Sophomore flanker Brandon Lloyd lets his hair down

Mike Wilkening

Brandon Lloyd is everything the Illini could've only dreamed of being a few years ago: speedy, smooth, explosive. Thus it's not surprising that the two athletes he models himself after are Deion Sanders and Peter Warrick.

"I turn on Sunday football to watch Deion," he said after Saturday's scrimmage. "That's who I want to be like on and off the field."

The sophomore wide receiver claims to have "every (Deion) poster." And if that isn't enough proof of his Deion devotion, this will be: He admits to owning Prime Time, the album Sanders put out a few years back. You know, the one that features songs like "It Must be the Money" and an album cover featuring Sanders resplendent in a green, dollar-sign-strewn suit.

And Lloyd feels as strongly about Warrick.

"I respect him for what he does on the field. That's who I want to model my receiving play after," he said of the former Florida State wide receiver, the first chosen in Saturday's NFL Draft.

The talk then turned to the second receiver chosen: former Michigan State wide receiver Plaxico Burress, who the Pittsburgh Steelers selected with the eighth pick overall. Lloyd admitted to once being skeptical of Burress' ability. But that was before he watched some Spartans' game film.

His reaction?

"I'm like, man, he's just killing people," Lloyd said.

If his performance in the scrimmage is any indication of how the rest of his Illinois career turns out, Lloyd will have opponents saying the same thing about him.

In the Blue's 27-0 trouncing of the White on Saturday afternoon, Lloyd was the best player on the field, catching five passes for 100 yards, including a 31-yard touchdown reception in the third-quarter, and rushing twice for 18 yards.

As the Illini's No. 1 receiver this season, he realizes that he needs to take his game to the next level if the Illini are to repeat last season's success.

"I've got to step up," he said. "With Kurt (Kittner) being a Heisman candidate, he's not throwing bad balls. It's me."

Kittner, for his part, thinks Lloyd is progressing just fine.

"He's doing a good job, coming down with some hard catches, and that's what we're looking for," he said.

Lloyd's most impressive grab on Saturday came on the his scrimmage team's first drive. The team needed five yards on third down from their own 24-yard line when Kittner dropped back to pass. He looked left, gave a shoulder fake and threw deep for Lloyd, who beat two defenders and snatched the ball. The result: a 51-yard gain and flashbacks to the end of last season, when Lloyd started to make these kinds of plays on a routine basis.

"The deep ball. That's what people like," he said with a smile afterward, ever aware that to please the fans in April means a better chance at large crowds at Memorial Stadium in the fall.

And Saturday's crowd certainly should have been pleased with the Blue's performance on both sides of the ball. The unheralded defense held the reserves to 107 yards of offense and impressed with their hitting. On offense, eight different receivers caught passes. And Kittner was Kittner, completing 22 of 38 passes for 230 yards and three touchdowns and showing his rust only on a couple of air-mailed passes over the heads of tight end Josh Whitman and Lloyd.

Also impressive was the running game. Rocky Harvey broke a 34-yard run in the second quarter. Antoineo Harris gained tough yards up the middle. Redshirt freshman fullback Carey Davis had 109 all-purpose yards. All of this made for a happy Lloyd after the game.

"You saw the running game," he said. "What else can I say? We didn't have (injured starting fullback) Jameel Cook and our running game was still on."

Sure, it's only April, and it was only a scrimmage, but Saturday was a glimpse of a football team on the move, on the rise, on a search for someone to roll the clock forward to September.

And as for expectations for next season being too high, don't worry too much about it. As Lloyd pointed out, "The expectations for ourselves are so high." His emergence has a lot to do with such talk being reasonable in these parts once again.

Mike Wilkening is a junior in commerce. He can be reached at di@illinimedia.com