I think Derek Dimke’s game-tying field goal clanking off the upright at Penn State is still ringing in their heads.  We led that game late, only to watch Penn State drive the length of the field for the first time all day to take the lead, only to watch us get the ball back and somehow get into field goal position, only to watch our game-tying field goal attempt hit the upright.  So our losing streak had an exclamation point.

Can they recover from that?  I’m not so sure.  This is still a team with only 6 seniors.  Young-ish teams, especially young-ish Illinois teams, have a history of collapsing.

But the good news is that they’ve had two weeks to recover.  Back home, against someone we always want to beat, with a full two weeks to recover – we’ll probably know how the rest of our season will go after the first quarter on Saturday.

You’re not going to tell the Michigan coaches, right?  Promise?  Thanks.

The best way to beat this defense, in my opinion, is to wear them down by winning the time of possession battle.  Although the Illinois coaches set out at Camp Rantoul in August to find a 22 man defense (they wanted to rotate two players at every single position), they really only found 17.  Both of our safeties will likely play every snap, we only really have one linebacker who rotates in, and the backup defensive tackles don’t play very much at all.

As such, we struggled at Penn State in the 4th quarter.  No college football player can play nearly every snap and not get exhausted.  So if Michigan can control the clock and grind out long drives, we’re probably in trouble.  The bye week will be helpful to refresh those legs, but this team is still showing wear and tear.  We saw last year in Ann Arbor what happens when our defense begins to wear down (conversely, in our bowl game, when we held Baylor to 14 points, we saw what our defense could do when refreshed).

Absolutely.  The last three games should have been victories of 28-17, 31-21, and 24-10.  Instead, we lost 17-7, 21-14, and 10-7.  The defense has done everything they could do – I’m not kidding, they’ve been warrior poets – but the offense hasn’t held up their end of the bargain.  The biggest problem: fumbles.  We’ve fumbled 15 times, losing 8.  Every single one of them felt like a momentum killer.

But that’s not the only problem.  AJ Jenkins still leads the Big Ten in receiving yards, but the last three defenses have adjusted to take away the big play.  Nathan Scheelhaase has dropped from 5th nationally to 25th in passing efficiency in the last 3 weeks.  And our mind-boggling struggles on the offensive line have led to a stagnant running game.

As a fan, I think they can fix it and quick.  But as a realist, I look at the fact that we haven’t scored before halftime in our last three games and realize that a 6-0 start might combine with an 0-6 finish.

Strength is easy – tackling the guy from the other team before he crosses the line of scrimmage with the ball.  We’re 6th nationally in sacks and 3rd in tackles for loss.  Defensive ends Whitney Mercilus and Michael Buchanan and linebacker Jonathan Brown are currently 1st, 2nd, and 5th in the Big Ten in sacks.  And Mercilus is 1st in TFL’s as well, with Brown 4th.  The key to this defense is turning 2nd & 5 into 3rd & 9, and they do it quite well.  So I’d say the ends and linebackers are the biggest position strength.

Glaring weaknesses?  Consider this a hornet’s nest you’ve stepped on.

We have, without a doubt, unequivocally, the worst special teams units in the nation.  Our 118th (out of 120) ranked punt return actually qualifies for best return unit on the team, as our kickoff return ranks 119th nationally.  Not to be outdone, we’re 105th in net punting and a blistering 95th in kickoff return defense.  As a Michigan fan, you can feel confident in one thing: even if this game has no turnovers, your starting field position will likely be 10-13 yards better than ours.  You will return kickoffs to the 32 – we’ll bring it out to the 17.  You’ll force us to punt and set yourselves up at the 41 – we’ll be pinned at the 22.  Our offense will need to come up with 5 more first downs, and our defense will have to increase their third down conversion percentage that much more, just to even the playing field. I’d argue that it’s the weakest weakness of any Big Ten team in the last decade.

But I’m not bitter or anything.

I’ll keep this answer short.  Marginally pleased that he’s raised our recruiting level to it’s highest in 20 years, but complete lack of confidence that he’ll make the correct decision in a close game.  He’s 34-48 at Illinois, and is now the second-longest tenured Big Ten coach.  That says… a lot.

I’ll give you one on offense and two on defense. On offense, it’s wide receiver AJ Jenkins.  Despite a few sub-par games lately, he still leads the conference in receiving yards.  He’s fast, he runs great routes, and he can burst for some YAC after he has the ball in his hands.  If we can get him open in space, he can be a game changer.

On defense, watch for Whitney Mercilus at defensive end and Jonathan Brown at linebacker.  Mercilus came out of nowhere this year (his redshirt junior season) to lead the nation in sacks.  He’s likely on his way to becoming the first 1st-team All American at Illinois since offensive guard Martin O’Donnell in 2007.  Brown is only a true sophomore, but I think the linebacker from Memphis is headed for Butkus finalist in 2013.  If he finishes strong this year, I think he has a shot at 1st team all Big Ten.  He’s averaging 14 tackles per game over his last 3 games, is 5th in the conference in sacks and 4th in TFL’s.  He might very well finish his career as our best linebacker since the mid-90′s.

I have this thing where I won’t predict the game until the Friday night before – I want to get a sense of everything during the week before making a prediction.  But right now, I’m probably leaning towards an Illini victory.  Two main reasons:

1) The 3OT loss in the Big House last year.  I had a chance to talk with offensive lineman Jeff Allen back in the spring, and he told me that this game is the one that the team has circled on the calendar.  They want revenge.

2) The gut-punch loss at Penn State, followed by a bye week.  We went from “we kind of control our destiny for the Big Ten Championship Game” to “I hope some bowl will take us if we lose our last 6″.  The bye week might have helped us regroup and refocus.  I could see us coming out of the gate on fire and taking a 14-0 first quarter lead.

I could also see us giving up 3 punt return touchdowns and losing by 24.

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• Yards, Points, and Predictions: Ohio State
• Yards, Points, and Predictions: Nebraska
• Mid-Week Videos: Post Iowa & Pre Illinois
• Yards, Points, and Predictions: Illinois