He's a lineman at heart, swears Illinois center Luke Butkus.

Then what's Kurt Kittner doing standing behind him on every snap, posing as one of the top signal callers in the nation?

He has the skills to play quarterback, but he doesn't like the glamour," Butkus said. "He's one of us, just kind of a meathead."

He's seen the other side before.

In the fourth game of his senior year at Schaumburg (Ill.) High School, he tore a tendon in his right thumb while quarterbacking.

Coach Tom Cerasani took Kittner and put him at linebacker for the remaining games. Kittner had few problems learning the position, Cerasani said.

"Great tackler, jump on the ball," the coach said. "He's a tough kid. He's a competitor. He works real hard in what he's got to get done."

Nowadays, Kittner isn't exactly posing as the Fighting Illini's junior starting quarterback. Should he decline the option to go professional after this season, he would become a four-year starter at possibly the most difficult, nerve-wracking position in sports.

No worries. In fact, he might be one of the smartest "meatheads" to ever grace a college football playing field.

"The way I see it, I'm a junior now, I really see myself as a three year starter, and I expect a lot of things. I expect to play a lot better than the average guy."

People say he can pluck the tendencies of opposing defenses like loose hairs on an eyebrow. It was something, Cerasani said, Kittner had by instinct.

"Either you have it or you don't," Cerasani said.

His current quarterbacks coach, Craig Ver Steeg, said the ability to read defenses like Kittner does can be finely tuned, but never taught completely.

Maybe it took Turner a little more time to realize that.

"There were a lot of question marks on our offense," Illini coach Ron Turner said in July, reminiscing about the team's 3-8 campaign of 1998. "The quarterback situation, that was unsettled."

Just imagine Turner after that season ended. You've probably never heard someone laugh so loud.

His project — Kittner — who had thrown seven picks and nary a single touchdown during his freshman campaign, threw 24 touchdowns last year, with only five interceptions to show.

He led the Illini to a 63-21 romp against Virginia in the MicronPC.com Bowl.

And now, he's back.

Six games — just over halfway into the season — Kittner has halved the numbers he posted last year (12 TDs and three interceptions), which turned into the highest-scoring offense in Illinois' history.

Few expect Kittner to repeat his 1999 numbers. Turner, however, just expects him to improve.

"I think Kurt can definitely improve, and can be one of the top quarterbacks in the country," Turner said. "And I don't know necessarily if his touchdown-interception ratio will be equal to or better than it was a year ago, but that is not the No. 1 sign that you're better or successful."