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The season creeps ever so slowly toward us. To escape the summer doldrums, we thought we'd add a burst of excitement from the Big Ten football front. We're taking a look at the most exciting player on each of the league's teams, a guy who is either so talented or productive (or both) that it's hard to take your eyes off of him during a game. Let's start with Illinois: Most exciting player: WR Geronimo Allison  The unfortunate truth for the Illini is that their most exciting player will not start the season with them. That would be wideout Mikey Dudek, who had a spectacular freshman campaign but tore his ACL during spring drills. The hope is that he can return by midseason, and hopefully he'll be healthy enough to provide some more thrills.
With Dudek sidelined, there's a bit of a void in the excitement factor. Running back Josh Ferguson can do a lot of different things out of the backfield. Quarterback Wes Lunt has the big arm and potential. Defensive end Jihad Ward is a physical freak who could easily blow up this season. But we'll go a little outside the box and choose Allison, who flashed the ability to make big plays last year. He actually had a higher yards-per-catch average than Dudek (14.6), and five of his 41 catches went for touchdowns. That's a pretty good percentage and could lead to better things if the former junior college transfer can avoid a second-half dropoff like he experienced in his first FBS go-round. Allison had four catches for 121 yards and two touchdowns in the Illini spring game. Those numbers don't mean much, but they do illustrate his ceiling, as did his six-catch, 160-yard, two-score game at Washington in Week 3 of 2014. The 6-foot-4 wideout has all the tools to be one of the best receivers in the Big Ten and just needs to put it all together. If he does, he could easily be Illinois' most exciting player while Dudek is out.
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