This week's guest: linebacker Danny Clark

Q. Why are you at Illinois?

A. I'm here to get this prestigious university back into the top rankings.

Q. Why did you pick Illinois in the first place?

A. Mainly because of the defensive history and some of the standouts we've had here. The guys were No. 2 in the nation my junior year in high school. They had a great supporting cast out there with the linebacking corps. I met Simeon Rice my junior year.

Q. Time to play word association. Dick Butkus.

A. Ferocious. An animal. I just think of a very aggressive linebacker.

Q. Kevin Hardy.

A. Big-time playmaker. He's a great guy. He's done a lot for this position here at Linebacker U. It was great to actually get to play behind him.

Q. Scott Studwell.

A. Stud. Every time I hear his name, I think of him being a stud. I met here a year ago. He came down and talked to us. It was a great experience to meet him.

Q. Dana Howard.

A. Dana Howard was a very aggressive ballplayer. He reminded me of Dick Butkus 20 years later. He got to the ball and made lots of plays.

Q. People talk about the offense going through changes. You've gone through some too. Is it just as hard for a linebacker to go from one to the other?

A. There was a great transition. I was an outside linebacker then. Now, I'm more of an interior linebacker, which is more fun for me. You've got to adjust.

Q. When Butkus was here, he had a scary aura. Do you want students on campus to see you and run scared?

A. Not socially. I'm a pretty outgoing guy and talkative. I wouldn't want them to be scared of me. On the football field, that's a different story. If another team was scared of me or my style of play, that would be great.

Q. How important is for you to be a part of the linebacker legacy at Illinois? Ten years from now, what do you want people saying about your career?

A. To have them say he was just a big-time playmaker on defense. He may not have been the biggest guy on the field, but he made plays. I would love for someone to say I was a leader and contributed well to the university.

Q. The preseason magazines listed you as the team's lone all-star candidate. How do you feel when you read that?

A. I definitely don't take it as pressure. I'm going to play how I'm going to play. I won't let any of that change my attitude toward football.

Q. Why does everybody on the team try to ignore the losing streak?

A. We don't think about it on a daily basis. We just look forward to the upcoming week. Right now, we're not dwelling on anything in the past. We learn from the past and we move forward.

Q. Do you remember moments or all of those 18 games?

A. I do. I played in just about all of those games. I can't really recall what the actual problem is. We had some personnel difficulties last season that didn't enable us to move the ball on offense. On defense, we were not as solid as we could have been. A lot of it was strength and speed.

Q. At the time you picked Illinois, the team was a bowl contender. Did you ever think in your wildest nightmares it would go this way?

A. Definitely I felt we were going to go to a big-time bowl game. I had two big All-Americans on the team, so it was good to learn from those guys. I never thought of a losing season at all. This is where I wanted to be since I was a freshman in high school.

Q. You've watched quarterback after quarterback struggle. You played quarterback in high school. Was there ever a moment where you thought, 'Let me in there. I'll show you how it's done.'?

A. My first year, I definitely thought about playing quarterback. Those guys taught me a lot. I don't think much about it anymore.

Q. Do you have a better arm than Mark Hoekstra?

A. No. I can compete with him. We get out there and throw a little bit. It's fun. I still have my little dreams. I was a quarterback since eighth grade and it all ended at one time. It was hard to let it go. Linebacker is like quarterback on defense.

Q. The crowd here this weekend is going to be 30-40,000. Is that disappointing?

A. It definitely would be to our advantage to have more fans out there.

Q. Why should they come?

A. We are prepared to win. That's what college football is all about. All the fun is in winning. I would love to come and watch a team that's successful.

Q. What's the one hit you remember most?

A. I always have a pretty good game against Iowa. My first major collision was with quarterback Matt Sherman. We just met and a big bell rang. It wasn't much of a hit to see on film.

Q. What's the one miss you remember most?

A. Oh man, I had a couple of those last season. My very first game at Michigan, Clarence Williams came through the hole. He just gave me a little hesitation and I totally went for that first step and whiffed it. That doesn't happen too much anymore.

Q. It's you and Ron Dayne. Fourth down at the 3. You're leading by five. The winner goes to a bowl game. What happens?

A. As a linebacker, we have drills like that. You have to stop him. Whatever it takes. I don't want him to get 1.

Q. Tell us something people don't know about you.

A. I want to be an actor. I want to be on TV. I think that's where I belong. I just think I can be an actor or talk-show host.

Q. Rumor has it you have a photographic memory.

A. Kind of. That's kind of weird. I have a foreign language. We have a vocabulary test and I can look over it twice and know the whole thing. Those guys have to study all night. It got better as I got to college. There's a lot of information you must know as you get older. I can grasp things pretty fast.

Q. It must help in football.

A. It helps a lot.