Zak Kustok probably doesn’t hear the footsteps yet. But with the incessant chatter, he’ll have a good indication as to when Illinois defensive ends Fred Wakefield and Terrell Washington are in the neighborhood.

“A lot of D-ends and D-linemen in particular talk about it,” Wakefield said. “They’re sitting there going, ‘I’ll see you back there.’ That’s what you want to do. You want to see as many people around that quarterback as possible.”

Wakefield and Washington have been making quarterbacks flee all season long. Coming off the edges of the Fighting Illini defense, the tandem has wreaked havoc in Big Ten backfields. They have dominated the Illini defense in sacks and tackles for loss, with Wakefield (nine sacks, 20 TFL) edging Washington (eight sacks, 14 TFL) in both categories.

Opposing quarterbacks aren’t the only ones having nightmares about the dangerous duo. Despite all the good his players have done on the field, defensive ends coach Osia Lewis can be overwhelmed by the constant talk going back and forth.

Washington, a junior, and Wakefield, a senior, have made a sport out of competing with each other on the field. And that means talking — in the huddle, on the sidelines and in the meeting room.

“Throughout a game, (Washington) likes giving me a hard time, especially if he goes in there and gets a sack,” Wakefield said. “Or if I go (and get a sack), he’s like, ‘I’m next, I’m next.’ He’s constantly trying to make a big competition out of it.

“Mostly it goes on just to keep everybody rolling and excited throughout the game.”

Lewis, though, has a very different take on the din coming from his starters.

“They’ll be yapping at a meeting and I’ll tell them to shut up,” he said. “All the time — who’s got how many of this, and that was a gimme, the quarterback fell down. And it’s good. I think it’s good because it gets them going and competing.

“They compete against each other that way and then they get in the game and they compete against other people and they know that, ‘Hey, the other guy is watching and I need to be on top of my game because he is going to critique what I did and give me a bad time about it.'”

Lewis can’t argue with the results the pair have delivered this season. Over the summer, when coaches can’t work with players on the field, Wakefield and Washington worked with each other and some of the younger linemen, honing their skills for the upcoming season.

“As a duo we’ve got tons of TFLs and lots of sacks and plenty of tackles to boot,” Wakefield said. “We’ve definitely done our job throughout the season. We just work real well together. He does a good job of holding things up on his side and allowing me to come from the backside and clean stuff up and vice versa.”

The Illini defense has struggled this season, especially in Big Ten play. But Washington has matured in his first season as a starter.

And Wakefield has been a team leader, winning the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week Oct. 15. They are fifth and sixth on the team in tackles, respectively.

“You look at Fred, he’s a 6-foot-7, 275- or 280-pound guy who can run,” Lewis said. “He uses his power and his pass rush and he uses his speed rush and he does a great job with his hands.

“Terrell is a speed guy. He does a real good job using his speed and quickness. He also does a better-than-expected job against the run for his size. You look at him, you say he’s a speed guy but he surprises people because he’s got good power and he does a good job on the run.”

With little experience behind Washington and Wakefield at defensive line, there’s no doubt as to just how much they mean to what the Illini do on defense.

“They play off each other, letting each other know what to expect from their film study,” Lewis said. “And when they get in the game I know they do a real good job on the sideline of telling each other, ‘Hey, I’m getting this over here, the guy’s doing that.’ And when they watch film together, I know they talk about how guys set, how a guy will try and defend against them and what they can do to beat him.

“It’s been a real enjoyable year with those guys.”