You’ll find out how good Illinois will be without Rashard Mendenhall right away, as they open the season in St. Louis against Missouri once more. Juice Williams continues to have his moments, and without Mendenhall, he’ll need more of them. Arrelious Benn is still around, as well as tight end Michael Hoomanawanui, who is required to show up in every Illini preview so we can all stare at his name. Ohio State and Wisconsin are the definitive Big 10 leaders, but the Illini are the best of the next group right now and showed last year they’re capable of pulling the upset. Jan. 1, at least, should be an attainable goal.
19. BYU
This season’s flavor of choice among the mid-majors, the Cougars have won 11 games each of the past two seasons and return a loaded offense (QB Max Hall and RB Harvey Unga leading the way). The question for teams like this involving the BCS has to go right to the schedule; BYU is at Washington on Sept. 6 and hosts UCLA the following week. Beyond that, they simply have to navigate the Mountain West portion of their schedule, which will include a couple dangerous road trips to TCU and the season-ending showdown at Utah. The BCS is the goal and it’ll probably take 12-0 to get there, but even if they stub their toe along the way this is still a good football team.
18. Wake Forest
The 2006 ACC Champions finished 9-4 last year after an 0-2 start, and two consecutive years of success is enough to earn my respect. Quarterback Riley Skinner is still just a junior; he led the nation in completion percentage last season. The loss of WR Kenneth Moore must be addressed, but the defense returns nine starters from a group that was only really busted up once in a 44-10 loss to Clemson. It’s Clemson again who’ll lead the ACC pack on paper, but overlooking Wake a third year in a row would be a bad idea.
17. Kansas
The Jayhawks only have one good year under their belt, but at 11-1 it certainly got your attention. Now they’ll get a chance to prove both that they weren’t a fluke and that they can do more than beat up on a soft schedule. A laughable non-conference schedule gets an instant boost from a trip to South Florida, while their Big 12 schedule replaces Baylor, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M with Oklahoma, Texas and Texas Tech. Todd Reesing will be back to lead the charge with plenty of returning weapons to throw to, while a battle is emerging at RB between Jake Sharp and juco transfer Jocques Crawford. If they get past South Florida they’ll probably be 6-0 in mid-October…then we’ll find out exactly how good this team really is.
16. Texas Tech
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