Badger Football

The Badgers played strong and tough, and showed they were made of stern stuff.

It was GREAT to have Jonathan Casillas back on the field. He made numerous plays and was very active. He also exhibited one of his greatest abilities: chasing down streaking players. Ever since he was a freshman Mr. Casillas could turn and run towards his end zone, gain on everybody, and tackle a breakaway runner from behind. He has shown this animal instinct countless times in his UW career. Even with a knee brace #2 was able to track down a fleeing Bulldog and stop him before he reached the endzone. Loser Fresno kicker proceeded to wank the FG.

It seems both teams were trying to win the manly battle. WI is often a victim of its own blue-collar mantra. We are determined to run it up the gut at the goal line and on 4th downs because we preach all summer long in workouts that we are going to do just that. So even though play action always works, we still try to stuff it at them. I think Fresno got a little caught up in that as well. They continued to run it right at us even when it wasn't working. Our secondary has holes, but they didn't try to find them too often. Fresno manned-up and got a 13-10 slugfest loss. Thanks for having us!

Bret Bielema has a sterling record when leading at halftime. This must be at the forefront of your brain when you start second guessing the play-calling. We went away from the TEs. We pressed on with slow developing running plays, when the quick-hitters were the ones working. We didn't run enough play-action. And yet, we didn't make any terrible turnovers with the lead on the road, and we won the game. It's not terribly frustrating underachieving offense, its game management people!

If we are going to run up the gut in short yard situations, how about we hand the ball to Johnny Clay! His vision is nowhere near as good as PJ Hill's, but good golly ain't nobody stopping him short of a yard. I would love to see the inverted wishbone with our two FBs and Mr. Clay back there.

Lastly, hating on the BigTen is so overplayed its should be a suited connector. It's become dogma already. The Big 12 and the SEC appear stronger this season than every other conference. But the BigTen at the bottom? Huh? I would LOVE to stack up 10 v. 10 against Pac-10 teams. Southern Cal is dominant, Michigan is terrible and Purdue choked at home. Other than those 3 points, what have you? MSU lost a close game at Cal? If you think I'm being ridiculous, check the standings. Look at all those garbage Pac-10 squads. Also, apparently all the Pac-10 teams are too skeered to play at Fresno.

Anyway, the facts are that USC has dominated 3 Big Ten teams over the last 2+ years in Southern Cal. Also, OSU has gotten demolished in 2 straight Title games. From this the media has gleaned that everybody in the BigTen is slow and overrated. Color me not buying it.