Eastern ended its season at home 280 days ago with a disappointing playoff loss to an in-state opponent. Now they look for a fresh start against another school from the land of Lincoln.

“I think ever since that loss to Southern Illinois, our goal has been to go the distance,” said Eastern acting head coach Mark Hutson. “Anything less than to have those expectations would be underachieving.”

For the first time in history, Eastern – now ranked 14th in the Sports Network preseason I-AA poll – will travel the 56 miles north to face Illinois at 6 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

“The hard part is now that they are all so eager to play that you have to keep their emotions in check,” said Illinois defensive coordinator Vince Okruch. “We don’t want to play the game mentally and energy-wise before Saturday.”

The Panthers are coming off an Ohio Valley Conference championship, but will be without its head coach as Bob Spoo will not be on the sidelines due to his recovery from his Aug. 29 surgery.

“We know that there’re no certainties in life or in medical things but the team has adjusted after the initial shock,” Hutson said.

Eastern has 16 returning starters, with seven of them from a defense that led the OVC in scoring defense, rushing defense and turnover margin.

“They went to the playoffs a year ago, they won the Ohio Valley Conference and their own league picked them second,” Okruch said. “They’ll come in here with a chip on their shoulder.”

The Panther defense boasts three preseason All-American candidates in linebackers Clint Sellers and Lucius Seymour and safety Tristan Burge.

“(Sellers) and (Burge) are as good as we will see all year long in the Big Ten Conference,” said Illinois head coach Ron Zook.

Illinois is trying to rebound from the first season of the Zook era that included no Big Ten Conference wins, nine straight losses and its worst season in almost a decade.

“In order to get more consistent and productive, the players must realize that their expectations must come up to ours,” Zook said.

The Illini will look to establish the run with its trio of talented tailbacks in seniors Pierre Thomas and E.B. Halsey along with sophomore Rashard Mendenhall.

“We need all of them and we will need all of them during the course of the year,” Zook said. “In this league you have to be able to run the football. If not, it falls on the quarterback, and then you can’t get those yards.”

Thomas and Halsey are the only pair of 1,000-yard running backs from the same team in the Big Ten Conference.

The senior duo will be running behind an offensive line that averages 308 pounds and adds a talented newcomer in Akim Millington. The 6-foot-6, 310-pound junior offensive tackle was a spring transfer from Oklahoma after playing in four games with the Sooners.

The Panthers are confident they can find a way to counter the 44-pound difference between the Illini offensive line and Eastern’s front four.

“We’ve seen big and quick lineman before like last year with BYU but I do believe that we are faster,” junior middle linebacker Donald Thomas said.

The quarterback situation is similar with both schools as both have returning starting quarterbacks but have hinted toward interest in playing multiple signal callers.

The Illini will start the season with Tim Brasic after the senior from Riverside threw for 1,979 yards and 11 touchdowns last season. Zook has said publicly that he intends to give one or both incoming freshman Isiah “Juice” Williams and Eddie McGee playing time.

“Juice will get snaps and Eddie as well,” Zook said. “The only way to get better is to play and get experience.”

None of the three will get the opportunity to throw to sophomore Kyle Hudson. The sophomore Mattoon native will not play due to a pulled hamstring injury suffered this summer.

Mike Donato returns for Eastern and will start Saturday for the Panthers but Hutson has said that he’d like to give backup Cole Stinson some snaps as well.

“We are not committed to playing two quarterbacks because Mike is our starter,” Hutson said. “We would like to play Cole but we don’t know.”

Donato, who finished the season with 1,747 yards passing and nine touchdowns, has been getting a majority of the snaps this week in practice.

“What I’ve talked the defense is that he is the center of their offense,” Okruch said. “He’s a great competitor and a winner.”

The junior is looking to forget his only other experience against a I-A opponent last year at BYU. In his second career start, Donato was 14-of-29 for 126 yards with an interception and a fumbled snap out of the shotgun that deflected off his helmet.

“I think Mike has matured to a guy that knows the offense and is a player that I expect big things out of him,” Eastern senior tailback Vincent Webb, Jr. said.

The major weapon that may help the vertical passing game is junior wide receiver Micah Rucker. The Minnesota transfer provides Donato with another deep threat option and teamed with Ryan Voss gives the Panthers two receivers over 6-foot-5.

“I call Micah Rucker the problem because the matchup of him and Voss causes problems,” Webb, Jr. said.

In order to combat the problems with the crowd noise at Memorial Stadium, the Panthers have been pumping music into the O’Brien Stadium speakers during practice this week.

“A lot of the guys have been dancing around during practice and honestly the music helps simulate Memorial Stadium along with making practice go faster,” said Eastern senior and All-American offensive right guard Jon Reuter.

At BYU last season, the Panthers committed eight penalties for 78 yards and were rattled by the sound level of the 52,630 in attendance.

“At BYU, we couldn’t hear what coach (Roc) Bellantoni was saying but this week has helped us work on our checks,” Sellers said.

Since 1980, Eastern is 60-71-9 against in-state opponents but a number of Panthers players have said the hype for this game outweighs any local matchup before it.

“I think we all grew up watching Illinois on television and we are the underdogs,” Rueter said. “Our goal is to prove we play quality football here at EIU.”