It felt more like a high school pep rally than a Big Ten football game when the Illinois squad held its annual scrimmage at Rantoul High School’s Bill Walsh Field Saturday night. But maybe the reminder of their days as all-conference athletes was what the Illini offensive players needed, as they scored five touchdowns.

“It seems like high school,” senior quarterback Jon Beutjer said. “It seems like a long time ago – six years – but I had a great time tonight.”

The biggest play of the night came early, when junior wide reciever Kendrick Jones caught a 19-yard pass from quarterback Jon Beutjer only a few plays after dropping the first pass thrown to him.

“I was really proud of Kendrick tonight,” Beutjer said. “He came out early and he dropped the ball, and i know he was really really angry when he got back to the huddle and I told him ‘hey, we’re gonna keep giving you the ball’… and he went back to the field and made some good plays for us.”

Jones showed that he will be a player to watch this season, totalling 98 yards on 4 receptions Saturday. Coach Ron Turner said the change in Jones’ play is more a matter of maturity than anything else.

“Everyone progresses at a different speed,” Turner said. “Some people come in and they’re ready to play aggressively – some aren’t. Kendrick physically was ready to play a little bit; mentally and emotionally he wasn’t ready to play. He’s grown up a lot.”

Turner has praised running back Marcus Mason all camp for having a quality camp. Saturday was no different as Mason rushed for 56 yards and one touchdown.

The Illini offense consistently connected throughout the game, with Beutjer in mid-season form going 13-for-18 for 134 yards and two touchdowns.

“I thought the offense was really sharp early,” Turner said. “I thought Jon was really sharp, did a great job of running the offense, made some adjustments, did some things that a year ago I don’t know that he would have done. So he’s really improved.”

While the offense shone, the defense at times appeared to be a step behind. Turner said that had more to do with the strengths of the quarterbacks and wide recievers than the weakness of the defensive line.

“I think that made the defense look a little worse at the beginning than they were,” Turner said. “I thought they responded, kept battling and started playing better as it went on.”

Turner also cited intensive two-a-day practice sessions as wearing the team down.

“We just need to get our legs back, get fresh,” Turner said.

When the reserves took the field the biggest question revolved around who would be Beutjer’s backup and the scrimmage did little to separate Chris Pazan, Brad Bower and Tim Brasic.

“I think Chris has the best grasp of the offense,” Turner said. “He’s not as athletic as the other guys but he has the best grasp of what we’re doing offensively. Brad is most athletic. We’ll continue to give him rest and he needs to get a better grasp of what we’re doing offensively.”

Bower said Turner’s reminders that the spot is open drives the quarterbacks to work harder in practice.

“He just wants us to keep on coming, day in and day out and keep competing for it,” Bower said.

For a team coming off a one-win season, any positive that will carry over to the regular season is beneficial. Beutjer said he saw a number of pluses.

“I thought we did pretty well,” Beutjer said. “We came out here, I thought we executed well. One of our goals this year is no turnovers, and we had no turnovers tonight, and anytime we do that we have so much better chance of being successful.”