Juiced

There are few things that I enjoy watching more than a road team going in, and sending everyone in the stadium home upset. Ideally, it's on some sort of shaky call by a ref, some sort of (to borrow from Bill Simmons) "stomach punch" fashion, or a last second play. It's even more fun when the team going on the road is your team.

Illini 23. Michigan St. 20.

I was chatting with Rookie earlier in the week, and we decided that the Illini had a shot, if we didn't give away the game and actually made Michigan St. win the game. We talked about how fragile Drew Stanton's psyche is, and how if we could stop the run, Stanton probably couldn't win the game, after giving it away last week to Notre Dame. So, if we could run the ball, and keep our defense off of the field, and then force them to pass, then we'd have a shot.

Of course, neither of us really thought that we were going to win.

Suckers.

We ran the ball well. 252 yards well. Pierre Thomas went for 110. Juice kept the ball enough to make 103 yards (which is probably understated since in college, yards lost when you're sacked count against you). If we can control games by running - we just may make a run at that bowl game (though the Syracuse loss really makes it difficult). I can see us beating Indiana. Their coach has a brain tumor. And as previously discussed, Northwestern's coach died. And we should beat Ohio. They're not any good. So hypothetically, we're at 5 wins. We don't know how good Purdue or Penn St. really are. Maybe we can get one of those for a 6th win.

Regardless, our next great hope played a very nice game. Isiah "Juice" Williams went 9 for 16,
122 yards in the air, a TD and a pick 6. What was great was that he bounced back immediately after the pick 6 and led a drive that ended up with an Illini TD (on a sweet halfback option play). I like how poised he looks in the pocket. He's got the huge arm, that's a little scatter-shot right now. And so far, his touch is a little bit off (he only seems to have one setting - cannon). But, I like how he's not jittery in the pocket, looks to make the pass first, and has the run as a good option when everything breaks down.

One thing that's interesting for me is that when I watch football on TV, I can usually tell from the QB's footwork and release whether or not the pass will be accurate. One thing that I noted was that on a few passes, I thought that Juice was about to have a very nice completion (good movement in the pocket, set his feet well, and had a nice release), only to watch the ball sail (albeit very, very quickly) by the receiver. I don't know if that's good or bad - 18 year old QB's with pocket presence are good. But it's hard to teach accuracy. Hopefully, it's just a matter of experience.

I have a suspicion that we'll show some more good things this year. And next year may actually get us to a bowl game. But things could be awfully interesting in 2009. Maybe I'll just hang out here for an extra year to see if I'm right on that guess.

-Chairman