After his fourth practice as football head coach on April 4, Ron Zook had lots to say about how helpful the 70-degree heat was in getting the team in gear for the season.

On Saturday, the Florida transplant got a glimpse of the temperatures he’s more likely to deal with in Champaign, with the mercury hovering around 40 degrees and the winds whipping 30 miles per hour for the Illini’s spring scrimmage.

The scrimmage concluded the football spring season, with the stacked white team topping the blue team 33-16.

The player of the game was sophomore quarterback Tim Brasic, who emerged as the clear frontrunner to start next season. Brasic completed 18-of-27 passes for 195 yards and one touchdown Saturday.

“This new offense is something I’m accustomed to,” Brasic said. “I did nothing but shotgun in high school; with our athletes, being in shotgun, it’s easier to read defenses. There’s so many advantages to running a spread offense, and that’s what I’m most comfortable with.”

On the blue team, sophomore quarterback Chris Pazan completed 7-of-15 throws for 72 yards.

Redshirt-freshman Kisan Flakes, considered one of the favorites to start before the 15-session spring season began, completed just 1-of-3 passes for the blue team and 1-of-4 for White. He rushed six times for 30 yards for Blue, and 3 times for 23 yards for White.

“Like any game, everybody learns from their minor errors and mistakes, so anybody can improve,” Flakes said. “I think with my running aspect, I know it wasn’t live but I got a couple good runs in. Definitely my passing needs to go up; I didn’t get too many attempts.”

Defensively, White benefited from interceptions by seniors James Cooper, Morris Virgil, Kyle Kleckner and sophomore Charles Bailey. Redshirt-freshman Jeff Sobol recorded two sacks.

On the Blue side, sophomore J Leman had 15 stops and three tackles for loss.

“There’s a lot more checks involved this year than last year,” Virgil said. “Instead of just being in base and letting the offense dictate, we’re now checking for stuff and dictating what the offense can do to us. Making them have to make changes too, as we make changes.”

Junior tailback E.B. Halsey rushed for two white-team touchdowns in the first half. Sophomore kicker Jason Reda, playing for both squads, made a 36-yard field goal for the blue team to bring the score to 13-3 with just less than five minutes left in the second period.

A minute and a half later redshirt-freshman defensive back Jarvis Newson forced a fumble, which senior safety Brian Brosnan picked up for a 45-yard touchdown.

Reda then made a field goal for the white team, and the score was 16-10 going into the half.

Less than three minutes into the second half, senior defensive back James Cooper turned an interception into a 43-yard touchdown run, bringing the white team ahead 23-10. In the fourth quarter, Brasic threw to senior fullback Jason Davis in the end zone, and Reda made a 26-yard field goal to put White up 33-10. Pazan hit redshirt-freshman wide receiver Bryant Creamer for a touchdown, bringing the final score to 33-16.

While Zook joked about petitioning for another 15 days of practice time, and admitted the team is not where he’d hoped to be by the end of the spring, he is happy with the improvements he’s seen.

“We’re not where we’d like to be, but realistically, if you sit back and reevaluate it, we are where we should be,” Zook said. “The first seven days or so of practice, we didn’t accomplish what we wanted to accomplish, but I think for the most part every day we got a little better. After that you begin to see sparks; you could see signs that everything’s coming together.”