QB looks to senior season to cement Illini legacy

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- He meant it as a good-natured jab at a friend, but Illinois wide receiver Arrelious Benn's joke neatly summed up the situation facing his quarterback, Juice Williams, this fall.

"I always get on Juice," said Benn, the junior wideout who leads what might be Illinois' best receiving corps since the early 1990s. "Man, he has no excuse. He's got everybody he needs here."

And as Juice goes, almost certainly so go the Illini.

Illinois has been Williams' team since he stepped on the field late in his freshman season, in 2006, and led a no-hope, two-win Illinois team to within a touchdown of top-ranked Ohio State.

He was a raw product of the same Chicago high school that produced Dick Butkus, far more athlete than quarterback. But Juice was also Ron Zook's first big recruit and the Illini marketed him as the face of the resurgence they hoped Zook would lead.

Illinois quarterback Juice Williams scrambles during a game last season. (Associated Press, file)

At times Juice has carried that weight well. He led Illinois to the 2008 Rose Bowl, the reward for a surprise 9-3 season his sophomore year. But last year he seemed powerless to stop the Illini from falling back to a puzzling 5-7.

There was blame to go around. Illinois gave up 26.6 points a game and Williams' 719 yards rushing led a team suddenly without star running back Rashard Mendenhall, who was a top NFL draft pick. But Williams really only had a handful of strong games, the kind where his arm and his feet were on and the Illini offense clicked.

Zook said this season, his fifth at Illinois, the Illini don't have to sink or swim with their senior quarterback.

"These guys understand that it doesn't have to be just one guy," Zook said. "We don't have to put the team on Juice's back."

For starters, Benn will be joined at receiver this year by Jarred Fayson, a transfer from Florida who should force defenses to think twice about doubling Benn and daring Juice to find another target. Zook also believes his running back platoon -- Daniel Dufrene, Jason Ford, Mikel LeShore and Troy Pollard -- should be stronger than last year, when the four combined for 1,120 yards.

Williams calls last year a wake-up call, a reminder that a trip to the 2008 Rose Bowl didn't mean much the next season. He talks about the pressure on he and Benn -- who caught 67 balls for 1,055 yards last season and is widely expected to skip his senior year for the NFL -- to produce when not much else was working.

"It has to change," Williams said. "The offense can't put all that pressure on two guys. Getting everyone else involved allows those guys to build confidence in themselves in those situations."

But it's clear Williams knows what his senior season could mean for his own legacy at Illinois.

"I plan to go out there and lead this team to a bunch of wins and hopefully these guys will be able to look upon me as a leader and as a playmaker, especially in tight situations," Williams said.

Illinois could find itself in those tight situations quickly this season.

Their first five games include home dates with Penn State and Michigan State, and road games against Missouri and Ohio State. The Illini could have four losses by mid-October just as easily as they could have three or four wins.

Where they stand will likely depend in large part on Juice.

Zook likes to talk about how his quarterback has gotten a little better every year, increasing his completion percentage from 39.5 his freshman year to 57.5 last year. And Williams threw for 3,173 yards and 22 touchdowns last season, both best in the Big Ten (his 16 interceptions led the conference, too).

Zook is also aware of the pressure on his quarterback, who, at 21, has a young daughter and a fiance.

Zook recruited Williams to lead his team, but also to chip away at the wall that's long stood between Illinois and the Chicago area's top recruits. The orange-and-blue faithful have grown used to watching Chicago's best head to Notre Dame or Michigan or just about anywhere but Champaign.

Illinois wanted Williams to crack that wall.

When prodded, Williams allows a comparison not to Butkus, but to Dee Brown, the guard who led Illinois' basketball team to the 2005 national title game. Four years later, people in Champaign still talk about Brown the player and Brown the person.

"I just figure it'd be very hard to even be mentioned with his name," Williams said, acknowledging that he was recruited to be, more or less, Illini football's Dee Brown. "I've been blessed to get to the point where I am today."

And Williams knows Zook has something to prove, too. He has one winning season in four so far at Illinois, the one that means little or nothing as the losses stacked up last season.

"We want to go out there and defend coach Zook and let everyone know that [Rose Bowl bid] wasn't a fluke," Williams said. "All the expectations he has on the team mean nothing if we don't go out there and perform."