Juice out, McGee in
Two days after Juice Williams set Illinois' career record for total yardage, Ron Zook has decided to bench the senior quarterback and replace him with redshirt junior Eddie McGee.
McGee will make his first career start on Saturday against Michigan State. Juice will be on the bench for the first time in 39 games. During Illinois' 1-3 start, Juice fashioned the Big Ten's 12th-best pass efficiency rating at 101.01. He hit 51 of 89 passes for 519 yards, 1 TD and 4 INT while rushing 49 times for 152 yards and 1 score.
"Believe me, this is not all on Juice," Zook said on his Monday morning radio show. "I mean, the poor guy has, at times, played extremely well. But the thing you try to do in athletics, you try to get a spark. I don't know what's going to happen, but I just think we need to make a little change and see what happens.
"This is not a knee-jerk reaction. This is a lot of thought and 'what-if, what-if, what-if.' "
McGee played virtually all of the Illinois State game on Sept. 12 after Williams hurt his thigh on Illinois' first play from scrimmage. He threw for 164 yards and rushed for 55 in the Illini's 45-17 win over the Football Championship Subdivision team -- accounting for 3 touchdowns while committing 2 turnovers.
For his career, McGee is 52 of 94 for 714 yards, 3 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. He has rushed for 299 yards and 4 scores.
LW
he can play. they should have done this last year. Juice's future is as a rb/wr anyway. No way anyone was taking him at qb given his height and inconsistency. As for this year, prolly too little too late in a conference that is pretty close from top to bottom realtively speaking. As for Zook, its pretty clear just from watching him on the sidelines he is in way over his head. I always thought U of I should have ridden out Turner a little longer. Bascially you have to hope for a few good years from illinois and 1 great year every decade. To call this program a Wisconsin, Iowa or even a Purdue hopeful isnt realistic. Right now they are at the bottom, being surpassed by Indiana and Minnesota.