For 10 hours Thursday, we'll unveil different parts of our "Year of the Quarterback" special section that ran in The News-Gazette. Here's the schedule

7 a.m. - Jeff George tops Illini's all-time list

8 a.m. - Rating them 1 through 120

9 a.m. - Juice WIlliams' last stand

10 a.m. - Bob Asmussen's awards

11 a.m. - Best moments

Noon - Ranking the Big Ten

1 p.m. - The AP voters speak

2 p.m. - Top 25 TV matchups

3 p.m. - Circle these dates

4 p.m. - Best of all-time

ALL-TIME ILLINI BEST

CHAMPAIGN – Where does Juice Williams fit among the best quarterbacks in Illinois history?

Top 10? Top five? He's somewhere in there.

The 2009 season will provide the finishing numbers. He is the best-ever QB-runner at a school where, for decades, the quarterback was seldom asked to run. He is not the most accurate passer, but his junior numbers – 3,173 yards and 22 TD passes – allowed him to join the exclusive 3,000 club with Tony Eason (twice), Jack Trudeau, Dave Wilson, Jason Verduzco and Kurt Kittner.

It's all apples and oranges when it comes to judging quarterbacks. The surrounding talent is never the same. The coaching and offensive systems vary (Illinois has a new offensive coordinator, Mike Schultz, this year).

Times change. Mike McCray led the UI in completions in 1977 with 36. Eight years later, in the heyday of Mike White's West Coast attack, Trudeau set the school record with 322 strikes. Williams and Kittner broke in during their freshman seasons, allowing them to become the UI's only four-year starters at the position. Wilson played one season, opened with a weak 5-for-18 (57 yards) performance against Northwestern and, on Nov. 8, 1980, shattered NCAA marks with 43 completions for 621 yards and six touchdowns at Ohio State.

Jeff George and Eason, who receive the nod here as the UI's best two quarterbacks, played two seasons. So did long-ago Rose Bowl quarterbacks Perry Moss and Tommy O'Connell.

Following are Tatelines' top 10 Illini quarterbacks from the past.

1. JEFF GEORGE

George had the quickest release and a propensity to peak in the pressure moments. He led Illinois past Ohio State both years, 31-12 and 34-14. In 1988, his passes set up a field goal at :01 to tie Minnesota 27-27. A week later with Illinois trailing Indiana 20-9, he completed two TD passes in the last 2:06 to win it 21-20. But it was in the 10-2 season of 1989 that George caught fire. He completed late TD passes to Shawn Wax and Steven Williams to trip Southern Cal 14-13. His TD pass to Mike Bellamy at 1:08 edged Michigan State 14-10. And he passed for 321 yards and three TDs in a Citrus Bowl defeat of Virginia, one of only three UI bowl successes in the last 45 years. As a senior, the Purdue transfer, who paid his own way to attend the UI, threw for 2,738 yards and 22 touchdowns. But the most important numbers were 10 wins and two losses.

2. TONY EASON

The rangy Californian is tops in UI career passing efficiency (133.8) and single-season aerial yardage (3,671). He was smooth and often spectacular. But to show how quickly games can turn, Eason had Michigan in early trouble in 1981, narrowly missing a TD pass that would have made it 28-7, and then saw his 386-yard aerial show trampled in a Wolverine romp, 70-21. As a senior, his fourth-quarter 50-yarder to Mitch Brookins edged Purdue 38-34, and his clutch passes set up the 29-28 miracle at Wisconsin when Mike Bass kicked the winning 46-yard field goal. On the negative side, he failed to generate a touchdown in 26-6 and 20-3 showdowns with Pitt and Dan Marino, lost twice to Ohio State, and was injured during the 21-15 Liberty Bowl loss to Bear Bryant and Alabama. Eason threw 505 passes in 1982 for 18 TDs and 19 interceptions. His two UI teams finished 7-4 and 7-5.

3. JACK TRUDEAU

A steady performer, he completed 64 percent of his Illini passes for a school-record 8,725 yards. As a sophomore in 1983, he led Illinois to a perfect Big Ten season, coming up big in the showdowns against Ohio State and Michigan. With the Buckeyes ahead 13-10, he completed critical passes in the waning moments to set up Thomas Rooks' 21-yard TD sweep. Ahead of Michigan 7-6 in the fourth quarter, he fired a 46-yard TD pass to David Williams en route to a 16-6 UI win. The 1984 season offered great potential when, trailing Northwestern 16-7 in the opener, Trudeau rallied Illinois for a 24-16 win. But his 313-yard effort in a free-scoring shootout at Ohio State was nullified as OSU's hard-running Keith Byars broke the 38-38 tie. A year later in 1985, Trudeau sparked an Illini rally from a 28-14 deficit to edge the Buckeyes 31-28 in what was a near-miss season, the Illini tying Michigan 3-3 when a winning field goal hit the crossbar and later losing to Army 31-29 in the Peach Bowl to finish 6-5-1.

4. KURT KITTNER

Like George, Kittner was at his best in the clutch. He led Illinois to the Big Ten championship in 2001 and set the Illini career TD record with 70. In a 1999 shootout against Louisville and Chris Redman, Kittner hit on a 67-yard TD pass to Rocky Harvey and, with 2:13 to go, salted away a 41-36 win with a 49-yard bomb to Brandon Lloyd. The 35-29 win at Michigan brought more Kittner-Harvey heroics (down 27-7, Illinois scored 28 straight points). And Kittner capped his sophomore season with 254 aerial yards in a 63-21 rout of Virginia. As a senior in 2001, Kittner broke his own TD pass record with 27 as Illinois defeated everyone in the regular season except Michigan. Northern Illinois led 6-3 in the fourth quarter when Kittner threw two short TD passes to win it 17-12. Wisconsin led 35-28 with 12 minutes to go when Kittner threw winning TD passes to Brian Hodges and Lloyd. Illinois squeezed past Penn State 33-28 on a late run by Harvey, and Illinois outscored Ohio State 13-0 in the fourth quarter of a 34-22 win. Kittner was at his best in the nerve-racking finishes. Illinois was 23-12 in his last three seasons.

5. TOMMY O'CONNELL

The Notre Dame transfer was in charge of the UI's last undefeated team in 1951 and erupted in 1952 for 1,761 aerial yards, the only UI quarterback to top 1,000 prior to the 1960s. In the run for the roses in '51, O'Connell directed hard-fought early wins against Wisconsin 14-10 and 20th-ranked Washington 27-20. But most memorable was a snowball fight with No. 15 Michigan in a driving storm at Memorial Stadium. The game was a 0-0 standoff until deep in the fourth quarter when, in almost impossible circumstances, O'Connell found Rex Smith in the end zone for a 7-0 triumph. The 40-7 Rose Bowl defeat of Stanford featured key interceptions and the running TDs of Pete Bachourus, Bill Tate (twice), John Karras and Don Stevens but, with a revamped lineup in 1952, O'Connell broke out a prolific overhead game even as Ray Eliot's club stumbled through a 4-5 season. O'Connell completed 133 passes in nine games, that number standing until White arrived from California in 1980. O'Connell was the UI's only all-conference QB between Jack Beynon in 1934 and Mike Wells in 1972. The only other two were George and Eason. Iowa's Chuck Long was the All-Big Ten QB during all three of Trudeau's seasons, and Purdue's Drew Brees and Indiana's Antwaan Randle El were the top QBs during Kittner's years. The Big Ten credits Illinois with 24 All-Americans, but no quarterbacks.

6. DAVE WILSON

How do you evaluate a guy who passed for 621 yards on a single afternoon? How do you judge a player who, even in defeat (49-42), was given a standing ovation as he left Ohio Stadium? The Illini were a mediocre 3-7-1 in 1980. They were hammered at Missouri 52-7, lost to Mississippi State 28-21, gave up 45 points to Purdue (Wilson threw for 425 yards) and Michigan, and lost to Minnesota and Indiana. It wasn't a good year. But Wilson's 19-TD, 3,154-yard outburst made Illinois football fun again and set the stage for the successes that followed in the early 1980s. In all fairness, the juco transfer should have been given a second season, the complicated argument over that issue winding up with Big Ten fathers putting Illinois on probation ... and Wilson became the No. 1 pick in the NFL's supplemental draft.

7. JASON VERDUZCO

He wasn't big but he was mighty. Succeeding George in 1990 after filling in briefly and capably for him in the 1989 win against Ohio State, Verduzco's passes put him third on the UI's yardage list with 7,532 and fourth in TD passes with 42. His sophomore season was highlighted by a 23-for-29 aerial performance and a late fourth-quarter march that handed eventual national co-champion Colorado its only loss, 23-22. He was at the helm a week later against Southern Illinois when Howard Griffith set the NCAA record with eight touchdowns, and Illinois went from there to share the Big Ten title. In the final minute of a 15-13 defeat of Michigan State, hobbled by a sprained knee, he put Doug Higgins into position for his fifth field goal. Illinois threatened late in a 22-17 loss at Michigan, his final pass intercepted on the 1-yard line. Verduzco topped 3,000 yards in the 6-6 season of 1991, completing four key passes to set up Chris Richardson's last-minute field goal to edge Ohio State 10-7. Verduzco dropped off noticeably in 1992 after John Mackovic stepped down as coach and offensive leader.

8. FRED CUSTARDO

As a sophomore in 1963, the mobile Proviso product shared QB duties with senior Mike Taliaferro on the Rose Bowl champs and was a triple-threat passer, runner and kicker in the two seasons that followed. He passed for 1,012 yards and ran for 151 as a junior, scoring 42 points with the help of 15 conversions and four field goals. He added 23 placements and four field goals in 1965. Coach Pete Elliott used a grind-it-out, defense-oriented style in that period, taking advantage of All-Americans Dick Butkus and Jim Grabowski. Despite playing essentially 2 1/2 seasons, Custardo set what was then the total offense record with 2,931 yards (Juice Williams already has 8,455 run-pass yards with a year to go). In 1965, Custardo's field goals created leads against Missouri 10-6 and Michigan State 12-9 before their fourth-quarter scores felled the Illini. John Wright caught what was briefly a school-record 47 passes with Custardo pulling the trigger that year. Illinois went 20-8-1 during Custardo's three seasons.

9. JOHNNY JOHNSON

Johnson had quick feet and, like Verduzco, ran up impressive numbers until a coaching change impacted him negatively as a senior. As a sophomore in 1993, he led a 2-4 team into Michigan Stadium and pulled off a 24-21 shocker with two fourth-quarter TD passes, the last a 15-yarder to Jim Klein with 34 seconds to go. Johnson repeated those heroics two weeks later with two fourth-quarter strikes against Minnesota, concluding with a 25-yard sideline pass to Ty Douthard with 12 seconds showing. Johnson and Douthard did it to Minnesota again in 1994, Johnson passing for 291 yards and Douthard punching across on two short fourth-quarter runs to win it 21-17. But, like Dave Wilson, Johnson's most memorable performance came in a losing cause. Penn State was undefeated and ranked No. 2 that November, and Johnson fired early TD passes to Ken Dilger and Shane Fisher as Illinois jumped ahead 21-0. The Nittany Lions still trailed 31-21 midway in the fourth quarter when they put together two clutch drives to salvage the win, the latter measuring 96 yards and culminating in the final minute to spoil a grand Illini effort.

10. JON BEUTJER

The rangy Iowa transfer had an effortless throwing motion and impressive statistics (5,190 yards and 39 TDs in three seasons) but not the desired results. He was the quarterback during Ron Turner's last three seasons, the Illini going 9-26 in 2002-03-04, and he misfired on some late-game opportunities that other top 10 quarterbacks turned into victories. After sharing time with Dustin Ward during most of the 2002 season, he caught fire with 319 yards and four TD passes in a 37-20 defeat of Wisconsin, and threw for 305 yards in a 23-16 overtime loss to Ohio State's national champs. More bad luck followed in the 2003 season opener against Missouri, the Illini falling 22-15 even as Beutjer went 31 for 44. And Illinois won once all season, often losing by large margins. Turner used late-season opportunities to experiment with other quarterbacks in 2003 and 2004, causing Beutjer's senior numbers to drop to eight TDs and 1,082 yards, a sharp fall from the 21 TDs and 2,511 yards he posted as a sophomore.