After the turbulent offeason that Illinois went through it must be good for Tim Beckham to see his team getting back to work.
Illinois' main problem is their offense. The Illini struggle heavily on the offensive side of the ball, with their rushing attack ranked 108th in the country. They will rely on quarterback Wes Lunt to run the offense again. The junior struggled last year and created a quarterback controversey when he was benched for Riley O'Toole during the season. But one positive for Lunt is that he completed 63.5% of his passes and threw only three interceptions. But he was inconsistent during the whole season last year and will have to show some big improvements for Illinois to do well this season. It won't help that leading wide-out Mike Dudek is still recovering from a torn ACL and will likely miss all of the out of the Illini's conference games. But Lunt will have help in senior Josh Ferguson. While Dudek is out, look for the Illini to run the ball a lot more with Ferguson.
But the beginning of the season does appear to look good for the Illini. In their out of conference games, they don't face any tough teams, with the toughest being North Carolina. But that won't be the biggest test for the Illini. It will be Big Ten conference play. Illinois will play the likes of Wisconsin, Ohio State, Iowa, and Minnesota this season, not to mention teams like Nebraska and Penn State. It is a murderers row for Illinois. This will be another tough year for Illinois but it will have to be one that Tim Beckman will have to get through without any major losses to keep his job. If they can somehow beat an Iowa or a Penn State, then there is hope for this Illinois program. But another bad year will likely see Tim Beckman without a job and Illinois hit the reset button again on their program.