Ray Small: Becoming a better man

A brief non-Badger excursion ...

During the Ohio State-USC game I heard a funny quote from Buckeye wide receiver Ray Small, who took a recruiting visit to Los Angeles before committing to Jim Tressel.

• "Here at Ohio State, they teach you to be a better man," Small said. "There, it's just all about football."

Funny stuff, right? That quote was on my mind when I read today that Small had been suspended for repeated violations of team rules.

Guess Tressel's got some work to do on this guy.

Even better is Small's dad is squawking that the punishment doesn't fit the crime, that Ray is guilty of nothing more than missing or being late for classes, and the occasional parking ticket. What college kid hasn't? If the Cardinal had suspended editors for those kind of transgressions, What's on Tapp would have had a short shelf life.

But Mr. Small is peeved because of what some of the other naughty Buckeyes have been up to:

• Ken Small cited several other recent legal transgressions by Ohio State players and compared them to the minor problems his son has had. One player a year ago was arrested for propositioning a female police officer posing as a prostitute. At least two players have been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.

Guess Tressel's got some more work to do.

By no means is this an inference that the Wisconsin football program is squeaky clean. I am fully aware of some Badgers' deplorable behavior. Recently, Lance Smith and Booker Stanley come to mind. While I don't condone this sort of behavior, I also understand that if you have a group of 120 college kids, athletes or not, some of them are going to do stupid stuff ... although I personally never knew anyone busted for soliciting a female police officer posing as a prostitute. At least not that I know of.

But what's funny is how Ohio State tries to cultivate this holier-than-thou, pious attitude about things, embodied by Small's quote comparing Ohio State to USC.

Let's face it, it's all about football at USC, Ohio State, just about any big-time college football program. Just admit it.

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!

The Lance Smith situation

It's been a couple weeks now, but it seems like Lance Smith is off the team. Again. I won't go into details about that situation, but in a nutshell, it's sad that a kid given a chance to escape a tough lot in life through athletics has messed up that opportunity.

From a strictly roster management standpoint, my initial thought was this:

Four good running backs seemed like too many. Three good running backs seems like not enough.

Anyone else agree with me?

The 2004 situation where Anthony Davis and Booker Stanley and Dwayne Smith all went down, leaving Matt Bernstein to start at tailback in a huge game at Iowa, reminds me of this. With P.J. Hill being injury prone (like Davis), Zach Brown being sort of a plugger (like Stanley and Smith), and John Clay being young and tall, it's not inconceivable that all three could be too nicked up to play at some point. Leaving ... Bill Rentmeester, Chris Pressley, or Erik Smith to play tailback?

Sure, call me Bob Bummer, but it's happened before and it could happen again. I'd much rather manage one talented back who can't get enough playing time than deal with a lack of talented backs.

Anthony Davis, eh?

Can you believe that in over 300 posts on a blog called Badgercentric there has not been one mention yet of Anthony Davis? The Anthony Davis who is Wisconsin's second all-time leading rusher, with 4,676 yards and 42 touchdowns? Who was just incredible his first two seasons, before injuries derailed his college career?

Well, here's the first. Was reading a pretty good Mike Lucas story today on Tyler Donovan's emotions during the NFL Draft, and what his future in the CFL looks like. It's funny, because several times during the draft Saturday I made a remark to Polzin like "Hey Jimmy, the Ravens just took Donovan, time to get to work." Interesting to see that NFL teams actually were talking to Tyler, although it would probably have just been for tryouts.

Anyway, back to Davis. According to Lucas's story, Davis played the last couple years for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats before being traded to the Toronto Argonauts in December. Unfortunately, the Argos' website indicates AD was released three weeks ago.

Davis was on my mind last fall when we were debating here how the Badgers' current running back depth chart should shape up. Some people indicated that they wouldn't be disappointed if P.J. Hill moved on, since Zach Brown, Lance Smith and John Clay could fill in just fine. I disagree. When you find a superstar back - like Davis was his first two seasons - the dropoff to guys who are just pretty good can change a season.

When Davis got hurt in 2003 and 2004, Badger fans probably thought it would be no big deal since Dwayne Smith and Booker Stanley were waiting in the wings. They proved capable, but the offense bogged down at times. It wasn't until Brian Calhoun came in the next season that the offense again had a dynamic threat out of the backfield, and that side of the ball was explosive for the Badgers.

My point is, when you have a guy who's a true game-changer right off the bat, you ride him as long as he can, because the guys behind him might not necessarily be better.