Saturday marks the beginning of the 120th season for the Fighting Illini Football Team. The season opener is against the Missouri Tigers as part of the State Farm Arch Rivalry game in the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, MO. Mizzou leads the all-time series, 15-7, and has won all four games in the State Farm Arch Rivalry series played in St. Louis. Missouri beat Illinois last year 52-42.

This year is expected to be different, however. Missouri has lost a lot of their big name starters from last year, including quarterback Chase Daniel, tight end Chase Coffman, and wide receiver Jeremy Maclin. Illinois has been preparing for this game for quite some time, and it seems to have paid off. The Fighting Illini are a 6.5-point favorite going into this week’s game.

Some controversy has recently been brewing between these two teams when Missouri senior linebacker Sean Weatherspoon called out Juice Williams in a personal Tweet: “just finished a stellar workout, hit 475 on the bench easy, almost hit 500, gotta get it soon! 50 days until I squeeze the pulp out of Juice.” Weatherspoon received a lecture from Coach Gary Pinkel following this post. Williams is expected to answer with his own message on Saturday. 

The game plan for Saturday according to Coach Ron Zook:

Well I think number one, we can’t turn the ball over, which is something we always say but it really became our Achilles heel last year. We can’t turn the ball over and we can’t give up big plays. We have to stop the run. I think the one thing we didn’t do last year was stop the run. It really felt like that was a reason that we weren’t able to make it a better game. Our defense has been made aware of that all summer and obviously in camp. But we’ve got to stop the run. We can’t let that running back get going. Washington is a good player, a guy that can beat you. We have to take care of business and take care of the ball on offense.

Watch our for quarterback Juice Williams who will be playing his final season with Illinois along with running back Daniel Dufrene and junior receiver Arrelious Benn.

Illinois vs. Missouri
Saturday, September 5, 2009
2:40pm | ESPN

Live Coverage vs. Missouri
Live Audio | GameTracker | TV: ESPN | RADIO

Good luck to the 2009 Fighting Illini Football Team!

Wear orange, and Go Illini!

Ron Zook Press Conference Transcript
Game 1: Illinois (0-0) vs. Missouri (0-0) at St. Louis
State Farm Arch Rivalry

Tomorrow is the start of Illinois’ 2008-2009 football season. The kickoff will be at 7:30pm at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, MO. The game will be nationally televised on ESPN, and the 20th ranked Illinois attempt to defeat the 6th ranked Missouri Tigers. At this neutral location, Missouri will take the home team status as an 8.5 point favorite to win.

Last year’s game ended in a 40-34 Illinois defeat. Illinois piled up 435 yards of offense and nearly came back from a 24-point second half deficit. It was clear that the Fighting Illini shocked the Tigers and gave them the scare of a lifetime. This year, Mizzou should be expecting it. The question is then, will Illinois be able to contend with the Tigers even without the scare tactics?

I believe so.

Illinois lost only a few players last year which makes their club a veteran one. Experience aside, Illinois is gonna have to push it. They are going to need to be playing for something. I think they have a score to settle. Missouri has won four of the last five games in the series against Illinois. A victory last year was in the hands of Illinois when an interception finished it off for Mizzou.

All in all, I think Illinois can win this game. I also think that they must win this game if they are looking to get back to the Rose Bowl. A big win like this one will be a great first step to becoming Big Ten Champions.

Good luck to the Illini as they begin their 2008-2009 football season!

It’s going to be a great challenge for us. And as I said, an exciting challenge. It’s a border war game. I was fortunate enough to coach in eight of them, the Florida-Georgia games. It’s great for the programs, it’s great for the fans and it will be great for St. Louis. It should be an exciting deal. – Coach Ron Zook

7:30 PM on ESPN or 1400AM in Champaign

Go Illini!

I will be headed home this weekend. While at home I’ll take part in a number of activities including the Illini-Mizzou Arch Rivalry game at the Edward Jones Dome on Saturday.

Going home has many benefits that most college students take for granted. It allows you to be away from school for at least a small amount of time and clear your thoughts. Time away from books and school is always a pleasing experience for me, and allows me to come back to school with a rejuvenated sense of learning the following week.

Going home when you have homework due, however, is not so good. I always bring homework to do while I’m at home, but it never gets done. I think this goes back to the idea that while at home you’re in “away from school mode,” and anything that you would like to get done gets placed at a lower priority than catching up with your family and friends at home. If you’re going home this labor day weekend, don’t plan on getting much school work done.

Bonus link: LifeHack.org: Holding It All Together On the Go

To those lucky students, Illini football tickets were available for free today. The tickets are for the September 1st game vs. Missouri at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, MO and were available to specific student season ticket holders. Although this is a great deal, it begs the question: Why are football tickets being given away. They would never give away basketball tickets. I can’t decide if it’s because the game is in St. Louis and the Chicago-land students don’t want to go, or if there is just a small interest in the Illini Football program. If the latter is the case, let me tell you now… IT”S TIME TO JUMP ON THE BANDWAGON!

Last year’s recruiting class was ranked #1 in the nation. That means this year, and the years to come, are going to be some of the best. Last year, the football team finished the season 2-10 beating a worthless Eastern Illinois team and with a nice field-goal kick, Michigan-State. For those of you who were there, they practically beat Ohio State too, actually losing 10-17.

Here in Champaign, however, we don’t look in the past, we are all about the future and this year is is going to be great. I trust Ron Zook and with Juice Williams at the forefront, it will sure be a success.

GO ILLINI!