Whither Minnesota?

One last comment about the trip the East Dakota, then I'm done. For awhile, anyway.

Talking to Toren after the game, and listening to WCCO on the drive home Sunday morning, two distinct schools of thought emerged from Gopher observers.

We'll never win.

We're close.

The first is Toren's view. Talking things over at Schwalbach's house after the game, Chris made the prediction that Minnesota will never -- ever! -- become a program that cracks the top third of the Big Ten on a regular basis. Those of us who did not graduate from the University of Minnesota disagreed with him. Maybe we were just trying to console him in a sportsmanlike manner after his sixth straight loss in this rivalry.

My counterpoint to him was that they just need to find their guy, their Barry Alvarez, who turns it all around and builds a modern tradition. After all, demographically Minnesota is very similar to Wisconsin and Iowa, and before Barry arrived, we had less overall football history than Minnesota does even after their recent decades of mediocrity. Do I think Tim Brewster is that guy? No, not for a minute, and I don't think many Gopher fans do either.

Chris's strongest point was this: University of Minnesota football will always take a back seat to pro sports in the Twin Cities. Case in point: until we let the Gophers back in the game late in the fourth quarter, the biggest cheer from the home fans in the second half came when Goldy Gopher stripped down to reveal he (she?) was wearing one of the new NFL Europe jerseys Brett Favre wears nowadays.

Last weekend was being billed as the biggest in Minnesota sports history, or at least recent history. And yet there was the battle for Paul Bunyan's Axe, the most-played rivalry in college football history, ranking right around the Wild-Blue Jackets opener, just ahead of a marathon and Bucks-Timberwolves preseason hoops in Mankato.

Will Minneapolis ever rank with Madison for gameday atmosphere? No chance. But as the Badger program was rising in the 1990s, so were the Packers, and statewide media and fan attention drifted to the Northeast. Didn't stop UW from creating a football program that inspired deep loyalty and passion around the state, though. Theoretically, Minnesota can do the same thing.

On the other hand, despite what Brewster and Sid Hartman would tell you, they aren't close. If you listen to Sid, who is basically the voice of Minnesota sports, the Gophers got screwed by the refs, which is really the only reason they didn't beat the Badgers.

I'll paraphrase, but on the radio one of Sid's first questions to Brewster went like this: "That jerk official has been doing this for 100 years and he has no place being out there anymore! He can't even run with the players, he just drops flags! In the first half it was all penalties on the Gophers, none on Wisconsin! I've never seen a penalty called on the 1-yard-line! A chop block?!"

Pause. Crickets. Did the Voice of Minnesota Sports just call Dave Witvoet a jerk? Is everyone considering the irony of Sid accusing someone else being too old to do a good job? Sid's co-host says, "How do you expect coach Brewster to respond to that, Sid?"

That's right: Minnesota thinks Witvoet has it in for them, and is the one thing standing between them and Pasadena. Take it to The Bank.


As the conversation goes on, you get more along the same vein. "Tell you what, no one's really taking it to you," Sid says to Brewster. "There's a lot of parity in the Big Ten this year, you're still right in this thing."

Then they start talking recruiting, and how excited Brew is about the class they're putting together, it's going to be the one that puts them over the top. Thing is, if you look at Minnesota's depth chart, they start eight seniors, two juniors and a sophomore on defense, and four seniors and three juniors on offense.

This is a very experienced team that can't stop the run or block the run, that commits silly penalties and turnovers. They are not a very well-coached team.

So while Minnesota's class of 2010 might be a good one, it's also a good bet Brewster won't be around to coach them at the end of their college careers. When they pull the plug on him and send him back to coaching NFL tight ends, Joel Maturi will have a chance to find his Alvarez. It's possible he will and Minnesota will do what we did. I hope not.

TCF Bank Stadium

The question tomorrow at work will be, What did you think of Minnesota's new stadium? That is, of course, if the average sports fan in Wisconsin even realizes the Gophers have a new stadium, or if they somehow forget that the Minnesota Favres are playing the Packers in The Biggest Football Game In The History of Earth.

My response will be, It's very nice, it would easily be the nicest stadium in the MAC.

All right, all right, too snotty. Minnesota did a nice job with the new place. As Barry Alvarez told Sid Hartman on the radio this morning, they got their bang for their buck, or something like that. The few bugs we experienced will likely be ironed out over time. Even though it was overcast and damp, that was better than heading inside a dome on a beautiful fall day.

The exterior of the place is strange, lots of windows and glass. Not ugly by any means, but it looked more like a commercial building than a stadium.

The worst part, by far, was entry. We arrived at the gates about 15 minutes before kickoff, and waited in line so long we missed the first seven minutes of play. This was after we chose the unfortunately-named "Express" line. The game tickets had bar codes on them, but the ticket takers for some reason had no bar code readers.

Inside, the concession stands did not have cash registers. Instead, the workers used calculators to tally up orders, sort of like they do at the Iola-Scandinavia JV games by my house. Another technical blunder I observed came after a Gopher interception, when the scoreboard flashed "FIELD GOAL!!! FIELD GOAL!!!"

Other than that things were really nice. Our excellent seats, obtained by Matt Schwalbach, were actual seats, not benches or benches with seat backs attached. With cup holders! Much nicer than Camp Randall seats. We were more or less surrounded by Gopher fans who were very civil and sportsmanlike, as I believe we were in return. I got two yummy chocolate chip cookies for $1, as good a value as you'll find anywhere.

The school harkens to its successful past with signs noting its Big Ten and national championships between the lower and upper decks, although it does remind me of the banners we had at the Field House honoring all of our national championship boxing teams from the 1950s. Cheesy, however, are the signs circling the upper deck noting the Gophers' bowl appearances. Do you really want to be bragging about appearances in the Music City and Micron PC Bowls?

The concourses are plenty big, overall much better than Camp Randall. They also have some unused room at one end of the field, where I would put statues of someone like, say, Bronco Nagurski.

Unlike entering the stadium, exiting was very easy. Of course, that's because only about 15 Gopher fans were still there for their band's version of the Fifth Quarter. Their music was so quiet that about 100 Badger fans staging their own spoken-word version of a Camp Randall Fifth Quarter in the upper deck drowned out the Minnesota band.

The game was announced as a sellout, but there were plenty of empty seats in the corners of the student section. Hilariously, our Gopher friend Chris Toren, the ultimate good sport after years of crushing defeats in this game, claimed that it was for spillover media. Right, the U issued 15 press passes to Japanese media members who didn't come when the forecast showed rain.

It is undeniable, though, that there were far fewer Badger fans in attendance than in prior years. The actual ratio was hard to determine from our seats, but watching the TV replay I would think only about 10% of the crowd was wearing red. Give it a few years and see how tough tickets are to find once the novelty of the new field wears off.

Bottom line: nice place, good for the Minnesota program, 1,000 times better than the Metrodome.

Rushing toward a new identity?

Wisconsin's 3-0 start to the year has not been entirely unexpected, but some parts of the Badgers' play have been. Most notable, I think you'd agree, has been the proficiency of Scott Tolzien and the passing game.

After last year's Allen Evridge-Dustin Sherer nightmare, this year's passing numbers are stunning. A 69% completion ratem, 9.2 yards per pass, 13.3 yards per catch, 226 yards per game. Great distribution to our various talented receivers. If that completion percentage were to somehow hold up, it would be the best mark in school history; the previous was 67.5% in 1993, led by Darrell Bevell.

Thing is, we're only averaging 199.3 rushing yards per game. This is only 12 yards per game less than last year's conference-leading total, and within a yard of where we were in 2007. But ...

-Take out Curt Phillips' 126 yards, and that average falls to 176 yards per game. True, Phillips' running is not a fluke, it's a legitimate facet of our offense. But it's not powerful, up-the-gut, Badger rushing.
-The per-rush average is 5.0, but take out Phillips' contribution, and the average falls to 4.76 yards per carry.
-These numbers would be just fine if we had played three BCS schools, but we didn't. We gained 258 against Wofford, when an appropriate number would have been, oh, 450.

With Michigan State, Ohio State, Iowa, et al still to go on the schedule, it's a safe bet that the per-game and per-carry rushing averages will decrease significantly by season's end. The passing proficiency too.

But if these trends hold to some extent, is it necessarily a bad thing? One of the things I've loved about Wisconsin football since Barry Alvarez came to Madison was the power football mentality. The big linemen, the big backs -- pound the rock! Love it.

However, our best offenses, and most often our best teams, have featured better passing teams and better offensive balance (1998 notwithstanding, sorry Mike Samuel). You don't see too many overly one-dimensional teams playing in BCS bowl games nowadays.

So I guess as long as we're gaining yards and scoring points somehow, I'll be happy. But if we could somehow get 300 yards rushing on Sparty this Saturday, I'll be happiest.

Barry Alvarez ...

... is sitting directly behind us in a box. Please leave any comments you would like me to pass along to him (non-conference football sceduling?).

Good morning from Indianapolis

First, a rant: the Embassy Suites still charges for Internet access. $12 per day. Are you freaking kidding me?!? Who charges for Internet access any more? What is this, 1998? No-name, off-brand motels don't even charge for Internet access any more! The other Hilton chain hotels don't charge for Internet access any more!

But ... if we weren't at the Embassy Suites, I wouldn't have had the pleasure of discussing last night's epic Syracuse-UConn game with Mike Lucas this morning. Discussing might be overstating it. After getting on the elevator and heading down from the ninth floor, Lucas and his wife got on one or two floors down.

He said: "Are Syracuse and UConn still playing?"

The rest of us on the elevator: "Heh heh, mmm."

So not really a "discussion," but still an interesting way to start the day. After awhile, the Lucases were joined at breakfast by Barry Alvarez. As Andy said, Barry seemed to be lecturing Lucas about something; maybe he was upset with all the Izzone shirts at breakfast in UW's official team hotel. Later on, Marsh Shapiro held court, Nitty Gritty style.

As Andy, Kenji and I scarfed down breakfast, our conversation turned to how much we appreciated having a top-notch radio announcing crew like Lucas and Matt LePay. This could not have been made more apparent than it was yesterday, when I listened to about 10 minutes of the Marquette-Villanova game on my drive to West Bend.

For starters, Steve "The Homer" True is a stain on broadcasting. It's one thing to be a homer, it's another to be The Homer. You might think I feel this way just because he calls Marquette games, but I'd feel this way if he was calling our games, too; I'm not a huge fan of Wayne Larrivee and Ted Davis, for instance. True's a caricature, and not the good kind. Jim McIlvaine, while light years better than the incoherent unofficial assistant coach/cheerleader that was George Thompson, doesn't bring much to the table other than "I guess there's Saran Wrap on that rim" to explain the shooting woes each team suffered at times.

LePay and Lucas, on the other hand, provide even-handed play-by-play and analysis over the course of a game. LePay has a superb feel for the flow of the game, and knows when the pause for Lucas, who offers good analysis interspersed with interesting backstory and statistics. In my book, Lucas is a far better announcer than writer. Do they get excited when Wisconsin does well? Sure, but only in the most appropriate moments. Some of LePay's end game calls are classics in any book that still give me goose bumps. The Homer treats a three-second call with the same gusto as LePay treated Brian Butch's game-winner against Indiana last year.

Hey, to each his own. If Marquette fans like their announcing team, good for them, that's all that matters. I'll take ours.

And by the way, did you watch the entire Syracuse-UConn game? We did, incredible.

Badger football: Where are we headed?

Today is my dad's 59th birthday. He started taking me to Badger games a couple years before the start of the X axis on this graph, in 1988, but by the time of Barry Alvarez's first year, 1990, the story was the same. One win.

I'm pretty sure that if you asked my dad, while we were sitting at Camp Randall through a 28-12 loss to California in Barry's first game as coach, to plot a graph of Wisconsin football wins over the next two decades, the line would have topped off at about eight wins, and from time to time dipped back into the two- or three-win range. Sort of like Indiana.

But since then, the number of wins generated by the Wisconsin football program on an annual basis has generally been on the upswing. Everyone remembers the double digit-win seasons of 1993, 1998, 1999, 2005, and 2006. Badger football at its finest.

The point of this graph, however, is to remind everyone that while the Badgers have enjoyed an unprecedented run of success over the past two decades, every peak is followed by a valley.

The '93 Rose Bowl champs were followed by an underachieving '94 team and a '95 team that didn't go bowling. The '98-'99 Rose Bowl champs were followed by an underachieving 2000 team and an '01 team that didn't go bowling. The '06 12-win team was followed by an underachieving '07 team an '08 team that wouldn't have gone bowling if there weren't 845 bowl games in college football nowadays.

So we've been here before.

But wait! you say. This dropoff to near-.500 mediocrity was supposed to happen next year, after the Shaughnessys and Langfords and Levys and Chapmans and Urbiks and Kemps and Beckums have exhausted their eligibility. 2008 should have been great!

Alas, it wasn't, for a number of reasons that have been well-documented here and elsewhere. Add that to the massive losses on the offensive and defensive lines, and expectations for 2009 will be lower than any season since 2004, John Stocco's first year at quarterback. Like the current economic downturn, this latest slide looks different -- worse -- than previous recent downturns in Badger football. There is a very real possibility that 2009 will be a bowl-less season for Wisconsin. That would be disappointing, and would undoubtedly have even more Badger fans calling for Bret Bielema's dismissal.

I would argue that the most critical goal for 2009 is not chasing seven wins or some low-level bowl game, but correcting systemic problems that contributed to the declines of the past two seasons -- regardless of how it impacts 2009. If those are properly addressed, the future looks bright for 2010 and beyond. If not, Barry will be looking for a new coach around the time of my dad's 61st birthday.

Here's what we need to address:

Quarterback
This year's collapse began with subpar quarterback play. First Allan Evridge, then Dustin Sherer failed to play the position efficiently. Inaccurate passing, interceptions, sacks, and lost scrambling opportunities put the Badger offense and defense in difficult positions, and things snowballed from there.

To me, this is the downside to the diversity Paul Chryst has added to the attack. On the whole, Chryst has made the Wisconsin offense far more modern, explosive, unpredictable, and diverse -- in a word, better. In my opinion he is the best offensive coordinator we've ever had and is still the guy we need in that job. But when you don't have a quarterback capable of executing all these nuances, you struggle, as we did this year.

The '99 Rose Bowl was on the Big Ten Network again last week and I watched us run up 38 points on UCLA. There wasn't a lot of mystery to Brad Childress's offense -- hand off to Ron Dayne and Mike Samuel drop back a few times for deep balls to Chris Chambers.

By no means am I advocating a return to the Stone Age offense run by Chilly, and to an extent Brian White. What I am advocating is a shift of the offensive focus from the quarterback back to the tailback. It will always be easier for us to recruit a stud running back or two than it will be to recruit an above-average quarterback -- and history shows we can win without above-average quarterbacks.

If P.J. Hill returns next year, as he should, he and John Clay will be the perfect people to re-emphasize the tailback at the Midwest's version of Tailback U.

This year we averaged just 40.7 rushing attempts per game, the fewest since 1995. That has to change.

One more quarterback-related note: our best have been multiple-year starters. Bevell, Bollinger, Samuel, Stocco. This to me is why every effort should be made to prepare Curt Phillips to start, even if Sherer or Tolzien are better options for winning games in 2009. If there is any chance Phillips will be the guy during his time in Madison, he should be our starter next season.

Player development
We just graduated are very talented senior class, many of whom will find spots on NFL rosters this fall. As a group, though, they weren't highly-rated coming out of high school. They were solid prospects who developed into above-average college football players.

The distressing thing is most of their development came between their freshman and sophomore years, at the tail end of the Alvarez Era. Think about the guys: Shaughnessy, Beckum, Chapman, Levy, Casillas, Urbik, Kemp, VandenHeuvel, Langford, Ikegwuonu, Hodge. Of those guys, who was better as a junior or senior than he was as a sophomore? Langford and Kemp are the only clear-cut answers.

The other guys didn't necessarily regress, but they didn't take the next step toward all-conference performances that their first years starting indicated was possible.

This is troubling. Even though Bielema and his staff appear to be doing a good job recruiting, we will never consistently bring in classes like those of Ohio State, Michigan, or Penn State. Never have, never will. And schools like Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois will also finish ahead of us in the recruiting rankings in any given year.

The advantage we always had under Alvarez and his staff was unmatched player development. They took those two- and three-star guys and made them into All-Big Ten players. Five-star guys like Joe Thomas became all-time greats.

I'm not seeing similar player development under this staff. Next year in particular, we'll need the wide receivers and defensive backs to take a big step forward, because they'll have more experience than our guys in the trenches. We're not going to trade for Regis Benn or sign Donvan Warren as a free agent, so this improvement is going to have to come from within. It's on the coaches (and the players) to make it happen.

Swagger
By swagger, I'm not talking about Brian Urlacher in an Old Spice commercial or Florida State running out to midfield and taunting the opponent. I'm talking about taking the field secure with the knowledge that you are better prepared both physically and mentally to beat your opponent.

The Badgers have lacked that these past two years. Sure, they've run around the field showing emotion, and said the right things in the press. But it's been superficial. Bluster and bravado are no substitute for genuine confidence and swagger, the kind of confidence and swagger you get from ...

Leaders
Reading yet another Badger football history book the other day brought back fond memories of the leaders this program has had in recent times. Chris McIntosh. Donnel Thompson. Joe Panos. Cecil Martin.

Recent Badger teams have lacked guys like this. Plenty of good players and guys who led by example, but few who set the tone in a way that everyone could see.

Leadership candidates for the next two transition years: Gabe Carimi, John Moffitt, Jay Valai. All three are well-spoken starters with charisma and all-conference ability. It's on them to bring the others along with them on the march back to the top.

Coaches
Sign of the times: my Fire Bret Bielema? post from earlier this fall is still the most-read post on this blog in the last 30 days. Here's my take on the coaching staff.

Bielema should not be replaced. He deserves five years to show what he can do, just as I think all college coaches deserve five years. If at that time the program still looks as it does today, he should be replaced.

We're not Notre Dame or Alabama, programs that can turn over coaches every three years if things aren't going as well as planned. Why? We don't have the money to pay for top available coaches (or buy out coaches' contracts) and we don't have the name recognition for recruiting to continue unimpeded in the face of staff turnover.

So what does Bielema have to show in the next two years?

Obviously he needs to be a better game manager. This year everything went wrong. Trying to score at the end of the first half against Penn State and Florida State backfired horribly. The defense was disorganized in critical situations. Chryst shouldn't be allowed to call options on third-and-1 ever again. The penalty he incurred against Michigan State, while petty on the ref's part, should not have happened.

In 2006 Bielema's aggressiveness drew raves, as we often scored at the end of the first half and stayed a step ahead of opponents. This year nothing worked. He needs to find that happy medium between his risk-taking sensibilities and Barry's conservative ones. You know that ridiculous play that resulted in Florida State's first touchdown would not have been called under Alvarez.

Also, as noted in the season review post, we were beaten soundly in the second half of our losses this year. We need to win the battle of the halftime adjustments darn near every time out.

Preparation also needs to improve dramatically. All the mental errors that drove us nuts this year don't just spring up on Saturday. They are stamped out on Wednesday and Thursday. We don't have the overwhelming talent to overcome those mistakes.

Finally, Bielema needs to take a close look at his staff. His first staff, with the likes of Bob Palcic and Mike Hankwitz, seemed to be a good blend of youth and experience. Now it's all youth. I'm not going to single out one particular position coach for criticism, because all the units had their good and bad moments this year. But that sort of inconsistency is not surprising when so many of the coaches are in their 30s.

What Bielema should do is bring in at least one older hand as an associate head coach, a Dan McCarney type. Perhaps he's been reluctant to do so because he's afraid it would challenge his authority as a young head coach. If so, he's got to get over it. He needs someone to talk him out of letting Evridge and Sherer throw from their own 10 with a minute left in the first half. He also needs a couple of guys whose forte is player development and not just recruiting.

Bielema's staff doesn't need to be a full-fledged team of rivals, but he needs to institute some checks and balances for this thing to work better.

And he needs to stop coaching special teams and find someone else who can.

Bielema can be the guy who leads us on a fourth upward slope. The question is whether or not he can work through these growing pains before Barry is forced by external conditions (ticket sales?) or his own gut to make a change.

As the offseason progresses I'll get into more detail about what I'd like to see happen in spring ball and the summer, and hopefully we'll finish strong on what is shaping up to be a nice recruiting class.

But for now I'll leave you with five keys to turning this thing around.

-De-emphasize the quarterback, re-emphasize the tailback

-Focus on player development

-Get that swagger back, legitimately

-Find the leaders who will insist on nothing less than success

-Evaluate the coaching staff, find a better mix

Leonard Taylor

The other day Schwalbach emailed me about this Leonard Taylor story, it was the first I'd heard of it. Schwib remarked that he remembered LT from our dorm days, and I did too. He used to hang around the female soccer players who lived on our second floor (good move), and always seemed to be as much like a regular student as a scholarship football player can be. Nice guy.

He even ended up being a contributor on a Rose Bowl championship team, which frankly surprised me, as none of the Badgers' defensive backs during my time on campus seemed that great.

Aside from the obvious hopes that Leonard get the help he needs, and the bizarre nature of Maria Sharapova's involvement in it, this is what struck me:

Are Taylor's rants wholly the result of his schizophrenia? Frustration over not being paid for this TV job? Or did Barry Alvarez and his coaching staff somehow plant the seeds for this with their treatment of Taylor and his teammates over the years?

The answer is likely almost all #1. There have been thousands of demanding coaches at a variety of levels over the years, yet very rarely if at all do you hear about anything like this. But isn't that in itself surprising? Mental health problems afflict more people than ever before (or are at least being acknowledged with greater regularity than ever before), and you would think that some current or former athletes who played for abusive or borderline abusive coaches have had these tendencies, yet there haven't been many stories like this.

This isn't to accuse Barry and his staff of abusive behavior. And it does not imply that demanding coaches deserve death threats from former players.

Get better soon, Leonard, don't fight what can make you better.

Badger classic: Wisconsin 38, Minnesota 34

Here's an anecdote anyone with multiple children can relate to: On June 21 I recorded the 2005 Minnesota-Wisconsin game on the Big Ten Network. On November 11 I was able to devote two hours to watching it.

Very fun to watch it again. Actually, it was the first time I'd seen the television broadcast, having attended the epic with most of the same friends I'll be with at Camp Randall this Saturday.

The thing I couldn't shake was that Minnesota seemed to play much like we've been playing this year. They seemed to have the better players and the better game plan, but kept making mistakes that let the other team escape with a win.

Just think about the last sequence of events. Soft defense allows a John Stocco-to-Brandon Williams touchdown. Stupid facemask penalty lets the Badgers kick off from the 50. Inability to handle the onside kick leads to a weird bounce that Maroney recovers inside the Gopher 10. The Gophers, who had been running at will all day, couldn't convert on third-and-short. Kucek fumbles a perfectly good snap. Their returner fumbles the kickoff.

That's six things that had to go wrong for Minnesota, and right for Wisconsin, for that outcome to take place. And they all did.

What a day!

-It occurred to me during the game that 2008 isn't the first time Wisconsin fans have been skeptical of Bret Bielema. Think back to 2005. In 2004 he came in and completely reinvigorated the Badger defense. Then, in 2005, the defense he coordinated was porous, leading UW fans everywhere to question Barry Alvarez's decision to promote him to head coach. Bielema had a tremendous rookie year in 2006, before a so-so 2007 and a borderline disastrous 2008.

The point is, Coach B has rebounded from tough seasons before, and I have faith he will again. But I think we'd all rather avoid the tough seasons altogether. Maybe this is part of the inescapable maturation process of a young coach thrust into prominence early on.

-The thing is, Bielema's 2005 defense was so decimated by injuries it's hard to tell if he could have done anything to make that unit a plus. Brandon Kelly, who barely saw the field at all last year as a senior, played a lot. Hell, Gino Cruse played a lot.

-A ton of guys who will lace up their spikes for Wisconsin on Saturday played in that game. Kraig Urbik. Chris Pressley. Matt Shaughnessy (who looked so thin and fast). Jason Chapman. Allen Langford. Mike Newkirk. DeAndre Levy (who I never realized recovered the fumble on the last kickoff). Jonathan Casillas, the one everyone remembers for blocking Kucek's punt. Aubrey Pleasant. Shane Carter.

Perhaps that paragraph illustrates why this year has been so frustrating. We've got a lot of guys who have been through a lot of wars, so to consistently lose games because of mental errors defies reason.

-Williams and Stocco had awesome games. Brian Calhoun was an incredible back.

-This has been a high-scoring rivalry this century. Look at the winners' point total since 2000: 41, 42, 49, 37, 38, 38, 48, 41.

-Bryan Cupito missed the game for Minnesota, and you've got to think that if he'd started at quarterback instead of Tony Mortensen they would have hit on a big pass play or two that could have sealed the deal for the Gophers.

-As exciting as the end of the game was, the first half was really boring.

It's going to be tougher to get tickets to see this game in Minneapolis in the future, which is too bad, it's always been fun. Then again, it's seemed to get nastier and nastier over the years, which is good for the rivalry but not the blood pressure.

But even if I never see another Wisconsin-Minnesota game out of state again, we'll always remember that day in the Dome when Kucek dropped the snap.

Fire Bret Bielema?

Here's a new blog I saw reading Andy Baggot's first impressions, second thoughts, and the third degree thing on Monday:

Fire Bret Bielema

My first inclination was to never mention this thing, sort of like how television broadcasts don't show streakers running nude across the field.

My second thought was that the creators of this site are probably 19 years old and can barely remember our last losing season of 2001, let alone the dark days of 1989. Spoiled newcomers to the Badger sports bandwagon. It also bugs me that the blogger has chosen to remain anonymous -- if you're going to promote this sort of agenda, put your name behind it.

My third thought was let's roll the notion out there for discussion here. Should UW even be entertaining the notion of firing Bret Bielema at this juncture?

The obvious answer, to me anyway, is no. The guy is 24-8, 1-1 in bowl games, and while this year's team is 3-3, the losses were to Penn State, Ohio State, and an admittedly awful if traditionally tough Michigan. Wisconsin is a handful of plays away from being 5-1 and ranked in the top 15.

While it could be argued that Bielema's rookie 12-1 season was accomplished with Barry Alvarez's players, it could also be argued that UW is now struggling with Barry's last classes at the core. Bielema should be judged when this year's juniors and redshirt sophomores are seniors and juniors. (Of course, Bielema had a large role in recruiting this year's upperclassmen.)

It could also be argued, as one of my friends has, that the program could be in for a steep dropoff next season, when this year's senior class departs. Unfortunately, that dropoff is on the verge of happening a year early. The ramifications for such a decline in on-field performance are huge. Watching thousands of fans leave Saturday night's debacle prematurely served as a reminder that if the football program struggles and the revenue it generates decline, the whole athletic department is in jeopardy.

Still, firing coaches with a 24-8 record three years into their tenure sounds like something for Notre Dame or Nebraska, arrogant programs for whom national championships are the only acceptable outcome.

This season is half over. Things look bleak right now, but we just finished the toughest stretch of our schedule, and a 7-5 finish and a bowl game wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. There haven't been too many three-game losing streaks around here lately -- thank goodness!

On the other hand, the wheels could fall off and we could finish 4-8, playing Cal Poly in front of thousands of empty seats on November 22. I still don't think Bielema would be fired at that point, and would be given another year or maybe even two to get things moving in the right direction again.

Fire Bret Bielema? I don't think so. Unfortunately, it took me 496 words to explain why instead of three.

Broken promise?

Last week Will forwarded me a story about Tom Savage, a top high school quarterback recruit from Pennsylvania who has committed to Rutgers. Savage is the older brother of former UW quarterback Bryan Savage, who transferred away after a year or two in Madison.

As Will points out, the story paints Barry Alvarez in a less-than-favorable light, saying he promised the Savages he would not leave coaching to become the full-time athletic director. Which he of course did.

That may be true, but Barry's ascension to full-time AD was not the only reason Savage transferred. If memory serves, Savage transferred because he wasn't going to beat out John Stocco anytime soon, and he wanted to play. Savage's classmate Sean Lewis moved from quarterback to tight end, and Savage transferred to Coffeyville Community College, then became a nice contributor at Hofstra. (Hey Will, isn't that where Wayne Chrebet went?)

Apparently former UW offensive coordinator Brian White recommended Savage to the Hofstra coaching staff. White's departure after the ascension of Paul Chryst as offensive coordinator (which would have happened no matter which office Alvarez occupied) is also cited as a reason Savage left.

The point of this isn't to rag on Savage, who never did anything to hurt the program. The point is that while his family may feel like Bryan got burned by his college choice, that stuff happens in college sports, and it doesn't make Alvarez a bad guy. Tom, a Rutgers recruit, says he learned a lot by watching what Bryan went through.

What happens if Greg Schiano leaves Rutgers to replace Joe Paterno at Penn State? Schiano might give recruits his word now that he'll never leave and be 100% sincere about it at this moment. But if another university comes along and makes him an offer he can't refuse, one that's best for him and his family, can he pass it up? Then Tom, for all his learning, is in roughly the same situation as his older brother.

It's a system that's less fair to the kids than it is to coaches. But that's life, and no matter who's coaching, the cream rises to the top.

Sunday thoughts

At least the Brewers won last night. By my estimate, that's another $1 million-plus in ticket revenue alone, which the team could put toward paying for the equivalent of one start on CC Sabathia's next contract.

Onto more pressing matters, here's how I'm seeing the Big Ten right now:

1. Penn State. Still don't think they're national title caliber, and think they'll stumble at least once in conference, but clearly the class of the league right now.

2. Illinois. They're tough. Who's playing better than Juice Williams right now?

3. Ohio State. They've got to get Beanie Wells all lathered up more often. Maybe his toe is bugging him, although it sure didn't look like it last night.

4. Michigan State. But if we're going to rank you #4 in the conference, you shouldn't be beating Iowa by only three at home.

5. Michigan. Guess their defense isn't that good.

6. Wisconsin. A couple plays/minutes/calls/hearts from being on the top of this list. What could have been ...

7. Minnesota. Holding Indiana to seven points is sort of impressive.

8. Indiana. Kind of like Ohio State, without the running game or good defense.

9. Northwestern. I guess. They're saying Mike Hankwitz is making a big difference coordinating their defense. I'm saying they've beaten Syracuse, Duke, Southern Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa.

10. Iowa. What's going on Kirk? Maybe Bielema will be a candidate for the Hawkeyes job after this season, and maybe Barry lets him go. Seems unlikely, right? Not as unlikely as it did nine days ago.

11. Purdue. Sad way for Joe Tiller to go out.

Badger classic: Wisconsin 17, Ohio State 10

Over the summer I recorded the Big Ten Network's re-airing of Wisconsin's 2003 win over Ohio State at Camp Randall, which ended the defending national champions' 19-game winning streak. This being the five-year anniversary of that game, and with a Camp Randall night game against OSU scheduled for October 4, what better time to review that game than now?

-That was a nasty night, weather-wise. It wasn't such a bad day, but as gametime approached things got worse. Up here in Scandinavia, we got the same rain and wind that Madison got, which knocked my satellite reception out moments before the opening kickoff. I was miffed, but the feed came back soon enough.

-I would really like to remember this as the Lee Evans/Matt Schabert Game. The game-winning touchdown pass was a thing of beauty, a perfect route run by our All-American coming off knee surgery, the kid from Ohio who had been shut out to that point. Schabert was coming in off the bench cold, hadn't done much of anything to that point, and threw a perfect pass. Later he picked up a big first down on a naked bootleg. Never to be heard from again ...

-But whenever that game comes to mind, it's as the Robert Reynolds Chokes Sorgi Game. Five years hasn't really made me any less mad about the incident.

First Reynolds chokes Jim Sorgi, and no penalty is called. Then, Reynolds' coaches leave him in the game -- hey, he was their leading tackler that night, can't pull him, right? Then, after committing what was a borderline criminal act, Jim Tressel suspends him ... for one game!

Sure, he apologized afterward, but they were hollow words. With about five minutes to play in that game it looked like Ohio State was going to win, with Reynolds' choke of Sorgi a big reason why.

Not surprisingly, several years later Reynolds was involved in a domestic dispute with his then-wife. According to the AP story, "She said she was afraid because her husband is 6-foot-3 and 247 pounds and has a 'violent past.' She told police this wasn't the first time Reynolds had been violent, although only one report was previously filed with authorities." The Sorgi choking was mentioned at the bottom of the story.

All this self-righteousness from me aside, here's hoping Reynolds has gotten control of his violent side and is leading an honorable life nowadays.

At the time, with Maurice Clarett still a vivid memory, it seemed like Tressel was building a renegade program for the new millennium. The Buckeyes have seemingly cleaned up their act since.

-It's still baffling to me that if Sorgi was hurt so badly he couldn't speak, that if his throat or esophagus or vocal chords were that badly injured, why wasn't he taken to a hospital, or at least to the locker room? Instead he just looked like a sad little boy on the sideline, while Reynolds marched on.

-Ohio State these last 2-3 years is much, much better than they were in 2002-03, national title notwithstanding. It speaks to the overall strength of the rest of the college football world — specifically the SEC — that the Buckeyes have not won a national title with these players.

-OSU's offense in 2003 was very average, as was our defense. The Buckeyes' defense was fierce, though — Will Smith, A.J. Hawk, Will Allen, Chris Gamble. And what about B.J. Sander, the best third round draft pick in Packers history?

-Our guys looked slow wearing white shoes.

-Matt LePay commented in one of the many interviews airing around the broadcast that Barry Alvarez preferred playing teams like Ohio State because they are no frills. I feel exactly the same way — forget the Spread, line up and play football like men. Used to feel the same way about playing Michigan, until they decided to import the same offense Northwestern uses.

-Brandon Williams played really well early, did a nice job finding openings in the defense.

-Booker Stanley and Matt Bernstein were terrific pounding out tough yardage on the ground. That game showed the need for our program to have three capable tailbacks.

-Anttaj Hawthorne played a great game up front, flashing the promise that made him seem like a future NFL player. Alas, it was not to be.

-Spotted a true freshman Joe Thomas wearing #82 in the Jumbo package, funny.

-Still get goosebumps watching the end of a big Badger win like this one, even when the outcome is known ahead of time and I'm watching it on my living room floor by myself. Let's get 'em again this weekend!

Football in the Groin

In one of my favorite Simpsons episodes of all time, Barney wins a film festival with his classic film "Football in the Groin." Needless to say, it was Homer's favorite.

Last night I did an interview with Aaron Rennie of CFB Weekly, a weekly podcast program featuring interviews with bloggers. It was fun, except for the fact that we were talking about a monumental Badger collapse in Ann Arbor rather than a win heading into the big Ohio State game. Aaron's term for it was a "Football in the Groin" game. Fitting.

Following Saturday's loss, there has been much questioning of whether this is the worst or most painful loss in recent Wisconsin football history. I think they are two different things. The worst losses come against teams you should clearly beat, or in which the performance was horrendous. Painful losses come in winnable games or in games of great importance.



Saturday's Michigan loss falls into both categories. Let's do a two-part discussion, starting with my list of the Most Painful Losses in Recent Wisconsin Football History (since Barry Alvarez's arrival).

1992, 27-25 at Northwestern. Jason Burns' fumble deprives us of a bowl bid.

1993, 28-21 at Minnesota. The only loss in an otherwise magical season.

1996, 34-30 against Northwestern. The Ron Dayne fumble game.

2000, 47-44 against Northwestern in double overtime. Thought we had made it through the Shoe Box suspensions with national and Big Ten title hopes intact, then this.

2001, 20-17 vs. Michigan. A punt hits Brett Bell, setting up the game-winning field goal.

2004, 30-7 at Iowa. Win and we're in the Rose Bowl, lose and we're in the Outback Bowl.

2005, 20-10 vs. Iowa. Barry's last home game is a loss. Our last home loss, and only home loss since 2003.

2008, 27-25 at Michigan. You saw it.

Discuss.

1998 vs. 2006: Which was the better defense?

Raised this question in last week's bye week stat marathon, but wanted to take a closer look. Before delving back into the stats, let's consider some other variables first:

Coordinator: Kevin Cosgrove (1998) vs. Mike Hankwitz and Dave Doeren (2006). Not sure quite how to call this one. By this point in Barry Alvarez's tenure, he had probably moved away from much micromanaging of the defense and become the chief delegator. So this was likely Coz's show. But the '06 team was Bret Bielema's first, and after a great start as defensive coordinator in 2004, the defense was awful in 2005, and he was probably eager to show people Barry didn't make a bad choice. I'm going to go with Coz on this one. Edge: 1998

Defensive line: Tom Burke/Ross Kolodziej/Eric Mahlik/John Favret (1998) vs. Joe Monty/Jason Chapman/Nick Hayden/Matt Shaughnessy. Burke had one of the best seasons a UW defensive lineman has ever had (22 sacks!), Kolodziej played in the NFL, Favret was in his second year of a four-year starting career, and Mahlik was underrated. Monty was a plugger, Hayden regressed in his junior season, and Shaughnessy was solid if not spectacular. Edge: 1998

Linebackers: Bob Adamov/Donnel Thompson/Chris Ghidorzi (1998) vs. DeAndre Levy, Mark Zalewski, Jonathan Casillas. The '98 unit was long on experience and chemistry, the '06 unit was long on speed and big-play ability. Edge: 2006

Secondary: Jamar Fletcher/Mike Echols/Jason Doering/Leonard Taylor (1998) vs. Allen Langford/Jack Ikegwuonu/Joe Stellmacher/Roderick Rogers (2006). I like the '98 corners better, even if they were freshmen, and the '06 safeties better. Edge: Even

Schedule difficulty: The 1998 team held a high-powered Purdue team to 24 points in that classic night game when Jump Around was invented, gave up 27 points to Michigan in its only loss, and held just enough (31 points) against UCLA to win the Rose Bowl. No Ohio State on the schedule.

The 2006 team also gave up 27 points in the team's only loss ... at Michigan ... and allowed 24 points at home against Illinois, but missed high-scoring Ohio State. My first inclination is to call this even, but I saw all of the 2006 games, and the Big Ten was pretty bad that year. Holding an Arkansas team with Darren McFadden and Felix Jones, both of whom look like Pro Bowlers, to 14 points is impressive, even if the Hogs' passing game was pathetic. Neither team stoned any dynamite, versatile offenses. Edge: 1998

Rushing yards allowed per game: 1998 - 92.2, 2006 - 114.8. Edge: 1998

Passing yards allowed per game: 2006 - 138.3, 1998 - 200.4 Edge: 2006

First downs allowed per game: 2006 - 13.7, 1998 - 16.0. Edge: 2006

Third down conversion % allowed: 2006 - 28.2%, 1998 - 34.7%. Edge: 2006

Turnovers forced per game: 1998 - 2.8, 2006 - 1.9. Edge: 1998

Points allowed per game: 1998 - 11.9, 2006 - 12.1. Edge: Even

It appears the numbers slightly favor the 2006 defense, but the personnel of the 1998 defense strike me as better, and in my opinion they did it against better competition. So I'm going to give the slight edge overall to the 1998 defense. What do you think?

If the 2008 defense can even approach these levels, we ought to be in good shape this year.

Commemorative Badger Sports Illustrated

Last week while we were waiting in the checkout line at Pick 'n Save Jana spotted the magazine shown at right — Wisconsin: A celebration of Badgers Football from Sports Illustrated. She asked if I wanted it and I initially said no, then relented.

Glad I did. Although I assumed it would contain nothing I didn't know already or hadn't read before, that was not true. Lots of good stuff in the magazine:

-Crazylegs Hirsch feature
-Alan Ameche feature
-Ron Dayne feature
-All-time team
-Preview of this season, along with a P.J. Hill feature
-Barry Alvarez feature
-Jim Sorgi piece

Beyond that there are a lot of great photos. If you live in Wisconsin and see it in the store, snatch one up, it'll be a nice addition to your collection. Cover price is $7.99.

Troy Vincent: Union boss?

Heard on the Packers' pregame show Friday that former Badger Troy Vincent is a leading candidate to replace the recently deceased Gene Upshaw as executive director of the NFL Players Association. Although there are several other top candidates, including Trace Armstrong and Robert Smith (you know, the guy who quit football at Ohio State to focus on his studies, who now works for ESPN), Vincent is right up there.

Along with Don Davey, Vincent was one of the last standouts of the immediate pre-Alvarez era in Madison. He was an electric athlete who didn't get much of an opportunity to showcase his skills at cornerback because opponents had such an easy time exploiting the other 10 guys on the field. Most of his highlights came as a returner.

The Packers had a chance to draft him at#5 in the 1992 NFL Draft but Ron Wolf inexplicably took the shorter, less likable Terrell Buckley, and we all know how that turned out. T-Buck talked his way out of Green Bay in a few years while Vincent went on to become a perennial Pro Bowler and one of the league's most respected players. At least Ron got that quarterback situation right.

This is a situation worth monitoring, because the NFLPA executive director post is one of the most influential in spots, especially with a new NFL collective bargaining agreement coming up soon.

Bielema to Penn State?

Last week both Dave Heller and Jim Polzin commented in their blogs on a story from Sporting News' Matt Hayes. Both guys bring up the flaws I saw in Hayes' theory -- it's hard to see Bielema leaving for another Big Ten program (except maybe Iowa), and even after two very good seasons he's still something of an unproven commodity as a head coach.

Not wanting to rehash what those other guys wrote, let me throw this out there: is the Penn State clearly a better job than Wisconsin right now?

On the "Obviously it is, come on" side of the ledger: history, tradition, fan base, and most importantly, better local recruiting talent.

On the "Maybe it's not" side: following a legend (sorry, but JoePa dwarfs Barry here), higher expectations (could also be seen as a good thing), increased competition for Pennsylvania/New Jersey recruits (from Ohio State, Rutgers, Pitt).

Personally, I'd lean on the side of Penn State is a better job than Wisconsin, even right now and after Paterno retires. But it's not by as wide a margin as it once was.

Read some of the comments following Hayes' column, fans of other teams give Bielema much praise.

Carson Palmer hates Ohio State too

Did you hear what Carson Palmer said last week about Ohio State? I caught a little bit of it on SportsCenter, and Mike Pidanick emailed me a link to text of the highlights. Great stuff, even if Palmer presented it in the context of USC arrogance and Big Ten bashing.

When Mike and I were in Fremont, Ohio, college football fans split their allegiances between Ohio State and Michigan. The town was roughly the same distance from both Ann Arbor and Columbus, and while many Fremont athletes like Bob Brudzinski had gone on to star for the Buckeyes, there was no shortage of former Little Giants who played for Michigan – Rob Lytle and Charles Woodson were the most prominent.

During our stint in Ohio, the Buckeyes under John Cooper were routinely losing to Michigan and falling in at least one big game per year. So Buckeyes fans’ arrogance was under wraps. Hell, when I was in the Horseshoe press box for the Badgers’ big comeback win over Ohio State in 1999 – Brooks Bollinger’s coming out party, where I sat about 5 feet from a hobbled Barry Alvarez (glass separating us, of course) – the guys I sat by were pretty low key … until they found out I was a UW alum, at which point they stopped talking to me.

Ohio State has been much better under Jim Tressel, which has brought out their fans’ hubris. Several guys I worked with in my construction publishing days were really good guys, until they started talking Buckeyes, at which point they became unbearable. At the tail end of the Badgers’ disappointing 2006 basketball season, we beat OSU at the Kohl Center while I was at a trade show, and these guys reacted as if they’d lost to Bowling Green.

So thank you, Carson, for calling out Ohio State fans as being the oftentimes unbearable, arrogant blowhards that they are.

Five great players

When Barry first rolled out his Five Great Players theory a decade ago I really liked it. Everyone's always looking for a formula for sporting success, and the fact that he could point to Gibby, Dayne, Burke, Davenport, and Stemke and a cast of pretty good guys as the reason the '98 Badgers won the Rose Bowl.

So what about the 2008 edition? Does it have five great players? I would argue it has one.

Travis Beckum. That's it.

P.J. Hill? Could get there, but injury prone. Kraig Urbik? An above-average lineman, but not great. Matt Shaughnessy? Still waiting for him to advance beyond second team All-Big Ten performances. Shane Carter? Great ball skills, subpar tackler.

Jonathan Casillas has the ability to perform at a great level, but I wouldn't put him in that category yet. David Gilreath could be a great returner, but I'm still thinking his success last year was more the result of ample opportunity than flat-out excellence.

So, here it is in the second week of July, and Badgercentric is already forecasting a less-than-special year for our boys. Prove me wrong, guys.

1999 Rose Bowl

Charlie and I spent Thursday afternoon together watching the 1999 Rose Bowl. Know what I remember most about it? That my friends were all there watching it while I was stuck in my oversized closet of an apartment in Fremont, Ohio, cheering my heart out in solitude. Think about that next time you plan on graduating in four years flat, kids.

Anyway, fun game to watch. The second thing that sticks out in my memory was that Craig James called the Badgers the worst team to ever play in the Rose Bowl, and then Bucky went out and dominated a UCLA team that until early December had been a national title contender.

My third memory was that the one Badger game I saw in person that year was the loss in Ann Arbor -- the only loss that season. Great timing.

-Keith Jackson is just a treasure to listen to. My favorite line of the game from him is as we're lining up near the end zone and he says "First and goal Nebras - Wisconsin." Not a confused old man, but someone watching the spitting image of Tom Osborne's great Cornhusker teams. A high compliment indeed, worth exploring later this week as I decompress in the UP.

-The other thing I want to follow up on is Barry's Five Great Players Theory, which I believe was first advanced this season. The five on this team were Aaron Gibson, Ron Dayne, Tom Burke, Kevin Stemke, and Matt Davenport. That doesn't even include Jamar Fletcher, Wendell Bryant, and Chris Chambers, who were all young guys on that roster who hadn't yet proven themselves. Or Chris McIntosh, who may have been better than Gibby. Or Casey Rabach, who quietly may have been the best UW center since Mike Webster. Does the 2008 edition have five great players? Let's discuss later.

-If you would have told me in 1994 that Bob Adamov and Leonard Taylor would one days be starters on a Rose Bowl champion defense, I would have looked at you funny. But that's a testament to those guys' work ethic and the coaching they received.

-Seven starters on that defense were Wisconsin natives. For defensive starters were former walk-ons -- Nebraska comparison there.

-The run-pass ratio for the Badger offense was 552-183 entering the Rose Bowl. Hard to argue when Dayne is your tailback, Mike Samuel is your quarterback, and the line goes McIntosh, Bill Ferrario, Rabach, Dave Costa, and Gibby. But Brad Childress's offense was just so damn unimaginative -- same basic sets, same plays. Works against horrible defenses like UCLA's, but not hard to see why Michigan shut us down in our one loss that year. Was that Chilly's preference or Barry's influence on the offense?

-That said, Dayne's first touchdown run was a simple play executed to perfection, a thing of beauty that gave me goose bumps. What great blocking, and Dayne flat-out outran Ryan Nece.

-Bryant didn't start, but played a tremendous game, you could see he was going to be a beast.

-UCLA's defense was the worst tackling unit I've ever see playing a game of significance, god were they awful. They had a few NFL guys on that side of the ball, but most of them were young.

-If you're UCLA, it has to be disheartening to come out of the tunnel of your home stadium and see that less than half of the fans are wearing your colors. Must be what it feels like to be a Minnesota or Northwestern player.

-On Dayne's second TD run Rabach pulled right and paved the way. He was so athletic, but never really earned the recognition he deserved.

-Watching Samuel throw short, touch passes was painful, but a. He was a tough sucker, b. As was well-documented, he was a winner, and c. His deep ball wasn't half bad. Watching his two-handed pump fake brought back good memories.

-Davenport was 32-of-37 heading into the bowl game. That's a lot of field goal attempts, and a great conversion percentage.

-That team had so many interesting stories attached to the players. Nick Davis could catch a BB in the dark. Gibby could do the splits, dunk a basketball, needed a custom helmet for his huge melon. Davenport's nickname was Money. Donnel Thompson sold sodas at Camp Randall as a kid. Don't see too many of those anymore.

-Burke had 21 sacks on the season, an amazing total for a college season. The Badgers didn't sack Cade McNown all that often in the game, but forced a lot of holding penalties.

-Fletcher with the ball was as exciting as any offensive player we've had in the last 15 years. Why did he play only nine games that season?

-I know this is probably just because of how the sideline assignments fell, but the ratio of Bob Toledo close-ups to Alvarez close-ups was about 20:1. Sort of ridiculous.

-What a solid Badger defense. Great pass rush. Solid tacklers at linebacker. Emerging star young corners. They defended UCLA's screen to perfection.

A vintage Badger win from a vintage Badger team. Great balance between stars and role players, experience and youth, great coaching, great special teams. We've rarely come close to achieving that balance again, but watching games like this give you hope that it's going to happen eventually.