Nice Jimmy Leonhard story

This weekend Justin Perras sent me a notice about a good feature in the New York Times on UW alum Jim Leonhard. Not a long read, give it a look.

It's the kind of thing I never get tired of reading: the humble, freaky athletic kid from the sticks who made good. Everything that's right with Wisconsin football, and UW athletics in general.

Leonhard is sometimes a punchline when my friends and I start bouncing around UW announcing cliches. "Did you know Aaron Gibson can do the splits?" "Owen Daniels wants to be a meteorologist." "Did you know Jim Leonhard isn't/wasn't on scholarship?"

But just because lazy announcers relied on that tidbit too many times instead of probing deeper into his game doesn't mean it's not cool, and something to be proud of. I never thought Leonhard would have lasted this long in the NFL, let alone making it in the first place, but here he is. Outstanding.

1999 Rose Bowl

Charlie and I spent Thursday afternoon together watching the 1999 Rose Bowl. Know what I remember most about it? That my friends were all there watching it while I was stuck in my oversized closet of an apartment in Fremont, Ohio, cheering my heart out in solitude. Think about that next time you plan on graduating in four years flat, kids.

Anyway, fun game to watch. The second thing that sticks out in my memory was that Craig James called the Badgers the worst team to ever play in the Rose Bowl, and then Bucky went out and dominated a UCLA team that until early December had been a national title contender.

My third memory was that the one Badger game I saw in person that year was the loss in Ann Arbor -- the only loss that season. Great timing.

-Keith Jackson is just a treasure to listen to. My favorite line of the game from him is as we're lining up near the end zone and he says "First and goal Nebras - Wisconsin." Not a confused old man, but someone watching the spitting image of Tom Osborne's great Cornhusker teams. A high compliment indeed, worth exploring later this week as I decompress in the UP.

-The other thing I want to follow up on is Barry's Five Great Players Theory, which I believe was first advanced this season. The five on this team were Aaron Gibson, Ron Dayne, Tom Burke, Kevin Stemke, and Matt Davenport. That doesn't even include Jamar Fletcher, Wendell Bryant, and Chris Chambers, who were all young guys on that roster who hadn't yet proven themselves. Or Chris McIntosh, who may have been better than Gibby. Or Casey Rabach, who quietly may have been the best UW center since Mike Webster. Does the 2008 edition have five great players? Let's discuss later.

-If you would have told me in 1994 that Bob Adamov and Leonard Taylor would one days be starters on a Rose Bowl champion defense, I would have looked at you funny. But that's a testament to those guys' work ethic and the coaching they received.

-Seven starters on that defense were Wisconsin natives. For defensive starters were former walk-ons -- Nebraska comparison there.

-The run-pass ratio for the Badger offense was 552-183 entering the Rose Bowl. Hard to argue when Dayne is your tailback, Mike Samuel is your quarterback, and the line goes McIntosh, Bill Ferrario, Rabach, Dave Costa, and Gibby. But Brad Childress's offense was just so damn unimaginative -- same basic sets, same plays. Works against horrible defenses like UCLA's, but not hard to see why Michigan shut us down in our one loss that year. Was that Chilly's preference or Barry's influence on the offense?

-That said, Dayne's first touchdown run was a simple play executed to perfection, a thing of beauty that gave me goose bumps. What great blocking, and Dayne flat-out outran Ryan Nece.

-Bryant didn't start, but played a tremendous game, you could see he was going to be a beast.

-UCLA's defense was the worst tackling unit I've ever see playing a game of significance, god were they awful. They had a few NFL guys on that side of the ball, but most of them were young.

-If you're UCLA, it has to be disheartening to come out of the tunnel of your home stadium and see that less than half of the fans are wearing your colors. Must be what it feels like to be a Minnesota or Northwestern player.

-On Dayne's second TD run Rabach pulled right and paved the way. He was so athletic, but never really earned the recognition he deserved.

-Watching Samuel throw short, touch passes was painful, but a. He was a tough sucker, b. As was well-documented, he was a winner, and c. His deep ball wasn't half bad. Watching his two-handed pump fake brought back good memories.

-Davenport was 32-of-37 heading into the bowl game. That's a lot of field goal attempts, and a great conversion percentage.

-That team had so many interesting stories attached to the players. Nick Davis could catch a BB in the dark. Gibby could do the splits, dunk a basketball, needed a custom helmet for his huge melon. Davenport's nickname was Money. Donnel Thompson sold sodas at Camp Randall as a kid. Don't see too many of those anymore.

-Burke had 21 sacks on the season, an amazing total for a college season. The Badgers didn't sack Cade McNown all that often in the game, but forced a lot of holding penalties.

-Fletcher with the ball was as exciting as any offensive player we've had in the last 15 years. Why did he play only nine games that season?

-I know this is probably just because of how the sideline assignments fell, but the ratio of Bob Toledo close-ups to Alvarez close-ups was about 20:1. Sort of ridiculous.

-What a solid Badger defense. Great pass rush. Solid tacklers at linebacker. Emerging star young corners. They defended UCLA's screen to perfection.

A vintage Badger win from a vintage Badger team. Great balance between stars and role players, experience and youth, great coaching, great special teams. We've rarely come close to achieving that balance again, but watching games like this give you hope that it's going to happen eventually.

Badger draft busts and steals

With Crazylegs approaching Saturday, it must be time for the NFL Draft. Not much going on Badger-wise on the first day, unless someone reaches for Taylor Mehlhaff. Paul Hubbard, Nick Hayden and maybe Jack Ikegwuonu are other possibilities to be picked, and I wouldn't bet against Luke Swan signing a free agent contract.

For as terrific as our program has been over the past 15 years, we have still turned out our fair share of stinkers. Mr. Man, a frequent excellent commenter on Badgercentric, today had a post on his blog, Camp Lambeau, about a site called Football Outsiders that ranked the biggest draft busts from 200-2003, among many interesting lists.

Wendell Bryant and Chris McIntosh head the list of busts. Hard to argue, unfortunately. Wendell, a fan favorite who is responsible for so many fond memories from his college days, seemed to party his way out of the league, and Mac was hurt a lot. You could argue that among recent first rounders, Aaron Gibson (if the list started a year earlier) and Jamar Fletcher belong on this list, although they managed to stick around and contribute more than the other two guys.

On the bright side, Chris Chambers is on the list of top 10 second and third round steals, and Mark Tauscher on the list of top 10 second day steals. Both very deserving.

The offense

Was reading a column this evening, think it was by Tom Oates of the State Journal, about the Badgers' quarterback situation. He had a line that said something to the effect of "It doesn't really matter who the UW quarterback is, as long as he's not terrible. With the running backs on the roster, especially now that Clay is showing he's the real deal, the quarterback won't be asked to do all that much."

That sentiment makes sense. But here's why I don't feel really confident with the offense heading into the 2008 season with a highly suspect passing game.

1. I don't think this offensive line is a road grading line. It's a good line, to be sure. Kraig Urbik is a terrific player, Gabe Carimi has star potential at left tackle, and the rest of the returnees are seasoned. But - and you can argue with me - I think the UW offensive lines of recent seasons have been somewhat overrated. They're good, but they're riding the reputation of the damn good blockers of a decade ago. This line doesn't have an Aaron Gibson or Bill Ferrario who's going to open huge holes.

So while I like our backs, and think each one of them brings some valuable attributes to the table, I still don't think the running game will be dominant enough to carry the offense by itself.

2. With each passing day I'm more bearish about our current group of wideouts. There's a lot of talent there - Kyle Jefferson especially, but several other guys as well - but something's missing. Henry Mason is missing. He was the constant with all of those NFL-caliber receivers we sent to the next level over the past decade. Jefferson's production tailed off at the end of last season when he was asked to carry a bigger load, David Gilreath is only like Brandon Williams in his return ability right now, and the rest of the guys have basically done nothing.

Two years ago, Luke Swan and Paul Hubbard had basically done nothing, but they had a three-year starter at quarterback and Mason coaching them.

3. Because of this, Travis Beckum is going to get more attention than ever. He's damn good, but if opposing defenses can get by with single coverage on the wideouts, they can bracket Beckum with a linebacker and safety and limit what he can do.

4. For all my recent optimism about the defense, it still has the chance to be really bad this season. As such, there's a good chance the Badgers will be playing from behind, which of course limits what you can do in the run game and puts more pressure on the quarterback to make plays in the passing game.

Who knows, maybe tomorrow I'll wake up and think Allan Evridge is the second coming of Jim Zorn, but right now I'm pessimistic.