Come Saturday, there should be few surprises with Missouri’s offensive philosophy.

“I think what they do is what they do,” Illinois head coach Ron Zook said. “They are going to throw the football.”

Under Tigers head coach Gary Pinkel’s pass-happy spread offense, Missouri has consistently ranked among the nation’s leaders in passing offense. In the last three meetings with Illinois, Missouri has averaged 335.7 yards per game through the air.

“Obviously, offensively, they’re a team that’s been really successful over the last five or six years,” Illinois defensive coordinator Vic Koenning said. “They’ve got their system down pretty well.”

This season figures to be no different, with Missouri returning a potential Heisman candidate in junior quarterback Blaine Gabbert. The former five-star recruit made his first career start against the Illini last season, completing 25 of 33 passes for 319 yards and three touchdowns.

“He could have won the Heisman if he played every game last year like he did against us, so there is no reason to think that he is not going to come back and have the same year,” Zook said.

Gabbert and the Missouri offense will be an early test for the Illini defensive secondary, which enters the game inexperienced and marred by injury.

Sophomore cornerback Terry Hawthorne suffered a stress fracture in his right foot last week, sidelining him for four to six weeks. The injury came days after fellow starter junior safety Supo Sanni was lost for the season with a ruptured Achilles tendon.

Koenning, who is in his first year at Illinois, coached against Missouri last season when he was the co-defensive coordinator at Kansas State. Gabbert completed 20 of 27 passes for 298 yards and three touchdowns en route to a 38-12 Missouri win.

Putting pressure on the quarterback, Koenning said, will be key in slowing down Gabbert.

“Well, I didn’t have any luck last year, and the couple of times I did try to blitz him, he shredded us,” Koenning said.

“You still have to do it. You have to make the effort to get to him, you’ve just got to try to be prudent. You watch a lot of film, and you see guys bouncing off of him, too — he’s a big, strong guy,” he added.

Illinois defensive players have taken notice on how hard it is to bring down Gabbert, who stands at 6-foot-5 and 235 pounds.

“He’s more mobile than people think, and that’s the big thing I’ve noticed watching film on him,” junior safety Trulon Henry said. “He’s not stupid with the ball, he makes good decisions, he doesn’t make a lot of mistakes, so we’ve just got to keep playing our technique, playing within our game plan, and hope for the best.”

Henry, who will start alongside junior Tavon Wilson at safety, is a junior college transfer playing in his first NCAA game. Neither starting cornerbacks, sophomore Justin Green nor senior Travon Bellamy, started a game at that position last season.

And with such inexperience, Henry and his teammates would prefer that their first opponent wasn’t such a pass-oriented offense.

“Yeah, that would have been a blessing if that would have happened and we faced a power team like Wisconsin,” Henry said. “We’ve got a passing team, a spread team, so we’re just going to have to get out there and compete, and if big plays happen, try to keep our head up and keep going, keep moving forward.”

But while Missouri’s passing game is well-established, its running game is up in the air. Senior captain and returning starter Derrick Washington was dismissed from the team Wednesday after being accused of sexual assault.

Pinkel declined to comment on Washington, but said he was “embarrassed” by recent legal troubles by his players.

“We’ve worked real hard to develop a program that I think has a really good reputation for being first class, and we’ve taken a few hits,” Pinkel said.

Washington, a three-year starter at running back, has rushed for 1,937 yards in the past two seasons.

Taking his place will be sophomore De’Vion Moore, junior Kendial Lawrence and true freshmen Henry Josey and Marcus Murphy.

“Both (Moore and Lawrence) played last year, and we have two good freshmen, so we move them over and move them up,” Pinkel said. “They’ve been working hard and are excited about the opportunity.”

On the other side of the ball, Illinois redshirt freshman quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase will make his collegiate debut against a Tigers secondary that returns all four starters, but struggled to stop the pass last season.

The 2009 Missouri defense surrendered 251.5 yards per game in the air, second-worst in the Big 12. The Tigers also intercepted just eight passes and conceded 20 passing touchdowns.

“They’ve got a lot of experience back there,” Scheelhaase said. “We definitely think we have some great and talented receivers that can really get after it with the best of the best in the country. It’s a big matchup where the game can really be won and lost.”