Speaking of Randy Wright ...

... the Journal Sentinel had a column a couple weeks ago detailing how former Badger quarterback Randy Wright is the new offensive coordinator at Sturgeon Bay High School, where he'll be working with coach Gary Rabach, father of former Badger Casey. The story of how Wright got hooked up with Rabach is pretty interesting, very coincidental.

Ah, Randy Wright: once a poster boy for Packers quarterback mediocrity, one that we have been able to avoid for the past 16 seasons but may be staring down again. Now a symbol of post-football business success.

Another branch grows on the Badger football coaching tree, although given the circumstances, it doesn't appear this branch will grow much further than Door County. Good luck Randy!

-Also, read the other day that former Badger offensive line coach Bill Callahan, most recently known as the guy who ran Nebraska into the ground, is now the Jets' offensive line coach. Here's guessing he's going to be pretty good in that role, as he was in Madison.

Badger Bounce Pass

The other day Chris Earl sent me a link to an awesome YouTube video. For those of you unfamiliar, it's of the Bounce Pass. I'm glad he did - I've read a lot about the Bounce Pass over the years but have never actually seen it.

To recap: trailing late in a 1982 game against Illinois at Camp Randall, coach Dave McClain called for a bounce pass. Quarterback Randy Wright took the snap and threw the ball backwards to wide receiver Al Toon. By design, the ball bounced, which was meant for the defense to relax. Toon scooped up the pass and threw a strike to tight end Jeff Nault for the go-ahead touchdown.

The Badgers missed the extra point, and Tony Eason drove the Illini down the field for the winning field goal: 29-28 Illinois.



Watching the play a couple times, what is interesting to me is that the Illinois defenders don't exactly stop playing when the ball bounces. Three of them keep running toward Toon, two of them looking ready to make a tackle. Also, another Illini defender strips Nault of the ball right after he gets into the end zone, I wonder if that part of the play would be reviewed nowadays.

I believe this is the only Badger loss that made the Top 25 games in Camp Randall history. Because of the Bounce Pass, many people don't remember the Badgers actually lost.

Too bad the poster, likely an Illinois fan, talks over it a couple times with immature comments. He calls the play "bullsh!t," when anyone would agree it was perfectly legal. Your team won after a fluky play, man, just enjoy it.

When were they all good? From Mr. Pintens

Last week I made a reference to the fact that the Badgers and Brewers have really never been good at the same time during our lifetime, and if you lump the Packers into the discussion it becomes an even trickier needle to find in the proverbial haystack. Leave it to Craig Pintens to find out that, for one more reason, 1982 was awesome.

Great job on the blog. I usually check it out once a day on the RSS feed. I know you had brought up when the Packers, Brewers, and Badgers have had a winning record in the same year. Well it really wasn't too hard to research when all the teams involved have collectively sucked for the majority of our lifetime, but we are looking at high times right now.

The last time all three had a winning record was 1982 as the Pack went 5-3-1 during the strike year and the Badgers (Al Toon and Wright or too early?) went 7-5. The only other time since 1975 was 1978 with the Pack going 8-7-1 and 5-4-2.

Most normal people could give two sh!ts about my five minute research project, but I needed a slight diversion today.

Keep up the great work and keep the Bucks basketball and starting up of the professional women's soccer chatter to a minimum as I don't think your audience cares.

Thanks for the research and kind words, Craig, they are appreciated. The over/under on when Randy Wright's name would first appear in my blog was two weeks, so we're a little early there. From that team, which beat Kansas State in the soon-to-be Poulan Weedeater Independence Bowl for the first bowl victory in school history, other stars were Tim Krumrie (above - his tackles totals were ridiculous for a noseguard - still holds the school record for solo tackles), Darryl Sims (got to know him a little when he was an assistant at Oshkosh), David Greendwood, and Matt VandenBoom. That was actually Toon's first year playing, only had 30-some catches.

(Aside: searching for an image of Randy Wright I discovered that there is in fact an adult movie actress named Randi Wright, who sometimes goes by Randy Wright - probably for the Wisconsin release of her flicks.)

All I remember about the Packers that year was Jan Stenerud kicking OT field goals and Lynn Dickey hobbling around the field throwing bombs.

The Brewers in '82? Anything memorable there?

Next topic: Why did Briana Scurry start over Hope Solo in goal for the U.S. in its World Cup semifinal loss to Brazil? Discuss.