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

Hayden, Evans in TSN

A couple notes from last week's Sporting News:

-Nick Hayden was mentioned as one of five East players who helped themselves most in the East-West Shrine Game.

A dominant week assured him of being drafted. Hayden will stick as a third or fourth tackle who consistently contributes.

That's great to hear. Hayden seems to be a good fit as a 3-4 end.

-Lee Evans was mentioned in a column called Restoration Projects.

Bills WR Lee Evans went from an 82-catch season in 2006 to a 55-catch campaign. With his great speed an body control, he should be more of a factor. Evans needs to get stronger and add more polish to his route running, and the team should move him around to make it harder for opponents to key on him.

You know what else would help? Get him a competent quarterback! Same thing Chris Chambers went through in Miami. It kills me to see these talented UW receivers getting stuck with worse QB play in the NFL than they had in Madison. Back in the Chilly-Samuel years, used to be the other way around.

Badger coaching tree

Last week, when Purdue was pursuing Paul Chryst to be its next head coach, one thought that crossed my mind was that it would be a blow to the program, but it would extend the Wisconsin coaching tree. Coaching trees are such a strong indicator of a program's success - a strong coaching staff produces strong coaches, which then go build their own strong staffs elsewhere.

Think about the North Carolina basketball coaching tree. Or the Packers' staff under Mike Holmgren, which at times had Steve Mariucci, Jon Gruden, Dick Jauron, and others.

This also applies to former players. If your program is producing players who go on to become coaches, it is an indicator that you have intelligent athletes with leadership skills. That's why I have a soft spot for Tracy Webster, even if he was coaching at Illinois for four years before moving on to Kentucky.

Yesterday I read that Mel Tucker had been named defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns. Tucker will always be remembered as the defensive back who made the hit on a Minnesota tight end to secure Barry Alvarez's first road win as Wisconsin coach. After graduating from UW with an ag journalism major, Tucker coached under Nick Saban at Michigan State, then moved on to Miami (Ohio), LSU, and Ohio State before joining Romeo Crennel's staff. Here's hoping Mel gets the Browns' defense in shape and becomes a head coaching candidate.

This all got me thinking about other prominent coaches who played or coached at UW:

-Jay Norvell, just hired today as Oklahoma's co-offensive coordinator. As long as he keeps the Sooners' offense humming, he'll be a head coaching candidate next winter.

-Brad Childress, former UW offensive coordinator, head coach of the Minnesota Vikings.

-Darrell Bevell, former UW quarterback, Chilly's offensive coordinator.

-Jim Hueber, Chilly's offensive line coach. All the UW ties on the Vikings make me slightly nauseous.

-Bill Callahan, former UW offensive line coach, recently fired as Nebraska's coach. Led the Oakland Raiders to the Super Bowl.

-Jay Hayes, defensive line coach for the Cincinnati Bengals.

-Rob Ianello, Notre Dame's recruiting coordinator. As he did in Madison, Rob is tearing it up on the recruiting trail, as the Irish currently have the nation's #1 recruiting class.

-Ron McBride, head coach at Weber State.

-Packers special teams coordinator Mike Stock.

-Mike Cassity is Louisville's defensive coordinator.

-Jeff Horton, St. Louis Rams offensive assistant.

-Brian White, recently fired as Syracuse's offensive coordinator.

-Phil Elmassian, who seems to change jobs every year, was recently let go along with Callahan and is now interested in the defensive coordinator position at Louisiana-Monroe.

-Darrell Wilson, Iowa's outside linebackers and special teams coach.

-And last but not least, Bears coach Lovie Smith. Not kidding - he was a UW assistant in 1987. Perhaps the only coaching positive to come out of the Don Morton era.

That's all the energy I have to research tonight after a tough evening of shoveling in 25 mph winds. Please post a comment if you can think of anyone I'm forgetting here. Will try to tackle a Badger basketball coaching tree in the next couple days.

Purdue pursuing Chryst

The Lafayette Journal & Courier is reporting that Purdue is pursuing Paul Chryst to be its next coach, in a scenario like the one where Matt Painter came on board and assisted Gene Keady for a year before taking over. Interesting. For the various reasons Potrykus spells out in his story, I don't think will happen. Chryst seems like a Madison guy who is made for being a coordinator, and he knows it, but as Tom Mulhern points out in the State Journal , he did recently interview for the Washington State job.

While losing him would not be catastrophic, in my opinion, it would sting. Chryst has added a level of diversity and consistency to the Badger offense that wasn't there under Brian White and Brad Childress. Who knows, maybe it was Alvarez's influence on the scheme, and only late in his career did he embrace the importance of a competent passing game.

Chryst has done some wonderful things with the offense, most notably in 2006 when he lost all his skill players and three offensive linemen from the powerhouse 2005 unit. His role developing John Stocco and Tyler Donovan can not be understated, and he will be key to getting Allan Evridge up to speed for 2008, and hopefully Curt Phillips for the four years following.

Hopefully whatever happens, it happens quickly. We've got about a month left in the recruiting race and losing a successful offensive coordinator could really hurt.

Sunday morning sports thoughts

Thoughts on sports with Sunday morning coffee:

-Gotta love high school football. The Iola-Scandinavia Thunderbirds, who play their home games just an out-and-up away from our house, beat Fennimore Friday night in the state semifinals to advance to the state title game. We've got a great program in our little town - conference title contenders every year, always make the playoffs, went to the finals in 1999. We've also got a great senior class that has been excelling on the varsity stage since they were sophomores.

At right is a nice picture from Doug Wojcik of the Stevens Point Journal. #4 is Michael Griffin, a great basketball player who sometimes plays with us at lunchtime, stud running back and linebacker. #7 is Kody Morgan, who played on our kickball team in a tournament this summer. #10 is Dustin McAloon, whose dad is a group publisher in our company. Jordan Mortenson, the star tight end/defensive end who had three sacks last night, is a super kid and the son of a good guy who plays basketball with us every day. Colton Zimmerman, the exciting quarterback, lives down the street from us.

It's the epitome of small-town high school football.

The challenging news: the T-Birds play Stratford, who Schwalbach is familiar with from his Marshfield days. They've won the last four Division 6 state titles, and have lost one game in the last five years, to LaCrescent, which I understand is a much larger Minnesota school.

Iola's title game is at 1 p.m. Thursday, Jim Austin and I are going. Polzin, Andy - meet you there? Then we'll go catch Eden Prairie in the Dome the next night.

Bad news for Truckers fans: Clintonville lost its semifinal game Saturday afternoon to nearby New London, 28-0. Good news is nothing will be holding Polzin up from the Minnesota festivities.

-Saw something nice in the Saturday Journal Sentinel sports section. Geoff Jenkins, who is parting ways with the Brewers after a decade of loyal service, took out a full-page ad thanking the fans of Milwaukee for being so supportive during his time here. Classy move.

While reading it, a young boy at Pick 'n Save came up to me with a pen and asked me to autograph the ad for him. I obliged. (That one's for Will and Burch)

On the negative, if another team signs Jenks the Brewers won't get any compensatory draft picks, because apparently players like Nick Johnson, who was injured and didn't play last year, are deemed better than Jenkins, who hit 21 home runs. On the plus side, if Francisco Cordero or Scott Linebrink sign elsewhere, the Brewers will get first round picks. I'd rather keep them, but you know how that goes.

-It figures: Just when the Badgers' chances of having a special season evaporate - which sent by blood pressure and stress back to normal levels - here come the Packers at 7-1. They're far from perfect - no running game, still give up plenty on defense - but they're playing much better than anyone thought they would this season. Especially Brett Favre, he's been terrific. Now I get riled up for Packers games.

Of course, they could easily lose Sunday to Minnesota, which despite putrid quarterback play (sorry Brooks) still has a lot going for it. Good article about Darren Sharper in the Saturday Journal Sentinel which pretty much said Ted Thompson made a mistake letting Sharper go a couple years ago.

I can't say much about Adrian Peterson that hasn't been said, but saw an interesting anecdote in Todd Finkelmeyer's Cap Times story about Brad Childress. Seems that when Ron Dayne was a freshman Barry Alvarez put Dayne into the UNLV game in the first half, and Childress went nuts, wondering why Dayne was in there. A comment left after the story says "Kinda like he didn't want Adrian Peterson in there for the Vikings." Nice one.

-Lastly, a co-worker posed this question on Friday:

I need help figuring out an answer to a trivia question .. What was the only father and son to both lead their respective NCAA division in free throw percentage? One was Division I, the other was not. I was thinking Rick Barry and one of his sons, but I think they all played for Division I schools. Any ideas?

Anyone?

Bill Callahan Farewell Tour

Jim Austin emailed this to me earlier this week, with the note: "may be blog-worthy is the Badgers match up with the Huskers in a mid-December bowl."

I'm pretty sure mid-December bowls are reserved for the Minnesotas and Northwesterns of the Big Ten, so I'm going to go ahead and post it now.

The situation in Lincoln is interesting. Apparently Cally has made it known he will not resign before the end of the season - Tom Osborne has to be loving that. Funny thing is, when they fired Frank Solich a few years back to guard against "slipping into mediocrity," I could see where they were coming from and sort of agree. But man, has Nebraska fallen.

And consider Callahan's slide: Super Bowl coach with the Raiders in 2002, fired after the next season, and then almost personally responsible for the steep decline in one of college football's most storied programs.

A litlle while back I jokingly broached the subject of Cally and Cosgrove rejoining the UW staff next year. Won't happen, but what if they were to join Brad Childress, Jim Hueber and friends in the Humpty Dome next year? They could turn Tarvaris Jackson into Mike Samuel 2008, or Brooks Bollinger into Brooks Bollinger 1999. They could bring back Brian White to help Adrian Peterson get better. ;)

Of course, this all assumes Chilly is back next year, which my Vikings fan friends would probably cringe at.