The magical season for the Fighting Illini football team just keeps on rolling, and the awards have also started coming in. The Big Ten announced their slate of awards this evening and the results bode well for the Orange and Blue. Coach Ron Zook won the conference’s Coach of the year award (no surprise). Rashard Mendenhall won the offensive player of the year award, the first for a football player in Illini history. And one of the Dunbar sensations, Arrelious Benn, raked in the school’s first Freshman of the Year Award since Simeon Rice in 1992.

Big Ten coaches tabbed eleven Illini to All-Big Ten squads, with Mendenhall, J Leman, Martin O’Donnell and Vontae Davis all getting first-team honors. Offensive linemen Xavier Fulton and Ryan McDonald were named to the second team, and quarterback Juice Williams, safety Kevin Mitchell(the “other Juice”), kicker Jason Reda and defensive linemen Will Davis and Chris Norwell all received honorable mention.

In the media’s edition of the all-conference team’s, the only changes were Vontae Davis being apart of the second team, Xavier Fulton getting honorable mention and Will Davis getting second team honors. So the magical ride continues, and one can only wonder if these accolades are just the beginning for some of the Illini in this special season.

Also, the Illini gridders are getting national recognition and one SI writer is projecting them in the BCS

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 2:24 am and is filed under College Football, Illini Football, Big Ten, Football, NCAA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.