Touchdown Times: Aug. 29, 2013

A publication of THE DAILY ILLINI Thursday, August 29, 2013

TouchdownTimes

Chasing greatness

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Young looks to benefit from new OC Cubit

Thursday, August 29, 2013 THE DAILY ILLINI | www.DailyIllini.com2

Southern Illinois Illinois

PassingKory Faulkner

PassingNathan ScheelhaaseReilly O’Toole

RushingMika’il McCall

RushingDonovonn YoungJosh Ferguson

ReceivingLaSteven McKinneyJohn Lantz

ReceivingRyan LankfordSpencer Harris

DefenseBryan PresumeTerrell WilsonD.J. CameronCourtney RichmondBlake Miller

DefenseMason MonheimJonathan BrownEarnest ThomasMike Svetina Houston Bates

C-A-INT191-325-10

C-A-INT149-246-865-87-4

Yards 1865

Yards 1361564

TD11

TD46

TD30

TD52

Long74

Long6448

Long4333

Long6449

Carries130

Carries13175

No.4326

No.3721

Tackles7860582523

Tackles8659694018

Sacks2000

1.5

Sacks1.52.5100

TFL53112

TFL6

9.5220

INT11200

INT10100

Yards489

Yards571312

Yards363250

Yards469252

Avg3.8

Avg4.44.2

TD8

TD30

OffenseNathan Scheelhaase 2 QB

Donovonn Young 5 RBRyan Lankford 12 WR

Miles Osei 8 WRSpencer Harris 80 WR

Evan Wilson 89 TESimon Cvijanovic 68 LT

Michael Heitz 74 LGAlex Hill 52 C

Joe Spencer 71 RGCorey Lewis 70 RT

DefenseTim Kynard 59 DEJake Howe 95 NT

Austin Teitsma 44 DTHouston Bates 55 LEO

Jonathan Brown 45 WLBMason Monheim 43 MLB

Mike Svetina 34 STARV’Angelo Bentley 2 CBEarnest Thomas 9 SS

Taylor Barton 3 FSEaton Spence 27 CB

OffenseKory Faulkner 19 QBMika’il McCall 27 RB

Ray Agnew 46 FBMyCole Pruitt 4 TEJosh Sullivan 3 WR

LaSteven McKinney 21 WRJohn Lantz 13 WREthan Wirth 77 LT

Nate Haremza 9 LGTanner Crum 65 CJake Notario 74 RGVictor Craven 68 RT

DefenseBlake Miller 97 DET.J. Beelen 51 NT

Brandon Williams 82 DECory Lee 40 OLB

Bryan Presume 9 ILBJordan Poole 22 ILB

Tyler Williamson 24 OLBTerrell Wilson 5 CBD.J. Cameron 6 SSBoo Rodgers 29 FS

Courtney Richmond 2 CB

ScheduleGames in bold are at home

Sat., Aug. 31 vs. Southern Illinois

11 a.m. | Big Ten Network

Sat., Sept. 7 vs. Cincinnati

11 a.m. | ESPN2/ESPNU

Sat., Sept. 14 vs. Washington (Soldier Field)

5 p.m. | Big Ten Network

Sat., Sept. 28 vs. Miami (Ohio)

TBD

Sat., Oct. 5 @ No. 18 Nebraska

11 a.m.

Sat., Oct. 19 vs. No. 23 Wisconsin

7 p.m. | Big Ten Network

Sat., Oct. 26 vs. Michigan State

2:30 p.m.

Sat., Nov. 2 @ Penn State

TBD

Sat., Nov. 9 @ Indiana

TBD

Sat., Nov. 16 vs. No. 2 Ohio State

TBD

Sat., Nov. 23 @ Purdue

TBD

Sat., Nov. 30 vs. No. 22 Northwestern

TBD

THE DAILY ILLINI | www.DailyIllini.com Thursday, August 29, 20133

GET

b breadbuzz.com

BY STEPHEN BOURBONSTAFF WRITER

The Illinois football team is anxious.A word often associated with head coach

Tim Beckman’s demeanor now represents the team’s craving to get back on the foot-ball field.

After a 2012 campaign that saw the squad lose its last nine games en route to a 2-10 mark, the Illini are looking to start 2013 off right against FCS opponent Southern Illinois.

“You want to see how far this team, this family has come,” Beckman said. “From

the classroom, to discipline, to being involved in the community, it’s leaps and bounds higher than what it used to be. Now we have to see if it translates to the foot-ball field.”

For the Salukis, their offense is head-lined by a big pass-catching target at the tight end position: MyCole Pruitt. The 6-foot-3 junior was named second team FCS preseason All-American by Phil Steele as well as The Sports Network. He led the team in receptions (49), yards (577) and receiving touchdowns (four).

“They’ve got an outstanding tight end

in Pruitt,” Beckman said. “He’s definitely a fine talent.”

Pruitt will test the Illini secondary, a unit that lacks depth and experience. Pro-jected starting corners V’Angelo Bentley and Eaton Spence have started a combined two games, while starting safety Taylor Barton will be making his collegiate debut after redshirting the 2012 season.

The secondary experienced its share of success in 2012, ranking 19th in the coun-try in pass defense, but only Earnest Thom-as was a consistent starter in that group.

On the other side of the ball, the Illi-ni have familiar faces lining the offense. Fifth-year senior quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase will be at the controls for the fourth consecutive season, although offen-sive coordinator Bill Cubit said he would like to see backups Reilly O’Toole and Aar-on Bailey see action on Saturday.

“I think Reilly sees himself as a start-er,” Cubit said. “With Aaron, it’s the same way. He’s a little behind on the X’s and O’s department, but at the same time, he’s working at it and he knows he’s one or two plays away from being the starter.”

While O’Toole is second on the depth chart and has played in 17 games, including two starts, there could be room for Bailey to see the field as well. The true freshman Bailey, who comes as a four-star recruit, according to Rivals.com, was a great run-ner in high school, racking up 589 yards rushing in his senior season.

Cubit confirmed this week that Bai-ley would not redshirt, increasing the chance the freshman could see live action Saturday.

Stephen can be reached at [email protected] and @steve_bourbon.

Illini look to move beyond disastrous 2012

DARYL QUITALIG THE DAILY ILLINIIllinois’ Nathan Scheelhaase surveys the defense during a game against Purdue at Memorial Stadium on Nov. 17. Scheelhaase threw for 160 yards and was sacked three times as the Illini fell to the Boilermakers, 20-17.

DARYL QUITALIG THE DAILY ILLINIBackup quarterback Reilly O’Toole throws the ball during a game against Michigan at Michigan Stadium on Oct. 13. O’Toole struggled, throwing for only 25 yards in a 45-0 loss after Scheelhaase left the game with an injury.


And the answer is something Donovonn Young has been searching for in the six months since.

Why was he not great? Why had he, the go-to running back, scored only three touchdowns in 2012? Rushed for fewer than 600 yards?

There is no simple answer.Not all of it was within Young’s control. The

offensive line was depleted by injuries. And it’s not like the passing game was alleviating the pressure.

Far from it.Co-offensive coordinators Billy Gonzales and Chris

Beatty were ousted after the season.And in stepped Cubit, a head coach at Western

Michigan for eight seasons and an offensive coordinator for eight years before that.

A proponent of the spread offense with a power running game, he’s a no nonsense guy who will look you in the eye and tell it the way it is. It doesn’t matter who you are — player, opponent, reporter, or Donovonn Young.

Young didn’t have a good answer for Cubit.“He let me know that I have the talent to be a big-

time player,” Young said. “But that I have to put in the effort and focus. I have to do the little things right, and I wasn’t doing the little things right.”

Turning the pageIt’s a cliche, but it’s the cliche Young has chosen. He

is turning the page on the 2012 football season. Don’t bring it up; he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.

He didn’t perform well. The Illini didn’t perform well. Enough said.

But Cubit wouldn’t let him forget it.He made Young and running mate Josh Ferguson

watch every run from last season. They, like every Illini, had to critique their own work and report it back to the coaches. Young had to fi gure out the answer for himself.

Why are you not great? What he saw on the tape was a power running

back leading his team in receptions. The No. 5 in orange and blue on the tape wasn’t reading his blocks properly and was trying to do too much.

Young didn’t fi t the offense. He wasn’t getting enough straight handoffs, and when quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase was giving him the ball on the read options, he was often stuffed before anything could get going.

Young might have hit rock bottom on an Oct. 6 loss to Wisconsin at Camp Randall Stadium. The Illini lost 31-14, despite just a 10-7 defi cit heading into the fourth quarter.

For the game, Young had just four rushes, totaling 5 yards. After postgame interviews, he picked up the stat sheet, looked it over and simply shook his head. The numbers spoke for themselves.

He fi nished the season with 571 yards. Only once did he break the 100-yard mark in a game.

He ran for nearly as many (451 yards and six touchdowns) yards when he was the third-string running back his freshman year in 2011.

The season came to an end and Illini nation turned its full attention to the basketball team — but not Young, and certainly not Cubit or the coaching staff.

A new system, another chanceWhen the Illini take the fi eld Saturday, Cubit will

be along the sidelines with them, not upstairs in the box.

This is his offense, these are his players. When things go wrong, he wants to be the one on the fi eld straightening them out.

Like Young, Cubit doesn’t want to talk about 2012. He wasn’t there, he doesn’t know what it was like. But what he does know is how much effort he has seen from his running backs this spring and summer.

“There’s no, ‘He’s playing, I’m not playing,’” Cubit said. “I’ve seen a cohesiveness between (Young and Ferguson). They’re a little bit different style guys, but they’re both going to get touches.”

Cubit has taken what Young and Ferguson saw on the tape in the spring and helped them see how it should be: A north-to-south running game with one cut and a burst of speed — nothing fl ashy, no bells and whistles.

A minimal gain — 1 or 2 yards — is not a bad run in Cubit’s mind. It’s 1 or 2 yards closer to a fi rst down. It’s the losses in yardage that he doesn’t want to see, something Young and Ferguson saw too often on the tape.

“You never realize some of the things that you aren’t doing to get to the next level until you have somebody that’s been there and that knows what it takes to get to that level,” Young said.

That’s what Cubit is for him.“Coming from a guy with so much experience,”

Young said. “I took it as a challenge for myself to take (Cubit’s) coaching and realize that I can be better if I listen to what he tells me to do.”

Young will be getting the ball with a head of steam this year. It’s up to him to know where to go from there.

Running backs coach Tim Salem says Young is really starting to understand it better. Now when he comes off the fi eld after a bad play in practice, he’s not afraid to question the play calling and make suggestions, something that hadn’t been happening as much last year.

“We’re really teaching them: This is how it’s blocked,” Cubit said. “Not: This is how it’s run.”

And Young has been listening. He’s a year older and a year stronger. The page has turned, 2012 is over and 2013 is here now.

Will Bill Cubit make a difference? It’s simply too soon to tell. But Young thinks he has found his answers. And now is the chance to show that he has made the adjustments, to show that he is great.

Not just that he can be.

Sean can be reached at sphammo2@ dailyillini.com and @sean_hammond.

W H Y A R E Y O U N O T

GREAT?IT WAS THE STARK TRUTH.

NOT LONG AFTER HE WAS OFFICIALLY HIRED AS ILLINOIS OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR ON JAN. 14, BILL CUBIT PULLED HIS NO. 1

BACKFIELD OPTION INTO HIS OFFICE AND ASKED HIM THAT QUESTION.

BY SEAN HAMMONDSENIOR WRITER



Matchups to watch:

BY MICHAEL WONSOVERSTAFF WRITER

Bill Cubit will make his debut as Illinois’ offensive coordinator Saturday against Southern Illinois. Cubit utilized a fast-paced, pass-heavy offense during his eight-year tenure as head coach at Western Michigan. The Broncos finished 38th in the nation in total offense in 2012. He will take over an offense that is returning eight starters from last season, while the Salukis will have only four starters on defense from a year ago.

Bill Cubit vs.

Southern Illinois defense

Nathan Scheelhaase vs.

Southern Illinois secondaryNo player is more important to Illinois’ new-look

offense than senior quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase. Although Scheelhaase enters this season with the third-most career starts among NCAA quarterbacks, the fifth-year senior has struggled to improve year-to-year. Last season, Scheelhaase had career lows in passing yards (1,361) and touchdown passes (four) while missing two games due to an ankle injury. In one of the games Scheelhaase missed, against FCS Charleston Southern, junior quarterback Reilly O’Toole threw more touch-downs passes (five) than Scheelhaase did all season long. Against Southern Illinois, who is also an FCS opponent, Scheelhaase will have the opportunity to beat the Salu-kis for the second time in his career after throwing for 229 yards and two touchdowns in the 2010 matchup.

DARYL QUITALIG THE DAILY ILLINIIllinois’ Nathan Scheelhaase should have plenty of time in the pocket against the Southern Illinois’ secondary.

Before senior linebacker Jonathan Brown suffered a season-ending shoulder injury last season, he was leading the team with 59 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks in only nine games. A healthy Brown will try to disrupt an experienced Southern Illinois offense. The Salukis bring back four of their top five leaders in receiving yards from last season, along with returning senior quarterback Kory Faulkner, who is 10th all time in Southern Illinois.

Jonathan Brown vs.

Southern Illinois offense

DAILY ILLINI FILE PHOTOLast time Illinois played Southern Illinois, the Illini notched four sacks on Salukis quarterbacks. Illinois would go on to win 35-3.

DARYL QUITALIG THE DAILY ILLINIIllinois’ Jonathan Brown will try to get back on track after an injury-riddled junior year.

DAILY ILLINI FILE PHOTOSouthern Illinois will face an entirely new offense than when the teams last met on Sept. 11, 2010, now that Bill Cubit is coaching the Illini offense.

DAILY ILLINI FILE PHOTOSIU’s secondary will have an easier time now that A.J. Jenkins is no longer on the Illini.


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Eliot SillSports editor

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Illinoisvs.

Southern Illinois

No. 1 Alabama

vs.Virginia

Tech

No. 5 Georgia

vs.No. 8

Clemson

No. 12LSUvs.

No. 20 TCU

NorthernIllinois

vs.Iowa

Thursday, Aug. 29

Friday, Aug. 30

Saturday, Aug. 30

Indiana State at Indiana6 p.m. | Big Ten Network

Western Michigan at Michigan State7 p.m. | Big Ten Network

Southern Illinois at Illinois11 a.m. | Big Ten Network

Syracuse at Penn State2:30p.m. | ABC, ESPN2

Purdue at Cincinatti11 a.m. | ESPNU

Wyoming at No. 18 Nebraska7 p.m. | Big Ten Network

No. 22 Northwestern at California9:30p.m. | ESPN2

Buffalo at No. 2 Ohio State11 a.m. | ESPN2

Central Michigan at No. 17 Michigan2:30 p.m. | Big Ten Network

Massachusetts at No. 23 Wisconsin11 a.m. | Big Ten Network

Northern Illinois at Iowa2:30 p.m. | Big Ten Network

UNLV at Minnesota6 p.m. | Big Ten Network

Sean HammondSenior writer

Stephen BourbonStaff writer

Torrence SorrellAssistant sports

editor

Erik PradoOn-air reporter

Michael WonsoverVideographer

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Thursday, August 29, 2013 THE DAILY ILLINI | www.DailyIllini.com#8

GET YOURWEEKLY

FIXEVERY MONDAY THRU

THURSDAYEVERY FRIDAY

The first day of the college football season is seen by some as a great holiday, like Christmas morning, or

the first day of March Madness, or the season premiere of “Breaking Bad”.

It’s a holiday I can get into because though I’m more of an NFL guy, football is football, and it’s always great to watch the opening day of any football season. There’s an air of freshness, an atmosphere of opportunity — you’re familiar with this I’m sure.

But for as much as high hopes abound, it’s no different from any other week — half the teams still have to lose.

First bloodThe first defeat in a college football

season carries more weight than in any other sport. Unless you’re a team in the SEC, you really need an undefeated season for your national title hopes to carry any

legitimacy, especially while the BCS still stands as the method through which a champion is determined.

If your team is ranked or hovering just outside the top 25, it takes a couple weeks of winning to get over a loss. But by Week 6, most teams know whether they have a shot at the national title. (If you aren’t in the SEC, you should be aware of that before Week 1, but that’s not what the hope of a new season is about.)

Soaked bandagesOnce your team’s out of the national

title running, you begin the process of settling. Your team has two losses, OK, but it can still win the conference. BCS squads can still net big bowl appearances, veritable consolation games that fans still get amped for, and so your goal becomes to make the Rose Bowl Game.

It’s a drop off in excitement, but one fans are used to making year after year.

Lose a couple more, however, and it’s hard to prevent getting deflated.

You stop recognizing the names of the bowls ESPN experts project your team into, you switch from wanting your team to win the conference to rooting against

that one rival you couldn’t stand to see win. It becomes less about the potential glory of the season, and more about not looking bad, going out on Saturdays and watching a team that will play with pride. It’s not about where your season will finish, but about the next team on the schedule and not losing to those guys.

Drained, dead, depressingBut hey, sometimes you keep losing.

Sometimes the bleeding doesn’t stop. Sometimes your season bleeds to death, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. When your body no longer finds it useful to remain conscious, it shuts down and you pass out.

After all, you’re just a fan. You don’t know what it’s like to go out there and get humiliated.

This is the point where most people stop watching. It’s too hard to watch “your boys” go out and get manhandled.

The deflation becomes cyclical. Fan support falls, team morale follows, results show, fan support falls more, et cetera.

A team siphoned off its fighting spirit is tough to watch. It’s exactly where Illinois was last year.

Born againThe wonderful thing about sports is

that there always truly is next year. And that it’s never the same as last year. At least, not exactly.

Illinois finds itself at the top of the slide once more. Unblemished and still perfect. In contention for the national title. Not really, but technically.

With a first-week match against SIU, Illinois will get what it needs, a chance to flex its talent. If nothing else, SIU is a team that will see a weak Illinois squad as a liable opponent and give the Orange and Blue everything they’ve got. Illinois has a chance to take an opponent like that and break its spirits, or at least turn it away.

Winning for the first time since it last faced an FCS opponent will do wonders on Illinois’ psyche. Losing, on the other hand, would cut deep, twist the blade, and commence the gushing once more.

Fortunately for Illini fans, the bleeding will likely be prevented. At least for now.

Eliot can be reached at [email protected] and @EliotTweet.

After 2012, Illini granted chance to start anewCollege football can become a slippery slope; will the Illini keep hope alive in Week 1?

ELIOT SILL

Sports editor

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Touchdown Times: Aug. 29, 2013