Juice Williams Remains Mediocre

For much of the 2007 season, Illinois found itself with a quarterback controversy. Juice Williams - supposed to be one of the Big Ten's best - started losing snaps to backup Eddie McGee during back-to-back losses to Iowa and Michigan.

Then, on a mid-November afternoon, Williams put on a show at Ohio State. He completed just 12-of-22 passes, but four of those connections went for touchdowns, helping the Illini to a stunning win in the Horseshoe. Illinois went on to make the Rose Bowl and started 2008 with high expectations, which were raised even higher by a five-TD showing by Williams against Missouri to start this season.

One little problem, though: Despite the occasional explosion, Williams is still a relatively average QB.

And in case you don't believe me, just check today's scoreboard: Western Michigan 23, Illinois 17 - a game capped off when Williams threw four straight incompletions from the WMU 18 in the final minute.

In that upset loss - if you can call a solid now 8-2 Western Michigan team beating now 5-5 Illinois an upset - Williams threw a pair of interceptions. That gives Williams 7 picks in the past three weeks, and 14 total INTs so far this year.

With his one touchdown toss today, that puts Williams at a 20:14 touchdown-to-interception ratio. Last year, he was 13:12. In 2006, he was 9:9. So, yeah, there's some improvement there, but not the type of improvement that Williams continually seems destined for.

Maybe worse than that is that today's ballgame pretty much officially stuffed all the "Illinois is back!" talk that surfaced last year. The 2007 Rose Bowl run looks a lot more like a blip on the radar than something we should come to expect - at least as long as Williams is the Illini's quarterback.

To be fair, I think everyone jumping on the Illini bandwagon overlooked the impact of losing Rashard Mendenhall after last season would have. It was Mendenhall, not Juice (or McGee) that sparked Illinois' sensational 2007. Without his game-breaking threat out of the backfield this year, Williams has often found himself under more pressure to throw, and that's simply not his ideal situation.

Off the topic of Williams for a second: The MAC - specifically the MAC West - is pretty darn good this season. Ball State is 9-0 and on the verge of Top 15 in the nation, Central Michigan is 7-2 with losses at Purdue and Georgia, and now Western is 7-2. So there's at least some justification for Williams struggling today, as his opponent was solid.

Still, Williams continues to run the gamut from Great to Horrible. And with Illinois now at 5-5 facing games versus Ohio State and at Northwestern, the Illini might struggle to reach bowl eligibility.