It’s been five years since Illinois has had a winning football program. During that span, Illinois has managed just eleven wins and only five wins in the Big Ten.

But, despite the woeful seasons of recent years, Illini fans can be encouraged by the way second-year head coach Ron Zook is beginning to put together a team that can start to contend.

In his first full season of recruiting, Zook managed to bring a top 30 recruiting class to Illinois in hopes of turning the program around.

Among those recruits is incoming freshmen quarterback Isiah “Juice” Williams. Williams, out of Chicago Vocational, was a present at many of Illinois spring practices.

While Williams wasn’t able to enroll early, he could still contend for the starting quarterback position this fall with last year’s starter, senior Tim Brasic.

In his first season as a starter, Brasic completed 61 percent of his throws for 1,979 yards, but had a poor 11:11 touchdown-to-interception ratio.

While Brasic will most likely get the start in the Illini’s first few games, it wouldn’t be a shock to see Williams taking the snaps sometime during the season.

Along with Brasic the Illini offense will return senior running backs E.B. Halsey and Pierre Thomas and sophomore Rashard Mendenhall, who could see more action in the Illini backfield after a breakout spring.

On defense, junior linebacker J Leman will make the move from outside to inside linebacker, an adjustment that Leman proved he could handle during the spring.

While Zook has a good core returning and a handful of talent coming in, this year’s Illini squad may still be a year away from making a run at a bowl game. But, don’t be surprised if they surprise a few teams this season and pull an upset or two.

2006 football schedule

Sept. 2 EIU

Sept. 9 @ Rutgers

Sept. 16 Syracuse

Sept. 23 Iowa

Sept. 30 @ Michigan State

Oct. 7 Indiana

Oct. 14 Ohio

Oct. 21 @ Penn State

Oct. 28 @ Wisconin

Nov. 4 Ohio State

Nov. 11 Purdue

Nov. 18 @ Northwestern

Television

Sept. 9 ESPN2

Sept. 16 ESPNU

The Coach

Ron Zook begins his second season at Illinois coming off of a 2-9 (0-8 Big Ten) inaugural season.

Despite the poor record, he did lead Illinois to its first two-game winning streak since 2002 and oversaw the fourth quarter comeback and overtime win against Rutgers on opening day.

Before coming to Illinois, Zook spent three seasons as head coach at Florida, compiling a 23-14 overall record and a 16-8 record in the SEC.

2005 statistics

2-9 (0-8) 11th in Big Ten

PPG: ILL 17.0 OPP 39.5

Rushing: ILL 1740 OPP 2574

Receiving: ILL 2161 OPP 2588

YPG: ILL 354.6 OPP 469.3