UW-Iowa: Lining them up

We sure have passed around a lot of blame lately while assessing the Badgers' three-game losing streak, haven't we? It's quarterback play! It's play calling! It's receivers with the drops! We need to give the freshman running back more carries! Our defense tires in the second half! Argh!

Here's another theory: the offensive line play isn't as good as it could be under new coach Bob Bostad.

The line has not been a weakness, in my mind. They've done an adequate job of creating running lanes and protecting the quarterback.

But they also haven't been a dominant unit, either, and given the holes noted above, they need to be.

For instance, the Badgers are averaging 4.5 yards per carry -- seems good, right? But take away the Akron game -- 404 yards on 63 carries -- and UW is averaging 3.95 yards per carry. Not good.

In the passing game, the line has allowed nine sacks in three Big Ten games. Is the line to blame for all of those? Surely indecisive quarterback play and inconsistent play by a young receiving corps are prime culprits. But Allan Evridge hasn't exactly been sitting back in a protective bubble, either.

These things feed off each other. The lack of a threatening passing game makes it easier for opposing defenses to load up on the run, and at some point there's too many guys in the box for the line to block.

Just like with DelVaughn Alexander and the receivers, I'm not here to throw Bostad under the bus. He seems to be well-liked by the line, and wouldn't have gotten the job if he didn't know what he was doing. But it does make the contributions of former line coach Bob Palcic more appreciated.

The line will have its hands full with Iowa tomorrow, whether Gabe Carimi and Kraig Urbik play or not. Tackles Mitch King and Matt Kroul seem to have been around forever, and linebacker A.J. Edds really played well against us in Madison last year. Their offense doesn't scare me much, but given our recent level of play, that seems like a foolhardy attitude.

It's time to get back to basics. Limit penalties. Carry out assignments. Make the simple play, one play at a time. Protect the ball. Do all those things and we'll have a good chance at returning to the pink locker rooms victorious.

Continue with the sloppy play, and it's a long ride home from Iowa City.

This game is personal for Bret Bielema. Let's hope his team takes a big step tomorrow toward making FireBretBielema.com irrelevant.

Wisconsin 16, Iowa 14

Chryst not headed to Purdue

The State Journal is reporting that Paul Chryst has withdrawn his name from consideration for the Purdue job, as many insiders have speculated. Is it because he doesn't like recruiting? Was there not a spot on the Purdue staff for him to bide his time as Tiller-successor-in-waiting?

Don't know, don't care. I'm just glad that after a week of turmoil that some semblance of stability has returned to the program. To recap:

-Bob Palcic left for UCLA. Not altogether surprising or disturbing - he wanted to work with Rick Neuheisel, a close friend. This kind of thing happens in coaching. I'm confident we'll find a solid replacement.

-Bret Bielema fired co-defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz. This was a little surprising and a little disturbing. Is BB throwing Hank under the bus for an underachieving defense? Remember, in 2005 BB followed up a super defense by coordinating the worst unit in team history, and it's unlikely he would toss the coordinator after one subpar year. That would indicate lack of a conscience. My guess, based on pure speculation, is that it was a personality clash issue. When Palcic and Hankwitz were named as part of Bielema's first staff, it surprised me, but his attempt to balance youth and experience seemed sound. As has been pointed out, maybe he's now looking for climbers and not lifers for assistants. Let's hope Dave Doeren is up for the defensive coordinator by himself.

-Even though many things pointed toward it, I actually didn't think Ike would leave for the NFL just yet. My hunch was that he would be left feeling unsatisfied after his inconsistent season. But you know what? He's got to look out for his best interests, and if he's a top three round projection, that money can set him up for life. Obviously very concerned about the cornerback position without him, with Henry and Langford coming off knee injuries. We'll really need a better pass rush next year to give these guys some help.

-Let's not forget about the loss of Wes Kemp to Missouri. Probably not a bad move for him, staying close to home and playing for a pass-happy program that's riding high right now. Yes, we have some nice receivers right now, but not enough that we can just lose talented 6-4 guys without having a replacement. On paper, this is shaping up to be a mediocre recruiting class, which we all know means nothing, but I'd rather have a ton of four- and five-star guys.

My friends and I engaged in a nice back-and-forth yesterday about what all this means, and they made some good points. Here's the one that was the most interesting: what if our record gets worse the next two years? As my buddy pointed out, it's entirely possible, with the recent defections and a difficult schedule, to project 12-1 and 9-4 continuing on to 7-6 and 5-7 after graduation guts the 2008 team.

Look at next year's schedule. The game at Fresno State seems like a trap. We open the Big Ten season at Michigan, home against Ohio State and Penn State, at Iowa, and home against Illinois. That's a rocky road, folks.

If that happens, then what? It's not like the start of Barry Alvarez's tenure, when the program was in shambles and he slowly built from 1-10 to 5-6 and 5-6 before busting through. There aren't many places for Bielema to go but down after starting 12-1. How patient will Barry be if that downward swing dips below .500?

My thought on that was that just about every Big Ten program not named Ohio State and Michigan goes through something like this from time to time. Ours did in 1995 and 2001. In both cases we rebounded and built toward another pinnacle. How will we handle adversity when it inevitably comes?

The nice thing is, there's still a lot to like about this team heading into 2008, and the season may end up being special, like a 1998 or 2006. The last eight days have kind of made it hard to feel that way.

Badgers on Facebook

My brother and I were talking about Facebook the other day, and he made this not completely untrue statement:

"Dude, when people like you are getting into Facebook, that's when you know it's not cool any more."

Ouch, but I do have a history of coming in past the prime time of cultural phenomena: downloading music, cell phones, online shopping, direct payroll deposit, high-speed Internet at home. We've purchased DVR four years after TiVo became popular, but DirecTV keeps messing up and we haven't gotten it hooked up yet.

So I don't have a great track record as an early adopter, but I'm trying to change that (why does nobody seem to care about all my Twitter messages?). However, among my long-time close friends, only Butch and Toohey have signed up for Facebook, which makes me as cutting edge as all my college-aged cousins and 40-something co-workers.

If/when you decide Facebook is for you, a. Become my friend, b. Sign up for Facebook's best Badger fan community:

http://www.facebook.com/add.php?api_key=c24ac9233116fef04c3e92aee417d3d2&next=?refuid=3097947

The coolest thing about this is the Badger trivia section. With plenty of time to kill over the holidays, I answered every last one as quickly as possible, and ended up in fourth place. Then I took the time to create about 50 questions, which put me in first until the guy I overtook for the lead noticed and created 60 more. Game on, Jeremy David Jones.

Since I found out about this community from my old college friend Vikram Naik, I joined his team and saw where we ranked among other teams. Not high - Toohey is stuck on a goose egg. But I did see who led other "teams" of trivia guessers: Zach Hampton, Justin Ostrowski, Marcus Coleman, Brandon Kelly, Brad Thorson. Looking further at these teams, I found Matt Bernstein, Paul Standring, Joe Monty, Kurt Ware, Darrin Charles, Mike Allen, RJ Morse, Jonathan Clinkscale, Kalvin Barrett, LaMarr Watkins, Andrew Weininger, Mark Gorman, Josh Balts, Ryan Flasch.

There's nothing that remarkable about finding these guys there; after all, they were/are college students, and that's what college students do nowadays. It was just cool to see these names again, as I'd forgotten most of them. Also: didn't see too many all-conference types on there. Is it too much of a hassle for a star college athlete to put himself out there on a social network? I think it makes these kids seem more like regular students.

-On another note, Mike Lucas is reporting that Bob Palcic is leaving UW to be Rick Neuheisel's offensive line coach at UCLA. Bring your guitar and canoe, Bob, Ricky's a real player's coach.

Lucas says Bob Bostad will probably take over, which makes sense. He'll probably do fine - the tight ends are better than ever right now. Bostad was here only two years, but he did a good job replacing Jim Hueber and upholding our reputation for producing top-notch offensive lines. Can't give him too much credit for Joe Thomas, but give him lots of credit for plugging holes created by graduation and injuries.