Hill is Out

For tomorrow's 11 am showdown with the stanky Wolverines, and their multiple first round draft picks (Long and Manningham). This means that Lance Smith (Rance Smith!) and Zach Brown will share carries. Zach had some decent runs against OSU and Lance is quite explosive. However, Zach is averaging less than 4 yards a carry, and neither he nor Lance have shown PJ's ability to pick up tough yards after contact. And since we are not a spread offense, there will likely be plenty of contact from the Michigan defense.

Seriously folks, I don't know how the UW offense will match-up on the Michigan D. I haven't seen Michigan play enough this season, but I do know they have some solid talent, like LB Shawn Crable. I'm worried about stumpy guns, aka Tyler Donovan, turning the ball over when the Badgers are forced to pass, as they probably will be. And I'm worried about the line protecting him (they gave up 10 sacks, not 9, last weekend). I like Beckum, Hubbard and Jefferson, and I like Donovan running more than passing. Seriously, I want more QB runs than passes this game. Historically, Michigan tends to look like a guy with his pants around his ankles who forgot to lock the bathroom door when confronted with a mobile quarterback. That said, they did defense "The Juice is Loose" Williams decently a few weeks ago. But Williams is such a terrible passer, maybe they could just write him off as a threat to throw.

I think the game, unfortunately, will turn on how the Badgers' undermanned defense responds to Michigan's offense. After two fine defensive performances against Northern Illinois and Indiana, they played admirably for about 60% of the game in Columbus, and then totally wore out. And now Chapman and Langford are out. I like Aaron Henry as Langford's replacement, and I like seeing Newkirk back at tackle in place of Chapman. But both absences create further depth problems, or force iffy players into more playing time. I would not be surprised to see Michigan run at whatever defensive end replaces Newkirk, and throw at whichever receiver is covered by the new nickel back. Plus, the lack of depth will only exacerbate the D's lack of stamina. The defense will need to play a great game, and need the offense to control the time of possession, if UW is going to win. And unfortunately, I don't see that. I hope it's not so, but tomorrow could be ugly.

Up, Down, All Around

It's funny how your feelings about your teams' performances relate to your expectations. For example, everyone, including the betting gurus, expected UW's football team to pound UNLV. But they played poorly and barely won, and Badger fans all over the place are upset and disappointed, and may have revised their expectations for the team from here on out. In contrast, last Sunday, the Packers barely won, but no one expected anything from them, so fans generally felt positive about the victory, and maybe their expectations for the team grew a bit. Ah, people are so easily influenced-- myself definitely included.

For example, I'm looking forward to seeing the Badgers play the Citadel this weekend in Madison, but that excitement is mixed with a heavy dose of reservation. And that's completely due to their poor showing in Las Vegas. I wonder--which game showed the real offense? The struggle against UNLV or the aerial show against Wazzu? Was Wazzu's pass defense just really terrible? If they have trouble scoring on UNLV, why wouldn't they have difficultly with, and maybe even lose to, the Citadel? The Citadel has won a bunch of games in a row, and its last loss was to Appalachian State, the depants-er of Michigan. The Citadel also runs a spread option, the same formation that UNLV used to move the ball on UW. So seriously, I'm nervous, as ridiculous as it may sound.

And Hubbard's injury at the hands of that dickhead UNLV player has me even more nervous. Hubbard's a great athlete, an excellent blocker, and a legitimate deep threat. He opened up the passing game tremendously, even if he hadn't caught a ton of balls this season. None of the reserves will be able to make up for his loss, but Xavier Harris, Marcus Randle-El, and Kyle Jefferson will try. Harris is a true sophomore who started out strong in camp last year, caught a few passes in some early games, and then didn't see much action. He runs solid routes, and has excellent hands and good size, but doesn't appear to be the athlete that Hubbard is (to be fair, few are). Randle-El is a quick, shifty redshirt junior with good hands. He lacks size and great speed since his return from an ACL tear last fall. Jefferson is a true freshman who's big and fast, but he's rail thin and obviously green. It'll be interesting to see if any of them step up tomorrow or in the weeks until Hubbard returns.

The running back situation also seems to be in flux. Several articles today stated that true freshman Zach Brown, he of the awesome grille head shot, will get the majority of the back up carries this week, ahead of Lance Smith ("Rance Smith!") and John Clay. In fact, the Capital Times actually said that Clay "looms as a redshirt candidate." Huh. It's understandable that the coaching staff would move Brown ahead of Lance because the Badgers have a bunch of key road games this year (at Penn State, Illinois and Ohio State) that Lance can't play in. It makes more sense for the team to use Brown in games like this one in order to get him acclimated. You have to feel bad for Lance though. He loses the road games, and now he's basically losing the home games as well. Although I wouldn't be surprised if the depth chart at running back remains fluid all season. If Brown is just ok on Saturday, but not great, you'd have to think the coaches would go back to Lance for tough home games like next week's match-up with Iowa. They just want to win. Regardless, it will be neat to see what Brown does on Saturday.

The John Clay thing is interesting as well. Going into last weekend, it sounded like Clay was going to get a serious look at UNLV. Unfortunately, that game turned out to be far tighter than everyone anticipated, and even Brown only saw the field for a few carries. Now, it looks like Clay may not see any action this entire season. Do you think that the reports on Clay's talents were overstated, because if he was that good he'd be playing already? Or is the playbook just that complicated, and he was late coming to camp? Or do UW coaches, seeing that Lance and PJ still have two plus years of eligibility left, just want to maximize his eligibility? Mysterious...

Come Saturday, I'm also looking to see if the offense will receive a boost from the likely return of team captain Andy Crooks, who's been milling about on the sidelines for the past two weeks. Garrett Graham's been taking his snaps, and while Graham is probably more mobile, Crooks is a little craftier, and certainly a more physical blocker. I hope the running game picks up with Crooks sealing the edge a little better.

I also am hopeful that the defense will finally dominate. The expectations for that group were very high coming into the year. The loss of Jamal Cooper hurt, it's true, but he didn't play that much last season either. The D tightened up against Wazzu in the second half, and didn't give up many points to UNLV, considering the time of possession problems, but I'd like to see them creating more havoc. The D has one true turnover this season, Shane Carter's interception against UNLV, and only three sacks, two coming on UNLV's last minute attempt at a touchdown drive, when the Badgers knew they'd be passing. Great defenses dominate physically. I think many of the guys on the Badgers' D are capable of that, so I hope they can finally put together a complete performance.

Really, I'm just looking to enjoy watching a game, hopefully a solid victory. Before, I would have expected it. Now, after the near debacle in Vegas, I'm just hoping it's not too much to ask.

But at least there was this

Just a beautiful play:

Oh my dear god that was terrible...

Okay, so I guess it could be worse-- the Badgers could have lost rather than squeaked out a last minute 20-13 win. But my goodness that was painful. The offense sparked and sputtered, Paul Hubbard was injured by some douche bag UNLV defender who bent him over backwards away from the ball after the play was basically over, the receivers had multiple drops, Donovan looked off, the line didn't pass block well, PJ got overworked because Lance was at home, the D forced tons of third downs but couldn't get off the field, they ran the ball well for just one possession, the return and coverage units were almost uniformly bad, and DeBauche punted like a high school sophomore.

But to use a stupid cliche, you have to hand it to UNLV, or at least to some of their players. Beau Bell, #2, looks like he's going on to the next level. He was everywhere on defense. Their qb is shifty, and had several nice throws, and UNLV's white wide receiver, #80, ate Allen Langford up. The game also reminded me of how UNLV fans suck. I hate their stupid "Reb-Els" chant, maybe because I was overexposed to it during Wisconsin's early NCAA basketball tournament exit. They don't expect anything out of their teams, but when they're winning they're insufferable, rubbing it in constantly. Apathetic losers, but terrible winners.

Plus, since the stupid contest was on "Versus," which may be the worst cable sports network in history, I ended up watching it in a smoky, sticky and crowded bar that I had forgotten I used to hate. Some sad, homely and obese Irishman kept leaning into me and requesting refills on his 32 ounce Miller Lights, and there were far too many TVs on the LSU beat-down of Virginia Tech, despite the fact that game was completely uncompetitive, leaving me and my uncle to stare in horror at a blinky, dim 23 inch set, as we breathed in secondhand smoke. In all, a terribly grim evening.

The Badgers should fall several spots after this near disaster. Texas and Oklahoma will definitely move ahead, as should California. And it's deserving. In no way, did the Badgers look like the 5th best team in the country tonight. Plus, maybe it's for the best-- a little less attention, a slightly smaller target on their backs, and a little more time to focus on getting better. Maybe at some point later in the season, the Badgers will be a top 5 team. But they sure ain't now.

Oh No, Rance Smith!

Now comes word that mercurial running back Lance Smith ("Rance Smith!") has been suspended for all of the Badgers' road games. This punishment appears to stem from the girlfriend/cab fare/shoe-stealing incident in July. I guess we jinxed Rance with all the talk about his quickness yesterday.

Besides the game at Minnesota and Saturday night's match-up at UNLV, this includes outings at Penn State, at Illinois, and at Ohio State. Uh oh. (You think Lance, an Ohio guy, would have been fired up to play in Columbus?) This means that for those key road games, the back up running backs will be true freshmen Zach Brown and John Clay. Clay is apparently quite talented, but missed half of training camp, and Brown tweaked his knee in one of his half dozen or so carries against Wazzu. Brown also looks (for better or for worse) like this--
Personally, I think the gold grille is awesome. Since you can only expect Brown and Clay to know some of the offense, the offensive play calling will be limited whenever they step on the field. So neither can really replace Lance, although they should be able to spell Hill for limited periods of time. All Badger fans should pray that P.J. stays healthy, because if he goes down on the road, like against a hard hitting Penn State or Illinois team, the Badgers' offense might turn vanilla in a hurry.
(In Zach's defense, you can find a more traditional headshot here.)

Remaining Questions

Now that we've all had time to settle down after the football Badger's first game, it's time to discuss some remaining issues.

First, although the Badgers threw all over the Cougs, ("I can't control my heart rate Daddy, I gotta cougar on me!") what are the season-long prospects for Donovan?
I think he passed quite well in some short bursts, but generally his arm strength and accuracy left something to be desired. I'd say he had maybe three ideal passes-- the touchdown bomb to Swan, the first touchdown pass to Swan in the corner, and the scramble first down pass to Xavier Harris. On a bunch of other passes, longer gains were there to be had if he had thrown the ball more quickly or accurately. In fact, it looked like all the incompletions were traceable to him-- because the Badgers had guys open all day, and he was hardly under pressure. Honestly, passing the ball is not going to get any easier this year, and a lot of underthrown balls that were recovered for catches by aware receivers could be interceptions against better teams. Also, maybe Wazzu's linebackers are fast or something, but I expected him be a little more effective on the run. Then Evridge comes on toward the end, and the one throw they let him take (a 20 yard pass to the third tight end, Graham) is a bullet. Hmmm... I think my opinion on Donovan is a push-- we'll see if he gets any more accurate in the remaining pre-Big Ten games. He at least didn't buy into the hype of his "awesome" game, telling Chryst when they pulled him "We left some things out there today" and telling the media "there are still things we can work on." Yes, that's certainly the case.

Second, are the Badger's BCS hopes screwed because of lack of depth on the defensive line? UW had serious trouble stopping the run on Saturday, as the Cougs managed just about five yards a carry. The D stiffened as the game went on, but that development was disconcerting. Then you look at the D-line, and notice that the Badgers basically have a rotation of only three defensive tackles, Nick Hayden, Mike Newkirk, and Jason Chapman, and a rotation of four defensive ends, Shaungisillas, Kurt Ware, redshirt frosh Kirk DeCremer, and the enigmatic Brandon Kelly-- not that great depth to begin with. But since Ware is still gimpy after tearing cartilage in his knee, Newkirk was playing end for a lot of the game. So the lack of depth at end exacerbated the lack of depth at tackle. Now maybe the Badgers linemen getting gassed wasn't the reason Wazzu ran on them. Maybe it was inexperience, or poor positioning, or being rusty after not tackling as much in practice. But the depth problems couldn't have helped. I'm concerned that against real running teams, Wisconsin will get worn out and run over. Here's hoping some of the back-ups, like Richard Garner and Jeff Stehle, develop during the season.

Third, what's going on with the Badgers' running game? They certainly don't seem to be able to consistently move the ball on decent defensive fronts. They couldn't do it against Arkansas, Michigan, and now, couldn't really do it against Wazzu. Maybe the alleged maturity of the returning linemen was overstated. What are the Badgers' chances of beating legit teams if they can't really run the ball? Or are we overreacting? Did the papa of Papa Sal have it right that guys were just missing the holes? Will a healthy Chris Pressley make running against good opponents possible?

Price of Success

Wisconsin Football is on its soundest footing ever, and with that comes new challenges.

Let's first look at my premise. After Dave McClain's untimely death, when Don Morton began "veering" the UW football program into the tank, nobody nationally really cared about UW football. Our teams were so bad you could play catch on the field 45 minutes after the game was over. It was either that, or go around collecting cups, which was somehow also entertaining. Anyway, when Barry Alvarez came around, things changed. I remember being at the Coliseum, when between periods the spotlight shone on Donna Shalala introducing Barry Alvarez. The students went into a "Rose Bowl Da-Da-Da! Rose Bowl Da-Da-Da!" chant, and every hockey fan there was amused at the thought. Barry explained that he had a 5-Year Plan. Turns out that Brent "buzz buzz buzz give me yayo" Moss and Terrell Fletcher, and an enormous offensive line accomplished the plan in 4. Amazing. But Barry wasn't done, we went to, AND WON, 2 more Rose Bowls. Astonishing. But now, we are even stronger. And as such, we are being noticed, and when people notice in football, they start stealing your coaches. We have experience with this, we lost Bill Calahan, and Chilly and McCarney, but losing those guys was tolerable, despite their obvious talents. I am here to tell you however, we simply could not lose this guy:

Most fans who like to complain about the Badgers have not seen the bad times. They complained about Callahan, they complained about Chilly, and they complained about Brian White (fair, in his case). The clearly were not among the 5,000 fans who watched the Veer in action.

But you simply cannot complain about Chryst without your friends taking you to task. He is clearly one of the best coordinators in football, both in terms of strategy and in terms of relating to players and building on their strengths. I particularly enjoy his use of same-play variations, where we use the same formation and run 3 different plays out of it. We used this several times this year with Beckum running in motion and either A) receiving the end around hand-off B) faking the end around and handing it to the RB up the midddle or most notably having Donovan run the naked boot or C) running the TE middle screen which has been a staple of our offense especially in the red zone and has caught other teams way off guard. These same-play variations work spectacularly in the College game, and Chryst effectively employs it all the time. I don't need to add too much here because the Farking Cowboys wanted him so bad they re-upped their offer twice. That's RESPECT. Keeping Chryst was he biggest win of the off-season (Barry had been offering Johnny Clay a scholarship since 7th grade). We simply could not stand to lose Chryst, not only because he is so great, but because, Bret has handed him the keys to he entire offense. Bret does not get involved in play-calling beyond whether to go for it on 4th down, which he almost always does, and which Madden players (and a new-fangled computer system that I'll go into some other time) know is a great move.

A couple of things about this Badger team separate it from others past. Most notably, we have a 37 year old coach who makes $1.5mm a year. As any Badger Day of Naples attendee can tell you, there were plenty of older coaches besides Chrsyt, who were becoming a little more ambitious now that the youngster was making so much dough. If Chryst left, it would have set a terrible precedent. Instead, Chrsyt stays and so do our best recruiters, who because of our wins against the SEC are making inroads into Florida and Texas, the two most talent rich football states in the Union. Further proving that UW Football is on its soundest footing ever.