Miller's stunt evidence of Illinois' team chemistry

If there's an All-America team for relatively wholesome pranks, then Illinois outside linebacker Brit Miller belongs there without a doubt.

We'll get to Miller's crazy stunt in a moment.

But first, let's allow the fun-loving junior from Decatur, who committed to Ron Turner but has only played for Ron Zook, explain why he thinks Illinois has become one of the nation's best college football stories.

(If you haven't been paying attention, the Illini are listed as 3-point favorites for Saturday's home game against No. 5 Wisconsin. And with their victories over Indiana and Penn State, the Illini have equaled their conference win total from the previous four years combined. That's right, they've gone from 2-30 to 2-0).

"The team is closer than ever," Miller said. "That's what I think we attribute a lot of our success to. The first year, we had divisions. We had Zook guys, we had Turner guys."

(For the record, 13 of the 24 Illinois starters in Saturday's win over No. 21 Penn State either played for Turner or committed to him before he was fired on Nov. 22, 2004. Carry on, Brit).

"Last year, we were all Zook guys, but we didn't know each other's phone numbers," Miller said. "We didn't hang out together. Now you can't go anywhere without seeing groups of five or more.

"You know, you sit on 'the Quad' in between classes and you know where all your friends are. You're talking football and you're talking about class.

"It feels like we're finally a football team. It feels like we're finally going to a school that cares about football. I think that's just because they have something to care about now."

How does a team build chemistry like this? Perhaps Miller's prank qualifies as something positive. Or, perhaps not.

One of Miller's roommates is backup center Eric Block, a New Orleans native.

As such, he's a huge Saints fan who bragged all week on his team going into last season's NFC championship game. He even spent $400 for a ticket and went to Soldier Field.

Meanwhile, back on campus, Miller and teammates Russ Weil and Bryson Whalen sat in their apartment and basked in the Bears' 39-14 win.

Miller, who's such a big Bears fan he insists he was conceived because of their march to their Super Bowl victory (he was born Sept. 15, 1986), decided their crestfallen roomie needed some consoling upon his return.

"You can't just go against the Bears and talk all that smack that he did and not have something done to him," Miller said with a laugh.

As luck would have it, more than 2 inches of snow fell in Champaign that day.

"We get the bright idea, 'Let's build a snowman and put it in Block's room,' Miller said. "It was so big, we couldn't just pick it up, we had to put it in bedsheets. We had four guys tugging it up three flights of stairs. Then, to get it into his room, we had to go up a spiral staircase. That was the hardest part."

Miller and the boys put a Saints jersey on the snowman, then put "Super Bowl Shuffle" playing in the background on repeat.

"He walked in and everybody was just waiting," Miller said. "He told us stories like, 'I heard the music playing and thought, "Yeah, you got me." But then I thought someone was sitting in my room.' "

Once Block discovered it was a snowman, all heck broke loose.

"Then it just started a whole snowball fight in our house," Miller said. "We ended up throwing it out the window, which was just as fun as making it."

The only problem with the whole thing? The melted snow left an odor in Block's room for a long, long time.

"Oh, it stunk," Miller said with a smile. "But (Block) stinks anyway. You can put that in there and tell him I said that."

Now that's chemistry.