UW-Iowa thoughts

Watching the postgame on the Big Ten Network, I saw Bret Bielema's press conference. At one point he ended a sentence with "The team that's beating Wisconsin the most is Wisconsin."

That sums it up. Because let's face it, this Iowa team that crushed us today is, at best, marginally above average. In this year's Big Ten, that could be enough for a top three finish, but that team has good lines and a good back and not much more.

Right now, that's a lot more than what you need to beat the Badgers.

-I really hate to say "I told you so," especially when it involves the subpar play of an amateur athlete who's out there trying his best. But does anyone still think Dustin Sherer is a better option at quarterback than Allan Evridge? With a couple exceptions, Sherer was pretty bad today. His accuracy was spotty. He locked onto his primary receiver and never seemed to progress from there. He's not mobile. He threw two picks and was a couple inches from throwing four or five.

The offensive line protected reasonably well, and we had receivers open, but the passing game never hit a rhythm today. I thought Scott Tolzien looked better at the end, but circumstances and personnel force you to take that with a grain of salt.

Who should start next week? Right now I'd say Tolzien, but might change my mind in a couple days ... or a couple hours.

-The BTN crew was going on and on about Shonn Greene and touting him as a Heisman candidate, but my mom could have run for 100 yards behind that offensive line today. On most of Greene's successful runs he wasn't touched for what seemed like 10 yards, and while he did show some nice moves and toughness to make everything he could out of those runs, his performance today was a reflection of his line's dominance.

Or our defensive front's ineptness. Forget getting into the backfield and recording tackles for loss. These guys were getting dominated at the point of attack, putting all the pressure on our defensive backs to make saving tackles.

-On Greene's first touchdown run, DeAndre Levy took a bad angle. Greene showed terrific patience, just waiting for our defenders to run themselves out of position to make a play.

On Greene's second touchdown run, he broke about 73 tackles. On his third touchdown run, Shane Carter ran himself to the wrong side of the Iowa blocking wall, and was in no position to even get a hand on Greene. On Greene's fourth TD run, he ran untouched until he was about 15 yards past the line of scrimmage.

Last year the problem on defense was overpursuit and bad angles to the ball. This year it seems to be the opposite problem, guys playing tentatively, then reacting after it's too late. Having never been an effective defensive football player myself, I imagine there's a fine line between the two that you need to hit to be effective. I can't remember another Badger team struggling so much to toe that line.

-John Clay ran fine, but BTN's Chris Martin said his pad level needed to be lower -- good point. Clay's a legit 6-2 and needs to make sure he's hitting linebackers in their stomachs, not their shoulders. Also thought P.J. Hill ran reasonably well until getting hurt. If his ankle was hurt, why was he standing on the sidelines? When I hurt my ankle enough to sit out at noontime hoops, no way I'm standing after that. Unfortunately he's on the verge of complete irrelevance.

-Iowa's tough against the run, but why did we throw the ball 20 times in the first half with a scattershot quarterback making his first start?

-The hang time on Brad Nortman's punts seems to be about a second less than it should be, doesn't it?

-The announcers commented that O'Brien Schofield was late getting on the field for the first play of the second half. After we kicked off. After knowing all of halftime that the first play from scrimmage in the second half would have our defense on the field. This is the stuff that's killing us.

-Josh Oglesby really struggled at tackle today, flat-out whiffing on pass rushers several times and committing at least one penalty. On the other side of the line, Eric Vanden Heuvel played fine, but there was one pass play, a designed swing pass to Zach Brown, where EVH was supposed to get out and block an Iowa cornerback in space, a la Joe Thomas. There's only one Joe Thomas.

-Officiating by no means cost us this game, but I wanted to bring to light two calls that really killed us. The first was a roughing the passer penalty on Jonathan Casillas. From the replays BTN showed, that looked like a horrible call. Iowa scored a couple plays later.

The second was the punt preceding the blocked Nortman punt. The refs got Prince Moody for hitting Andy Brodell after he apparently called fair catch. The replays showed a second or two before Brodell fielded the ball, and I never saw his hand go up. Brodell had to be calling for a fair catch the second the ball left Nortman's foot, or else it would have been caught on camera. He may have gotten his hand up, but I didn't see it. The offsetting penalties nullified what would have been a first down and made us re-kick, and we know what happened next.

-POSITIVE BADGER PLAY ALERT: The first two drives on offense and defense in the second half were solid. And Philip Welch continues to make the placekicking game the least of our concerns. Also thought our cornerbacks played well, or at least they didn't get beat badly today by Iowa's pedestrian quarterbacks and receivers. Sounds like Mario Goins has a concussion, though, hopefully he'll be all right for Illinois. Brown showed a spark late.

-If you would have told me that we'd outgain Iowa 409-375, hold them to 1-of-10 on third down conversions, and go 3-for-3 on field goal attempts, I would have liked our chances.

Where do we go from here? If you're like most of the people who've voted in the poll in the right-hand corner, not to a bowl, that's for sure.

Spring game thoughts

During the Big Ten Network's day-long orgy of UW athletics, I recorded the spring game, and watched it on a rainy Sunday. Not too much going on, but it satisfied my football jones for the time being, and I've got some thoughts and feelings.



-Philip Welch looks like the kicker, more reliable on his attemps than Matt Fischer. The other specialist, punter Brad DeBauche, didn't look all that good, leaving the door wide open for incoming freshman Brad Nortman.

-Scott Tolzien looked pretty good at quarterback, showed nice chemistry with T.J. Theus. Tolzien did miss a wide open Maurice Moore in the end zone, a play that Jay Valai misplayed. Valai did make a nice pick later.

-Allen Evridge was OK, nothing spectacular, nothing horrible. Most of the national stuff that's been written about our team lately has been calling quarterback play a big question mark and doubting our guys. Setting the bar low ... I have a feeling the guys will jump over that bar.

-Chris Maragos showed great ball skills and athleticism, with one interception and another one that should have been. Niles Brinkley made a really nice play on his pick as well.

-On the flip side, Prince Moody and Otis Merrill didn't look very good at cornerback.

-The first string Cardinal squad ran the ball well enough, but given that the first string offensive line was fully in tact, and the defensive line was missing about 87 guys because of injury, the O Line did not dominate as much as would have been expected.

-Lance Smith looked really good, showing patience as his blocking developed. Having him for all games, health willing, will add a dynamic element to the offense. Zach Brown ran well before going down. And John Clay was as good as advertised - not dominant yet, but effective right off the bat. He's going to be a beast; I can see "Joooooohn Clay" becoming the new "Roooooon Dayne." We've got to have the best group of running backs in the country.

-Dustin Sherer had some nice hook-ups with David Gilreath. Gilreath had a strong showing overall.

-Curt Phillips didn't do much, but my favorite moment for him actually came after a play was whistled dead. Phillips was wearing a green no-contact jersey, and as defenders encountered him on one play it was whistled dead, but he took off upfield and showed a tremendous burst. I'm looking forward to him getting a year under him as a redshirt and getting ready to compete for the starting job in 2009.

-James Stallon is Jim Sorgi skinny, maybe even more. He's listed at 6-5, 172 pounds ... maybe pass rushers won't see him back there. And apparently his last name is pronounced "Stalins" not "Stal - ens." I'd rethink that if I was him.

-Said it before, will say it again: Lance Kendricks is the next Travis Beckum, starting in 2009.

-On the mic, the normally steady Jay Wilson made mistake after mistake, and not on obscure seventh stringers but on guys who will see time this season. Luke Swan wasn't as bad as I thought he'd be, although his voice did get drowned out by the band at times. He looked really small next to Wilson, surprisingly small.

Only a couple months until fall camp starts, can't wait!

Calling O-H-I-O

SATURDAY ADDITION: Jim wrote a nice story on the Glenville connection in today's Cap Times, read it here. It's sort of buried on madison.com, but it's very well done and worth a read.

Most of you know that I spent my first two years post-UW in a humble little state called Ohio. It was an interesting time. Basically, my buddy Mike Pidanick and I would work 90 hours a week and play Madden and NHL ’96 for the other 78 hours. In warm months we added daily golf, with one year on the links accounting for 95% of my lifetime rounds.

We also spent lots of time watching high school sports, and after returning to Wisconsin I couldn’t help but think: the level of play and athleticism is significantly higher in Ohio. The difference was most noticeable in basketball, where athleticism is easier to spot. But the football players were also better. My second year there, Ben Roethlisberger came into Fremont and threw eight touchdown passes against our hometown boys. Eight! I can’t even begin to imagine a kid doing that in Wisconsin.

This has been on my mind more than usual since we play Ohio State this week. Let’s face it, the Buckeyes are going to take just about anyone they want from the state, but there are still lots of good guys left over. Lots of them end up playing in the MAC. I’m not saying we should be competing with Toledo and Kent State for recruits every year, but would Roethlisberger, Charlie Frye (who we also covered), or any of those other MAC stars contributed at UW? Damn right they would have. But we can also get high-level talented kids that would excel at OSU.

Henry Mason’s efforts have been outstanding mining talent from that state. I may be off a year or two here (Jim can help me out), but in the years preceding Mason’s arrival in Madison, we didn’t get much from Ohio. Kevin Huntley – a Crimson Streak from Fremont St. Joseph Central Catholic – was a solid four-year contributor. But after Mason arrived came a line of real standouts: John Favret, Chris Chambers, Mike Echols, Chad Kuhns (a Bellevue Redman), Lee Evans. Russ Kuhns, Delante McGrew, and Dontez Sanders were starters. On today’s team, Jason Chapman and Kyle Jefferson and standouts, Lance Smith is good when he’s eligible, Shane Carter is making plays, and Otis Merrill, Prince Moody, Daven Jones, Brandon Kelly, and Bill Nagy are also on the roster, most with a chance to contribute some day. All except Moody are northern Ohio, most of them Northeast Ohio, guys.

The Ohio connection, in particular Bedford/Cleveland, is the best pipeline we have going right now. St. Louis was great for awhile – the Fletchers, Bryant, Starks, etc. – and we’ve got Wes Kemp coming next year. It is vital to the future of this program to keep these alive. We can only get so much out of Wisconsin, the Twin Cities should theoretically be more competitive with Brewster at the U, and Zook and Weis should take more of Chicago than we’re used to. New Jersey is another goldmine, but the rise of Big East football, Schiano at Rutgers in particular, and Penn State's return to relevance will make it tougher to get Ron Daynes out of that region.

I love how the Bedford kids talk about Chambers and Evans with such reverence, hopefully Jefferson can keep the tradition going.

As for tomorrow’s games, I have low hopes, but that’s okay. We ought to be a significant underdog, whether PJ plays or not, and have a chance to pull a stunner. My sense is that we will overachieve and play just well enough to lose by single digits. There’s nothing wrong with Ohio State, but the fact that they’re the clear-cut #1 nationally is more a reflection of college football’s dearth of elite teams than a reflection of their dominance. Last year’s OSU team would beat this year’s by 20.

Prediction: Ohio State 20, Wisconsin 16