early and get drafted alongside Buchanan). That gives us the ability to tell recruits that they can be the next defensive lineman that Keith Gilmore will put in the NFL.

Which is apparently exactly what we’re doing. In the last ten days we’ve added DT Merrick Jackson, DE Jarrod Clements, and DT Kenton Gibbs to the fold. If two of those names sound familiar, that’s because you read them here two weeks ago:

Here’s 10 guys I want:

1. DB Darius Mosley (O’Fallon HS): Corner/safety with quicks. Would play early.
2. WR Kwamane Bowens (Virginia Beach Salem HS): Big WR from Chris Beatty land.
3. DE Josh Augusta (Peoria Central HS): Michigan/Oklahoma/Notre Dame offers. We need DE’s – he’d be perfect.
4. DT Kenton Gibbs (Detroit Cass Tech HS): Big DT from a football factory.
5. RB Taquon Mizzell (Virginia Beach Bayside HS): Bayside HS? Is AC Slater the coach? Another Beatty target – this kid has offers from everywhere.
6. LB Eric Beisel (Fenton, MO Summit HS): Our MLB of the future if he picks Illinois.
7. OT Jack Keeler (Barrington HS): We’ve missed on a lot of the in-state tackles already, and we’ll likely miss on Pocic, but Keeler would be a great consolation prize.
8. CB Jalen Banks (Harvey Thornton HS): We need 3 or 4 corners in this class. Mosley-Banks-Cazley would be a fantastic pairing.
9. DT Merrick Jackson (Belleville Althoff HS): Would love a mammoth nose guard in this class – Jackson would be perfect.
10. WR Shelton Gibson (Cleveland Heights HS): I can dream, can’t I? Probably down to Ohio State and Auburn, but Beckman has connections in Cleveland.

Add Josh Augusta to that mix (which will be difficult given his Michigan and Oklahoma offers), and my dream of D-Line U might come true. And even though he wasn’t on my WANT list, Clements might be the best of them all. To the point where he had such a good Nike camp last weekend in Ohio that I’m now frightened he’ll get plucked by an SEC school.

As an aside, it’s a crazy thing being an Illini football fan who follows recruiting. Given all the stuff I read about Clements after the weekend, I’m pretty sure he’ll jump to a 4-star on many rankings. Which would be great… but I kind of don’t want him to because I don’t want him to climb out of our league. I want all of our recruits to be like Brandon Lloyd – awesome on film, but completely off the radar for other schools.

Where was I? Oh yes, DL-U. I think we can be exactly like Wisconsin, just on the other side of the ball. They don’t get 5-star offensive linemen left and right; those kids go to Michigan or Ohio State or Alabama. They do get a few four-stars, but it’s mostly three-star offensive linemen like Jack Keeler that they feed into their machine and spit out top-5 college offensive line after top-5 college offensive line. They over-recruit at that position a bit (they currently have 10 offensive tackles on their roster – we have four), mostly because it’s their identity, and they want to keep that strong because it defines who they are.

I want defensive lines to define who we are. I want a machine. I want to keep Keith Gilmore around for 15 years and keep handing him recruits like Clements, Gibbs, and Jackson. And I also want to go find some blue chippers like Liuget and Buchanan to add in to the mix. You don’t need all four-star recruits (guys like Mercilus, Spence, and Will Davis show that it can be done by putting solid athletes into a system), but it can’t be done the Indiana way either, where you’re fighting the MAC for recruits. This class is just about perfect – Gibbs, Clements, and Jackson rank #34, #39, and #44 at their position nationally on Scout, and that’s better than any defensive linemen we’ve added since the Liuget/Mercilus/Foster class (and all three rank higher than everyone but Liuget).

The other piece to this is that we need a hybrid guy on the outside to go with the beef at the other three DL positions. And I think we’re in good shape there as well. This year, it’s Buchanan. Next year, it will be Brandon Denmark. And the two years after that, Darrius Caldwell fills that role. I’ve hinted at this before, but I might as well come out and print it. While chatting with Vic Koenning in San Francisco, he told me that Caldwell could be “better than all of them” (speaking of Buchanan, Mercilus, and Liuget), and that he had more physical tools than any player he’d recruited since DeMarcus Ware at Troy. But, he cautioned, “he’ll have to want it like Whitney wanted it – getting better at practice every single day”. I didn’t print it at the time because I felt strange about Vic sharing all of this information with me, not knowing what was supposed to be off the record and what was on. But now that it’s 5 months later, the lines have blurred. I’m going with “he wanted me to share that”. And I really hope he’s right.

Because if he is, we can keep this machine going. The Liuget season in 2010. Then the Mercilus year. Maybe this year is the Buchanan year and (hopefully) 2013 is Akeem Spence’s year. 2014? Darius Caldwell emerges. 2015? Pick one – Teko Powell, Vontrell Williams, Merrick Jackson, Kenton Gibbs, or Jarrod Clements. Maybe even Josh Augusta. And so on.

Make this DL-U, Coach Beckman. Build a defense that can stop the run and get to the quarterback. Make that our whole identity. “Illinois? What, have they led the league in sacks and TFL’s six years in a row now?”

Hmmm… maybe I like that better. Because it really is all about sacks and tackles for loss – penetrate and stop the tailback or the quarterback in the backfield. Illinois: we’re TFLU. I smell a hashtag.

I also wrote some stuff on our new hoops transfer, Sam McLaurin, but I was trying way, way too hard to be funny. Get this – I was going to title the post “Play It Again, Sam” and make lots of Sam Maniscalco/Sam McLaurin comparisons. This post included, I kid you not, a bit about “who’s next – Sam Worthington?” and, AND, the word “ManiscalifragilisticexpialiAWESOME”. I’m not kidding – I was going to use that word. And it was going to be FUNNY. You people have no idea how much you’d dislike me if I published everything I wrote.

It’s especially hard to not post such things in the offseason, when there’s very little to write about. Topics are few and far between from May through July. There’s lots of basketball recruiting stuff, and I’m pretty excited about following that again, and I have an expansion on the “rank all 89 players who might contribute to the football team this fall” series planned for this summer, but beyond that, the topic pool is thin. Which leads me to type things like “who’s next – SAM WORTHINGTON?”

So when I find myself in that place, I delete those posts and write a post like this. It’s my way of apologizing for no new posts while also communicating my goal to never post anything substandard on this site (which invites great irony given the substandard nature of this post, but now we’re running in circles).  I need Camp Rantoul to get here like Pat Fitzgerald needs substandard non-conference scheduling.

Hey, there’s a nice offseason statistic that would fit in a post complaining about the lack of offseason topics to write about: the absolutely incredible non-conference streaks that Illinois and Northwestern have compiled the last five years.  Illinois hasn’t played a non-conference opponent with a below .500 record since Syracuse in 2007.  Northwestern hasn’t played a non-conference FBS opponent with an at-or-above-.500 record since Nevada in 2007.  Here’s the lists:

The Illinois Streak
1. Ball State 2007 – 7-5
2. Missouri 2008 – 9-3
3. Louisiana-Lafayette 2008 – 6-6
4. Western Michigan 2008 – 9-3
5. Missouri 2009 – 8-4
6. Cincinnati 2009 – 12-0
7. Fresno State 2009 – 8-4
8. Missouri 2010 – 10-2
9. Northern Illinois 2010 – 10-2
10. Fresno State 2010 – 8-4
11. Arkansas State 2011 – 10-2
12. Arizona State 2011 – 6-6
13. Western Michigan 2011 – 7-5

The Northwestern Streak
1. Duke 2007 – 1-11
2. Eastern Michigan 2007 – 4-8
3. Syracuse 2008 – 3-9
4. Duke 2008 – 4-8
5. Ohio 2008 – 4-8
6. Eastern Michigan 2009 – 0-12
7. Syracuse 2009 – 4-8
8. Miami (OH) 2009 – 1-11
9. Vanderbilt 2010 – 2-10
10. Rice 2010 – 4-8
11. Central Michigan 2010 – 3-9
12. Boston College 2011 – 4-8
13. Army 2011 – 3-9
14. Rice 2011 – 4-8

So if you include our other non-conference games in 2007 (11-1 Missouri and 2-10 Syracuse) and theirs (6-6 Nevada), here’s the cumulative totals for the regular season records of the last 15 Illinois and Northwestern non-conference FBS opponents:

Illinois Fighting Illini: 123-57 (.683)
Northwestern Purple People: 47-133 (.261)

An orange non-con schedule that makes me cry, and a purple one that makes me laugh out loud.  The lesson we’ve all learned today: when struggling to come up with topics to write about in the offseason, point to the easiest non-conference schedule in college football history and laugh at Northwestern’s fake resurgence.

I don’t know about you, but I feel better already.

I just got home from the Spring Game, one of my favorite days of the year, and all I can think about is a 4-star quarterback picking Northwestern. Northwestern.

As you know, if you’ve ever read any words in this space, I care way too much about recruiting. Mostly because it’s everything in college sports. The reason Kentucky and Kansas and Ohio State and Louisville went to the Final Four was 17% coaching and 83% recruiting. The reason Alabama played LSU in the title game in January was 8% coaching and 92% recruiting. If you want a chance at title games, you have to land top-end talent. It’s really very simple.

This, of course, is not to say that you can’t win games without recruiting. Boise State hasn’t exactly landed world-beating recruiting classes the last 10 years, nor has TCU or even Wisconsin. If you build a system and recruit to that system, you don’t need Alabama-like talent to win. You simply need to land the targets necessary to keep your system going strong.

But in the end, it’s about getting those players. The reason Indiana has only been to two bowls the last 20 years is because they’ve recruited the least-talented players in the Big Ten. Northwestern hasn’t won a bowl game since the 1940′s not because of a long string of poor coaches – they simply haven’t been able to recruit top-flight players. In football or basketball, where they’ve never made the tourney.

So to see them land one of the best recruits in Northwestern history today is to see me depressed. If we had a few 4-stars already verballed at this point, I’m probably not writing this. But we don’t. Not really even close. Top-flight Illinois kids just don’t seem to feel any connection to our football program. And their disinterest holds me hostage. We need them to win games. My dreams can’t come true without them. But they’re not choosing to come to Champaign. And one of them just chose Evanston. And that’s just depressing.

What a difference a Bailey makes.

18 days later, and I’m jacked – Bill Self at his introductory press conference jacked – about football recruiting. We got our four-star quarterback, and then only days later, we filled two big holes on the defensive line. This class went from “top-flight Illinois kids just don’t seem to feel any connection to our football program” to “so, will this be the best class since 2009? 2008?” I’m jacked. A quick breakdown.

Aaron Bailey

I know, I’ve already talked about him in two different posts, but IT’S MY BLOG AND I’LL FLY IF I WANT TO. He’s the top verbal in the 3+ year history of this blog. In Football or Basketball. Not since Justin Green switched from Ohio State to Illinois a few days before signing day in 2009 has an athlete like this chosen Illinois. I just went to look up some of his stats… and found myself watching his highlights for the past 25 minutes (seriously). He’s a special athlete. And he’s ours.

One benefit of a spread offense in college football is that it takes some of the guesswork out of the quarterback position. In a pro-set, if you can’t find a guy who can make all the throws, you’re in trouble. In the spread, it’s more dependent on decision making and athleticism. You don’t need to make every throw – just be a good enough thrower to keep the defense honest and concentrate on perfecting the reads in the option game. Kevin Newsome was a fantastic high school spread quarterback, but he went to Penn State, tried their multiple offense, and just couldn’t swing it. With this offense, I’m not worried about that from Bailey. Teach him the intricacies of passing in the spread, and then let his athleticism take over.

We interrupt this love-fest to bring you the news that one of my 10 guys, OT Jack Keeler, just verballed to Wisconsin. They have 10 offensive tackles on their roster, we have 4… and he wants to be #11. The rest of this post will now be 19% less enthusiastic.

Merrick Jackson

Sunday night I write “would love a mammoth nose guard in this class – Jackson would be perfect.” Monday, he verbals. It’s like actually getting that thing you ask Santa for.

I’ve said before that I think this defensive line will have four rather distinct positions. Leo (the old “bandit” position), a standard 3-technique defensive tackle, a nose guard, and a standard pass-rushing defensive end. And after Akeem Spence leaves, I’m not really sure who will be the brute in the middle playing nose guard. Welcome 6′-3″, 320 lb. Merrick Jackson.

I really like his film and was very much hoping he’d end up at Illinois. It came down to Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois, and we got a bit of good luck when last week, two defensive tackles (both rated lower than Jackson, FWIW) verballed to Iowa. Presto, Jackson to Illinois. You say “I’d feel better if we beat Iowa straight-up”, I say “welcome 6′-3″ 320 lb. Merrick Jackson”.

He’s fairly nimble on his feet on film, and does a good job (like Akeem Spence) of chasing down the line and running down a tailback on the edge. He overpowers linemen in high school, and he’ll learn that he won’t be able to do that in the Big Ten, so give him a redshirt year in the weight room and maybe he can contribute as soon as 2014.

Oh, and with the entire 2011 defensive tackle recruiting class not making it to campus, Jackson is our highest-ranked defensive tackle since Lendell Buckner in 2009. But that’s not all.

Jarrod Clements

On Tuesday, Trotwood-Madison (OH) defensive end Jarrod Clements verballed to Illinois. He had just returned from a visit to West Virginia (where he had an offer), but felt that Illinois was the place he wanted to be. He also had offers from NC State, Tennessee, and Louisville.

When I watch Clements on film, I think of Glenn Foster’s high school film. So that’s where I’m going to project him. Start at defensive end. Possibly move inside to 3-technique defensive tackle. Continue to grow and get stronger and learn the correct pad level and then have a few highly successful upperclassmen years.

Actually, thinking about it some more, I’m somewhat hoping he ends up at defensive end. 2015 defensive line: Darrius Caldwell at the Leo, Vontrell Williams or Teko Powell at DT, Merrick Jackson at NG, and Jarrod Clements at DE? The future of the defense looks a whole lot brighter than it did a week ago.

And it all started with Bailey. Get a bell cow recruit (bell cow? am I Ron Zook?) and others will follow. We needed this class to be significantly better than the last few, and beating Nebraska/Wisconsin/Ohio State for Bailey, and then beating Missouri and Iowa for Jackson, and then beating Louisville/Tennessee/West Virginia for Clements tells me we’re inching back towards the level of the 2008/2009 classes. Which is exactly what we needed to do. We so need solid depth at key positions in the 2013 class, and after the last week, I think you can say we’re now off to a really good start.

And Northwestern still only has Alviti.

For an athletic department once dominated by the basketball program, this has to be the best year for Illini athletics in a long time, if not ever. Volleyball in the national title game, football back to back bowl wins, women’s soccer wins the Big Ten tourney and goes to the NCAA tournament, wrestling 7th at nationals, gymnastics national championship, golf and tennis Big Ten titles, baseball trying to defend their Big Ten title. And I’m probably forgetting some individuals, like that hurdler guy who might win a national title. It’s a good time year to be orange and blue.

Now, if I know Illini fans well, the only thing you read in the above paragraph was “once dominated by the basketball program” and you kind of blanked out. Here – go watch these videos of the coaches at practice this week. You’ll feel a lot better about the direction we’re heading. For those of you that are like me, and April through August is just one big run-up to the football season, well, the rest of this post is for you.

Mercilus-Jenkins-Allen-Wilson

The good news: all of the buzz surrounding “another Illinois player gets picked – where are the Ohio State and Michigan players”? The bad news: will we still have a solid defense without them?

I watched parts of the Wrigley Field game the other night (yeah, so what? 519 rushing yards). And it occurred to me today that several times during that game, when Clay Nurse would rotate out at DE and Jonathan Brown rotated in at the Will, this was the defense we put on the field:

DE: Whitney Mercilus – 1st round draft pick
DT: Corey Liuget – 1st round draft pick
DT: Akeem Spence – definite draft pick in the 2014 draft and possibly the 2013 draft
DE: Michael Buchanan – not sure which round, but 2013 draft pick

LB: Jonathan Brown – probable draft pick in 2014
LB: Martez Wilson – 3rd round draft pick
LB: Nate Bussey – 7th round draft pick

CB: Terry Hawthorne: definite draft pick this time next year
CB: Justin Green: probable draft pick next spring (speed kills)
S: Tavon Wilson: 2nd round draft pick
S: Trulon Henry: I love me some Trulon, but he wasn’t picked.

If Spence, Buchanan, Brown, Hawthorne, and Green all get drafted next year (or, in Spence and Brown’s case, hopefully, the 2014 draft), that’s 10 players from that defense getting picked in the NFL draft. I don’t think we’ll ever see that again.

Oh yeah, the bad news. After Spence, Buchanan, Brown, Hawthorne, and Green are gone, here’s the list of guys on the defense who are sure-fire NFL draft picks:

Darrius Caldwell has the frame and athleticism to possibly be a 2016 NFL Draft pick?
We have a lot of good young linebackers and one of them is bound to be NFL material?
Gosh TaJarvis Fuller looked good in the Spring Game?

Granted, 8 months ago today you would have laughed at me had I suggested Whitney Mercilus as a 7th round draft pick, let alone first round, so there’s ample time for new stars to emerge. But I still don’t think we’ll see 11 more talented players on the field than that grouping above ever again.
Hey, speaking of talent:

Bailey-Bailey-Bailey-Bailey

I’m still just as excited as I was when I heard the news on Thursday night. It’s one of those wake-up thoughts, where you turn off the alarm, rub your eyes, and it hits you – we have a legitimate blue-chip quarterback who wants to play his football in Champaign.

Personally, I’m hoping he chooses to redshirt and work on learning the complexities of a college offense (like Nate did). That would make our next six seasons at the quarterback position play out like this:

2012: Scheelhaase, with some O’Toole
2013: Scheelhaase, with maybe even more O’Toole (Bailey redshirts)
2014: O’Toole, with some Bailey worked in here and there.
2015: Bailey
2016: BAILEY
2017: BAILEY BAILEY BAILEY

Now, we just need to get him some weapons. And fill some holes on future defenses. And upgrade our lines.

Here’s 10 guys I want, just because Aaron Bailey made me feel good about football recruiting again. Please note that this is a “legitimate shot at getting” list – I obviously want in-state guys like OT Ethan Pocic and WR Laquon Treadwell to pick Illinois, but they both have offers from nearly every school in the country. They’re in the “I’m not holding my breath” category (like, you know, Aaron Bailey).

1. DB Darius Mosley (O’Fallon HS): Corner/safety with quicks. Would play early.
2. WR Kwamane Bowens (Virginia Beach Salem HS): Big WR from Chris Beatty land.
3. DE Josh Augusta (Peoria Central HS): Michigan/Oklahoma/Notre Dame offers. We need DE’s – he’d be perfect.
4. DT Kenton Gibbs (Detroit Cass Tech HS): Big DT from a football factory.
5. RB Taquon Mizzell (Virginia Beach Bayside HS): Bayside HS? Is AC Slater the coach? Another Beatty target – this kid has offers from everywhere.
6. LB Eric Beisel (Fenton, MO Summit HS): Our MLB of the future if he picks Illinois.
7. OT Jack Keeler (Barrington HS): We’ve missed on a lot of the in-state tackles already, and we’ll likely miss on Pocic, but Keeler would be a great consolation prize.
8. CB Jalen Banks (Harvey Thornton HS): We need 3 or 4 corners in this class. Mosley-Banks-Cazley would be a fantastic pairing.
9. DT Merrick Jackson (Belleville Althoff HS): Would love a mammoth nose guard in this class – Jackson would be perfect.
10. WR Shelton Gibson (Cleveland Heights HS): I can dream, can’t I? Probably down to Ohio State and Auburn, but Beckman has connections in Cleveland.

I could go on all day. Armed with “we just put 4 kids in the top-50 of the NFL draft” and “Aaron Bailey Aaron Bailey”, we now have a legitimacy that maybe wasn’t there a week ago today. Which means we may be able to sign our best class in the last four years. Which means we might be able to win lots of football games in the future. Which seems to be the thing these days with Illini athletics.

*checks Twitter before posting, sees that Laquon Treadwell just tweeted “Bailey to Treadwell for the touchdown”*

*faints*

Now I have 33 minutes to tell you everything you wanted to know about how I feel about the last 48 hours. 32 minutes and 45 seconds.  I best just start typing.

Rayvonte Rice to Illinois

*loves*

I’m a huge fan of this move.  With Crandall Head leaving, Meyers Leonard off to the NBA, Michael Orris de-committing, and DJ, BP3, and Grif graduating, we have lots of room to get creative with the 2013 class.  Adding a transfer from the MVC might be a questionable move if you’ve only got one or two scholarships left, but we can add Rice AND have three more scholarships to give.

I’ve watched him play a few times, and my main reaction is this:  he’s kind of that pest that you hate to play against.  He’s that guy that always ends up with the loose ball with 45 seconds left.  He’s not the perfect height for a Big Ten wing (6′-4″ and 240 pounds), but he can overpower you and get into the lane (to the tune of 16.8 points per game last year at Drake).  But the thing I love the most are his other statistics: 11th in the MVC in rebounding (for a wing guard).  1st in the MVC in steals.  I think this is the perfect glue guy for the 13/14 and 14/15 teams.  And who knows – he might just be our leading scorer.

With those last three scholarships, I think we do this:  One is hidden in a desk drawer somewhere in an envelope with the words “do not open unless your name is Jabari Parker”.  One goes to Kendrick Nunn (or someone else who is a hired-gun shooter), and the third goes to a big (Gavin Schilling? Tony Farmer? Devin Williams?).  And if Parker ends up elsewhere, give that one to another big as well.

Whit to the Texans, AJ to the Niners

All we do is put players in the first round.

No, seriously, all we do is put players in the first round.

First round picks by school since 2008:

Alabama: 11
USC: 10
Florida: 6
Illinois: 5

Both exhilarating and infuriating, right?  Lots of first round talent since 2008 – and a 22-28 record.

But Tim Beckman is sitting in a pretty good position right now.  He can turn to high school defensive linemen and tell them how Keith Gilmore put Corey Liuget and Whitney the Mercilus in the first round.  He can turn to Laquon Treadwell and tell him that if AJ Jenkins can go from Illinois to the first round, he can do the same.  And he can walk into every living room and say “Alabama, USC, Florida… Illinois.”  With a straight face.

So congrats to Whitney and AJ.  I think I speak for all Illinois fans when I say we’re crazy excited for you both.  And I’d like to take just  a moment to say something about Paul Petrino:  after AJ cleaned out his locker and moved home after the 2009 season, he met with Zook and Petrino about the new offense we’d be installing.  And if I remember correctly, Petrino said that he would not only feature AJ if he came back, but that he’d put him in the draft.  Good work, Paul.  Oh – sorry about your brother and all.

And one more thing as well about the good position Tim Beckman is sitting in:

AARON BAILEY TO ILLINOIS

From 12 days ago, in my whiny “Alviti to Northwestern isn’t FAIR” post:

OK, I need to go to bed. And dream of 4-star quarterbacks coming to Champaign. Aaron Bailey, a weary Illini nation turns our eyes to you.

And he LISTENED.  If I didn’t have to leave in 11 minutes, I could type 2,000 words on this subject.  My mind is ablaze with trying to figure out which my my 34 thoughts to type out.  I’ll start here.

In the last 30 years, I think the order of “top-5 Illini QB recruits” goes like this:

1. Jeff George
2. Juice Williams
3. Aaron Bailey
4. Nathan Scheelhaase
5. Jeff Hecklinski

In the last 15 years, I think the list of “Baker’s Dozen of the Top Illini Recruits” goes like this:

1. Arrelious Benn
2. Martez Wilson
3. Rashard Mendenhall
4. Martin O’Donnell
5. Melvin Alaeze
6. Terry Hawthorne
7. Justin Green
8. Juice Williams
9. Aaron Bailey
10. Corey Liuget
11. Josh Brent
12. Ismail Abdufani
13. Nathan Scheelhaase

This is a big, big deal.  Similar to when Juice verballed to Illinois on May 28, 2005.  Zook was new on the job, recruiting started slowly, and then BAM the #3 QB on Rivals (#6 QB on Scout) verbals and the class takes off.  Yesterday? BAM the #4 QB on Rivals (#6 QB on Scout) verbals, and now the class should take off.

(I’m in this total panic now – I have, like 4 minutes left).

I think he’s the perfect QB for this spread.  I think he has enough arm that, although he doesn’t use it in high school, he can be groomed to be a fantastic college QB.  I think he’s the best runner of any QB we’ve ever recruited in 120 some years of Illini football.  I think he’ll have a 200 yard rushing game.  Maybe several.

And I think we can build an entire recruiting class around him.  I think crazy-good in-state players might actually listen when we call.  I think we might be able to land one of the top in-state tackles.

I think I’m out of time.  I’ll have to add more words later about Bailey.  But I’ll just say this:  he’s the biggest Illini recruit to verbal during the Obama Administration.  Football or Basketball.  This is a huge, huge deal.

Great, now I’m late.  Go Illini.

Listen or Download

When I tell people this, they kind of automatically assume that it’s a purity issue. “They just play the game the right way” and such. I guess that’s somewhat true, but it really has very little to do with the way the sport is played. It has everything to do with the people.

All fans want to feel they’re part of the team, and for me, having class with Kiwane Garris made me feel involved in some way. Kiwane asks to borrow a pencil one day before a test, and I leave the room thinking that I just kept him academically eligible. I had nothing to do with anything, of course, but there’s something about being a sports fan and a college student that makes you feel somehow involved. I’m screaming from my seat in Krush the next game and I almost feel like Kiwane is going to thank me Tuesday in class.

So my allegiance, when it comes to Illini Football and Basketball, is to the players. Those are my guys. Coaches will come and go – some I will support and some I will bulldoggedly complain about until they’re wearing purple – but I’m always in the corner of the players. You can probably find five examples the last few years in Camp Rantoul of me saying “they’re out here busting their butt simply for my enjoyment”.

That’s honestly how I feel. Yes, their education is paid for. But they’re still getting up at 5:45 on a Tuesday in February to go lift heavy pieces of metal so I can cheer them from my seat in Memorial Stadium. They’re still sweating in the 91 degree heat of Rantoul just so I can say that it’s been 893 days since we lost to Northwestern in football. A few will go on to the riches of the NFL (and when they do, like Whit and Jeff and AJ tomorrow and Friday, I’m incredibly nervous and hoping against hope for them to be picked early), but the majority of players are simply volunteering to wear a uniform and play a game that brings me joy.

And there’s a certain group of players at the top of that scale: the walkons. They’re doing all of the same things above – getting up early in February, sweating in Rantoul – but they’re doing it for nothing. With the majority of them never even finding the field. Four or five years of blood, sweat, and tears, simply because they love putting on the jersey. My guys.

So when SID asked for names of players that people wanted to interview after the spring game, I knew exactly who I wanted to talk to: Peter Bonahoom.

Who?

I first noticed Peter Bonahoom in Rantoul last summer. Paul Petrino would put the wide receivers through drill after drill, and there’s #29, beating everyone to the next drill station every time. I make voice notes sometimes when I’m at practice (I know, get a life), and I jokingly made a note to myself that I had found “our Rudy”.

This spring at the Friday practice during the coaching clinic, there was #29 again, catching passes and going hard every single drill. This is not to say that the other receivers don’t go hard – they do. It’s just that this kid’s motor sticks out at practice. And given my penchant for walkons giving their all when they’re not earning even scholarship money for their effort, I wanted to find out what made this kid tick. So I asked him.

“I feel like I’ve always been like that in all sports”, he said, still looking a little weirded-out that some blogger had asked to interview him. “I tried to be a leader in high school, and then coming here as a walkon I knew it would be tough to be that, so I figured that the best way to lead would be to go as hard as I can in every drill and be energetic. I felt like that would be the best way for me to contribute to the team.”

Most walkons at BCS teams had other opportunities to play football elsewhere, so I was curious as to his story. I knew that he and Miles Osei had played together in high school – was it his desire to play with Miles again that led him to Champaign? Sort of.

“The first time I came down here was my sophomore year. I came down to catch balls for Miles on his recruiting trip, so I got to see it then. Then Miles did a great job of recruiting me once he got here. I had some offers to play baseball from Bradley, Illinois State, Houston, and schools like that, and I had some FCS offers for football, but from the start I knew I wanted to come here and play football. Because I knew that I could play.”

And that’s just what he showed in the Spring Game. Bonahoom had 3 catches for 32 yards, including two big third-down conversions for the Orange Team. And he even got to catch a few of those from his old buddy Miles Osei.

“I was joking around with my family after the game that this is the first time I’ve actually played a football game in two years. I can definitely feel it now. I got the first half jitters out and came back in the second half and got a few catches. That felt really good, especially catching some balls from Miles.”

That statement stuck with me. All of those practices. All of those 5:45 alarms. All for a sport he loves… but that he doesn’t get to actually participate in. It had been a long time since he had taped up for a live game, and you could sense his excitement as he answered my questions about how the coaches had been using him.

“I’ve played all three positions this spring. I’ve played mostly Z receiver but in the game today I played some H (inside receiver). In high school I was always the inside guy running seam routes, but I like coming over the middle on a drag route. I don’t mind getting hit. I like hitting people, so it’s been going good. I feel like I have good hands. I think my routes could get a lot better, but I think that some people don’t think that I can run. I feel like I’m a lot faster than people believe. That will help a lot. And I feel like I can be a lot more physical than most players – I don’t mind getting hit coming over the middle.”

At this point I realized that what I was doing was maybe unfair to him. Here I’ve singled him out and asked him questions about his strengths as a receiver, and yet this summer the coaches will be out on the road recruiting over him. Such is the life of a walkon. Every fall, there’s a new crop of players that were brought in to fill the hole that you’re trying to squeeze into, and you have to battle for just a sniff of the field. For Bonahoom, this didn’t seem to bother him. He’s found the game he loves.

“Growing up, I was a huge baseball guy. It wasn’t until after my junior year of high school where I realized I football was a totally different game. I realized that there’s a family aspect to football that you don’t get with baseball. The guys you’re around playing football – you just grow much closer to them relationship-wise. I like that. The game is at a higher speed. It’s a higher level of competition.”

Baseball, eh? So I had to ask. Growing up in Arlington Heights – Cubs or White Sox?

“I’m a big Boston Red Sox fan. My family used to take a trip to Boston every year, and we’d always go to Fenway, so I grew up rooting for the Red Sox. I’m Bears, Blackhawks, and Bulls, but for baseball, I’m a Red Sox guy.”

I thoroughly enjoyed my time chatting with Bonahoom. He’s living the dream that my complete lack of athleticism and pain tolerance wouldn’t allow me to pursue – walking on to the Illini Football team. And it’s clear that he loves it. He could have taken scholarship money to play baseball, but here he is, battling 10 scholarship receivers for a chance to see a few passes tossed his way. And seriously loving it. You could sense how excited he was about this fall.

“Not many freshman walkons travel, but I can travel this year, so I’m looking forward to it. Going out to Arizona, going up to Camp Randall, going to the Big House, I’m definitely looking forward to that.”

So am I, kid.

QB: Nathan Scheelhaase (JR) / Reilly O’Toole (SO) / Chase Haslett (rs-FR)
Scat-RB: Josh Ferguson (rs-FR) / Miles Osei (JR) / Devin Church (FR)
Power-RB: Donovonn Young (SO) / Zach Becker (SR) / Ean Days (rs-SO) / Dami Ayoola (FR)
Split-TE: Jon Davis (SO) / Matt LaCosse (SO) / Tim Russell (JR walkon)
Power-TE: Evan Wilson (JR) / Eddie Viliunas (SR) / Justin Lattimore (JR)
LT: Simon Cvijanovic (rs-SO) / Scott McDowell (rs-FR) / Josiah VanderHeyden (SO-walkon)
LG: Hugh Thornton (SR) / Alex Hill (rs-SO) / Chris Boles (rs-FR)
C: Graham Pocic (SR) / Jake Feldmeyer (JR) / Tony Durkin (rs-FR)
RG: Teddy Karras (rs-FR) / Tyler Sands (SR) / Joseph Spencer (FR)
RT: Michael Heitz (rs-SO) / Pat Flavin (rs-FR) / Shawn Afryl (rs-SO)
WR1: Darius Millines (JR) / Jeremy Whitlow (rs-FR) / Kenny Knight (rs-FR)
WR2: Spencer Harris (JR) / Jordan Frysinger (rs-FR) / Peter Bonahoom (rs-FR walkon)
WR3: Ryan Lankford (JR) / Fritz Rock (rs-SO) / Anthony Williams (rs-SO)

Leo: Michael Buchanan (SR) / Brandon Denmark (JR) / Darrius Caldwell (rs-FR)
DT: Glenn Foster (SR) / Austin Teitsma (rs-SO) / Chris O’Connor (rs-FR)
NG: Akeem Spence (JR) / Jake Howe (rs-SO) / Dejazz Woods (rs-SO)
DE: Justin Staples (SR) / Tim Kynard (JR) / Kenny Nelson (rs-FR)
WLB: Houston Bates (rs-SO) / Henry Dickinson (SO) / Mason Monheim (FR)
MLB: Jonathan Brown (JR) / Ralph Cooper (SO) / TJ Neal (FR)
Star: Ashante Williams (SR) / TaJarvis Fuller (FR) / Zeph Grimes (rs-FR)
CB: Terry Hawthorne (SR) / Eaton Spence (rs-FR) / Jevaris Little (FR)
FS: Steve Hull (JR) / Ben Mathis (JR-walkon) / Earnest Thomas (rs-SO)
SS: Supo Sanni (SR) / Patrick Nixon-Youman (SR) / Nick North (rs-FR)
CB: Justin Green (SR) / Jack Ramsey (SR) / V’Angelo Bentley (FR)

K: Taylor Zalewski (rs-FR) / Nick Immekus (rs-SO) / Brennen Van Mieghem (rs-FR) / Ryan Frain (FR)
P: Justin DuVernois (SO) / Brad Janitz (rs-SO) / Garrett Stroup (rs-FR)

A few thoughts (although most of this was already covered in Part I and Part II.

+ Because it appears we’ll have a few different positions in the offensive backfield, and because I refuse to use lame Northwestern-y words like “superback”, I’ve named the four backfield positions.  I’m splitting the tailbacks into “Power-RB” and “Scat-RB” (for lack of a better term), and I’m splitting the tight ends into “Split-TE” and “Power-TE”.  I realize that “split tight end” is an oxymoron that makes my father roll over in his grave (he was a split end as a junior in high school and a tight end as a senior according to numerous high school reports), but that’s the best I can do.

I’ll describe it this way: say we run the West Virginia Orange Bowl Clemson Killer play, the shovel sweep.  Nate is in the shotgun, Donovonn Young behind him, Josh Ferguson split out to the right (with Darius Millines out wide), Evan Wilson at Tight End and Jon Davis split out as a receiver.  Ferguson goes in motion and a timed snap reaches Nate just before Ferguson arrives.  If it’s a shovel sweep, Nate flips the ball to a speeding Ferguson right in front of him, and Wilson and Davis are on the edge blocking for him.  If it’s a fake shovel sweep, he fakes the flip and hands to the power back (Young) for a standard dive play.  If he fakes both of those, he has multiple tight ends and a wide receiver to throw to.

Two positions, dozens of different looks in a spread.  That’s why I feel the need to break our depth chart into things like “scat-RB” and “power-TE”.

+ Why do I always forget Brandon Denmark?  Shame on me.  I don’t think I even mentioned him in Part II.

This year, it’s mostly Justin Staples and Michael Buchanan getting after the quarterback.  In 2013, it’s a combination of Tim Kynard, Brandon Denmark, and Darrius Caldwell.  Caldwell can then begin his world domination in 2014 and 2015.

+ Player I’m the least sure what to do with, but the most sure he’ll be a major contributor down the road:  Zeph Grimes.  He was the Scout Team Defensive Player of the Year, and guys that win that award (like this guy named Whitney Mercilus) are usually players to watch in the future.  But I’m not sure if he’ll be a star linebacker or if he’s more the inside type.  I’m 63% certain I saw him playing some Will Linebacker in the spring game, but that’s not enough for me to move him to Will.  So I’ll keep him a star linebacker for now.

+ I also put some incoming freshmen in this three-deep.  Guys like V’Angelo Bentley and Dami Ayoola.  And, of course, future superStar TaJarvis Fuller.