Receiving little help

We've talked much lately about the Badgers' mediocre passing attack. In fairness to Allan Evridge, his best receiver, Travis Beckum, has played only 2-1/4 games because of injury this year, and his second-best receiver, Garrett Graham, has missed the first two Big Ten games.

The problem here is not just the injuries, but the fact that beyond our two superlative tight ends, we have little consistency at the wide receiver position. We have plenty of promising young players who have shown signs of becoming playmakers, but so far, none of them has progressed into a producer along the lines of Luke Swan, Brandon Williams, or any of them many other above-average wide receivers we've had.

Look at the depth chart. All five wide receivers listed on the two deep are sophomores (David Gilreath, Daven Jones, Kyle Jefferson, Isaac Anderson) or freshmen (Nick Toon). Maurice Moore also factors in, depending on his health. It's not a stretch to think that at least two of these guys will become 40-catch receivers at some point in their career, maybe even average 15 yards per catch. But right now they're either too small (Gilreath, Anderson, Moore), too skinny (Jefferson) or need to work on their hands (Toon, albeit only going on the TD drop at Michigan).

Plenty of recruiting misses, in addition to a lack of signees at the position, have led to this overreliance on youth.

In the class of 2004, which would be redshirt seniors this year, our only wide receiver recruits were Marcus Randle El and Jarvis Minton, and Randle El wasn't definitely going to play wideout. Obviously neither one of these guys panned out, although Randle El was great at running the fake end around.

In the otherwise very productive class of 2005, which would be true seniors or redshirt juniors this year, our wide receiver recruits were Jarmal Ruffin and Elijah Theus.

There's also the matter of the wide receivers' coach. For so long Henry Mason tutored the wideouts, and drew wide praise for his coaching and his recruiting. DelVaughn Alexander has replaced Mason during the latter's recuperation from injury, and while I don't know enough about coaching receivers to question Alexander's methods -- how many different drills can there be to help guys work on their hands? -- it makes you appreciate even more Mason's influence on the Badger passing game over the years.

So we have is a corps of receivers who would have been better served playing complementary roles this early in their careers, like Jefferson did so well early last year. Were Beckum and Graham healthy, that is where they would likely still be. Since the tight ends' health is going to be touch and go all year, our pups need to grow up in a hurry.