Illini look to live up to high expectations

For the first time in more than a decade, the Big Ten media believes Illinois deserves to be ranked as one of the league's top three teams in the preseason.

That shows the staying power of last year's trip to the Rose Bowl.

And not just with the media.

"There's just a lot bigger buzz around campus - and with the team, too," said senior center Ryan McDonald. "We can't wait to get this season rolling. There's a lot of excitement, but there's pressure, too.

"That'll be the biggest thing: How we handle that pressure."

The media pegged Ohio State, runner-up in the last two Bowl Championship Series title games, to become the first team in Big Ten history to win three consecutive outright titles. Wisconsin came second and Illinois third.

But while the Buckeyes and the Badgers have averaged 10 wins over the last four seasons and are familiar with monstrous expectations, the Illini have been awful with the exception of last year's remarkable 9-4 run.

Fans are rushing to the box office to support Illinois' recent rise - the Ohio State and Iowa games at renovated Memorial Stadium are sold out and others are close - but fourth-year coach Ron Zook continually cautions his guys not to assume they've joined the ranks of the big boys.

"They understood the mood out there is that, 'Well, was it just a one-and-done year for Illinois?' " Zook said. "It's a great, great challenge for us."

Judging by the way everyone on the roster passed the team's conditioning test Thursday morning - 20 90-yard sprints in the team's indoor facility - nobody relaxed since spring practice ended three months ago.

Actually, McDonald reports the Illini, whether buoyed by last year's success or this year's fear of failure, trained more maniacally than ever before.

"Every summer, our strength training program has become more intense," said McDonald, an all-Big Ten candidate who dropped his weight (295 pounds) and his body-fat percentage (14.0). You look at our big bodies now - all of our big people - and they're good-looking big people."

Then the young man who graduated summa cum laude with a degree in aerospace engineering major offered some deadpan humor.

"Maybe not aethestically pleasing," McDonald said, "but we're not as round as we used to be.

"We absolutely worked harder than we've ever worked. It was a great summer for us. I was very pleased with the way people busted it the whole summer."

A few Illini, however, apparently have gone bust. Highly hyped redshirt freshman defensive tackle D'Angelo McCray, redshirt freshman running Darius Purcell and sophomore Brandon Jordan aren't on the fall roster.

Of the three, only McCray reportedly has a chance to return to the Orange and Blue.

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