Saturday is senior day for the 20 players that head coach Tim Beckman gives a shout-out to every week.

After Saturday, the Michael Buchanans and the Terry Hawthornes of the world will no longer don Illinois uniforms in Champaign and grace Illini fans with their presence at Memorial Stadium.

In the four years these seniors have played at Illinois, they’ve compiled a 19-29 record but were also part of teams that won consecutive bowl games for the first time in Illinois history.

To say it’s been a roller-coaster four years would be an understatement. Throw in the fact that Illinois was riding a Rose Bowl appearance when these players arrived here and returned most of the talent from that ’07 team further exemplifies the mess.

They’ve also experienced what it’s like to lose a game on a two-point conversion to a lineman bumbling across the goal line with the ball in tow, play three overtimes at the Big House and be the first team to start 6-0 to then lose its next six.

While we may not play football in the Big Ten, Saturday also represents the last home game for us seniors that have covered the Illini this season.

After working hard in our college careers, covering football and basketball is what you strive for. When we found out we were going to be part of the DI’s football contingent, we had high hopes of covering a team with an entertaining new coach, vying for its third straight bowl game.

We thought at least 6-6 was a foregone conclusion. We were going to cover a bowl game.

Now we invent coping mechanisms for covering a nine-game losing streak that seems almost inevitable.

Given the fact that Illinois has another less-than-stellar defense in its sights, regardless of the lack of personnel that they have on the field, unleashing the most unorthodox plays in the playbook would be the best way to send out both the senior football players, and us senior writers, for those who care.

Think about it, fans will have an entertaining game to watch, the players will have fun playing in a game with a crazily schemed game plan and us writers will have something different to scribble about than create another way to cover how poorly the Illini have performed for the eighth consecutive week.

During Beckman’s first spring game, we saw Miles Osei playing quarterback, running back and wide receiver. He’s mentioned using Terry Hawthorne on offense, and we’ve seen Josh Ferguson throw a halfback option pass that went for a touchdown against Penn State.

Throw out the traditional playbook and let it all hang Saturday. Let’s see a play where Nathan Scheelhaase is at quarterback, Osei is at wide receiver on one side of the field with Hawthorne opposite him, and Ferguson is at tailback.

Scheelhaase will pitch to Ferguson, who will have Osei coming in reverse fashion to hit Hawthorne running a fly down the field for a touchdown.

Dreams come true sometimes, right?

Through 10 games, out of 124 teams, the offense is 118th in points per game and total points scored. The unit is tied for 115th in total offense and yards per game.

Lost among these poor statistics has been sophomore running back Donovonn Young’s 4.1 yards per carry average.

The two most successful trick plays — Ferguson’s halfback option pass and Young’s flea-flicker against Minnesota — worked when they were called, so why not do things like that multiple times in one game?

Sure it’s unorthodox, but how could Purdue possibly game plan for it?

Let Young run loose, then when the Boilermakers key in on him, hit ‘em with a double-reverse pass.

The success rate may not be very high, but it can’t be any worse than the usual three-and-out. It’ll keep people interested and send all the seniors out with a bang. Who knows, maybe Illinois will win a conference game for the first time since last October, or this was the stupidest proposition ever thought?

Dan is a senior in Media. You can reach him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @WELINandDEALIN.