The Heisman ballot came this week. The people at the Downtown Athletic Club are spending some money, sending the ballots out by priority mail and asking they be returned the same way.

No problem for The News-Gazette's designated voter.

Put a bunch of sportswriters in a room, ask them to predict the best player or team in a league and watch the picks go splat.

It happened again in the Big Ten.

Three months ago, the people who cover the league were asked to guess the conference champion and offensive and defensive MVPs. They are about to go 0 for 3.

The way Illini fans are responding, daredevil women's basketball coach Theresa Grentz is climbing out on a limb in moving her ranked team from Huff Hall to the Assembly Hall.

Her two exhibition crowds came in around 1,500, and mid-week sales for Sunday's opener against Wagner are at 2,559, a figure topped in advance sales by only two other games all season.

CHAMPAIGN – Purdue showed some interest. So did Iowa.

Dustin Ward hoped for one more call. When Illinois offered the Centennial quarterback a scholarship, he didn't wait long to grab it.

EAST LANSING, Mich. – If not for Michigan State, Ohio State and Notre Dame would be lined up for a shot at the national championship.

If not for Michigan State, Indiana and Central Michigan would be thinking about winning seasons.

When Illini football coach Mike White made the command decision in the mid-80s to reduce junior college recruiting, it was not because those mostly-California athletes had come up short at Memorial Stadium.

Actually, their rate of on-field success far outdistanced the preps attracted during the White term.

CHAMPAIGN – Starting next century, the Illinois football players won't have to worry about working out in a blizzard or thunderstorm.

Illinois is about to join the rest of the Big Ten and build an indoor practicing facility.

URBANA – Illinois wide receivers Terrance Smalls and William Loyd were arrested on preliminary charges of possession of marijuana during an incident Friday night.