Illinois hopes to return to glory behind sophomore QB

	After an up-and-down freshman year, Illinois QB Juice Williams enters his sophomore season with a better grasp of the offense. Mike Granse/WireImage.com
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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A pair of cranes sit idle, visible high above the torn up bleachers on the west side of Memorial Stadium, while more heavy construction equipment lies beyond a chain-link fence, some 10 yards of the north goal line. In no uncertain terms, the home of the Illinois football team is a mess.

It's being called the "Illinois Renaissance," a renovation to the 83-year-old stadium that will include luxury seating, an expanded press box and permanent seats in the north end zone.

Amid the construction, Ron Zook is hard at work on his own rebuilding project. So far it's been largely underwhelming, resulting in four wins in two seasons. Illinois' bowl game drought has expanded to five campaigns.

But in the past year, the program has shown something that's been missing for a while -- promise.

Though each sign of progress has been met with questions. "I think everybody wants to know 'Where are we at?'" Zook said.

The answer will likely be defined by a player who has become the posterchild of the Ron Zook Revival Project: Isiah "Juice" Williams.

On one of the final practices leading into the spring game, Williams, in shotgun formation, barked out a play, snapped the ball, checked off two receivers and coolly sliced the ball between a pair of defenders, hitting Chris James for a 35-yard gain. The ball was so precisely delivered it drew "oohs" and "aahs" from the few onlookers who sat in the wind-blown stadium. But a few plays later, lined up inside the 10-yard-line, Williams badly missed his man, who was cutting behind the linebacker. The error earned him a lecture from offensive coordinator Mike Locksley, who flicked his wrist in a soft free-throw motion, trying to get Williams to take some velocity off the ball.

The sequence encapsulated Williams' freshman season in a nutshell: a spectacular play followed by a puzzling one.

Williams started nine games as a true freshman, throwing for 1,498 yards, nine touchdowns and nine interceptions. He struggled to find any consistency, resulting in a 39.5 percent completion percentage, though Zook says that number is misleading.

"If you take away the drops -- and those are the things that probably concern me more than his accuracy or his throwing -- and you take away the throwaways -- which you want to have -- he threw for about 62 percent, which you would take normally, let alone [from] a freshman," he said.

At times, Williams looked advanced beyond his years. In his second start, he led the Illini on a 10-play, 58-yard drive capped by a Jason Reda field goal in the come-from-behind win over Michigan State.