Illini falling short in turnover margin

CHAMPAIGN - On the surface, Illinois' offense looks like the feel-good hit of the season.

Despite losing an NFL first-round draft pick in running back Rashard Mendenhall, two quality linemen including All-American guard Martin O'Donnell and some time to get things done (thanks to off-season rule changes that speed up the game), Illinois has been achieving like never before.

The Illini (3-3) aren't just exceeding last year's scoring and yardage outputs, they're on pace to break the school records in both categories.

Illinois' 33.0 points per game are a half-step ahead of the 32.5 points that the 2001 Big Ten champs averaged.

Its 471.5 yards per game are a good distance ahead of the 446.3 yards per game the 2002 team produced.

Sounds great, right? Now stand aside as offensive coordinator Mike Locksley bursts the bubble.

"In this game, stats are meaningless," he said. "I mean, it shows that we're doing some decent things.

"But when you look at the key stat that we focus on - look at turnover margin across the board. The teams that are on the plus side are the teams that are winning a bunch of ballgames."

Sure enough, look at the Big Ten standings and compare them to the turnover margin listings. Awfully similar.

Illinois (-2), Indiana (-4), Purdue (-4) and Michigan (-8) are the teams with a negative margin - and the Illini are the only one without a losing record.

Minnesota, which just took advantage of 3 Illinois turnovers to win in Champaign, ranks second in the nation with a plus-12 margin.

Then what should we make of junior quarterback Juice Williams ranking fourth nationally in total offense?

And averaging an absurd 15.7 yards per completion and 9.16 yards per attempt?

The latter number ranks him among the nation's top 10 and nestles him neatly between Heisman Trophy hopefuls like Texas' Colt McCoy (9.44 yards per attempt) and Penn State's Daryll Clark (9.13).

Senior left tackle Xavier Fulton, a preseason all-Big Ten pick, looks at Williams' improved passing stats in a questionable light.

Not that it's bad for Williams to be so successful - just that it gives the Illini a different identity than the offense that rumbled to the Rose Bowl.

Last year, 60.4 percent of Illinois' school-record 5,525 yards came on the ground.

This year, 59.7 percent of the team's 2,829 yards have come through the air.

"I don't know if we've quite found what's going to work best for us as an offense," Fulton said. "In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, 'OK, we're going to get back to grinding the ball out.'

"But our yardage has shifted quite drastically to passing the ball, mainly because we were forced into situations where we had to."

That goes back to early turnovers (such as the 2 fumbles that became touchdowns against Minnesota) that keep putting Illinois in holes.

"If we can couple what we're doing on offense with becoming a little better at protecting the football and minimizing the critical errors," Locksley said, "I think we've got enough firepower to be able to be a special offense.

"But right now, as long as we keep turning it over, we're going to keep showing glimpses of an efficient offense, but we won't bear the fruits of the production."