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.

How did you find Badgercentric?

Badgercentric has been around for about five months now, and it’s a lot of fun to write. If you’re a stats/analysis geek like me, it’s also fun to take a look at who’s coming to your site and why.

Every few days I check out Google Analytics and see what sites are referring people to this blog, and what search engine keywords are doing the trick. Through February 23, 2,293 keywords have brought people here, and it’s fascinating to see them. Many are related to The Office and non-UW items, but I’m going to share my favorite Badger-related search terms for Badgercentric:

#5 punch groin wisconsin minnesota (you wouldn't believe how many there are like this - apparently Minnesota receiver Eric Decker's handiwork on Ike was noticed)
#7 brett valentyn
#13 bo ryan soulja boy (tons of searches similar to this)
#38 erin andrews ice fishing (pretty sure this was all Toohey)
#108 wquinton smith
#151 matt lepay’s call of final play vs. texas
#246 jack ikegwuonu nuts
#311 tim brewster feud with bret bielema
#315 university of wisconsin band nice clipboard rex (from the Packers-Bears game at Lambeau, rex is Rex Grossman)
#318 who owns the metrodome (we do)
#330 “aaron henry” trash bielema
#411 “jenna fischer” rentmeester
#426 “mark tauscher” vegas (what in the world could they have been looking for?)
#480 “scott burch” penn state (did Froehlich finally discover the Internet?)
#500 “tom crean” tan (a Journal Sentinel story last week called him “Tom Cream”)
#554 6’3 diamond taylor
#563 al toon wisconsin badgers jersey number
#579 andy crooks facebook
#583 anti uw shirts
#589 arrogant michigan
#604 badger baggo, #630 badger cornhole game
#720 bielema bad goatee (when did he have a goatee?)
#723 bielema mad youtube
#794 bret bielema passed out in bathroom (where did Google get that from this blog?)
#840 can curt phillips be a starter freshman year?
#859 chris chambers oshkosh north high school (huh?)
#925 culmer st. jean highlights
#996 doug gottlieb hates wisconsin, #1124 gottlieb why do you hate wisconsin?
#1035 erick olson badger football
#1072 football jansen wisconsin

#1100 gangster toohey (his secret life!)

#1167 how many times has joe krabbenhoft had stitches?
#1172 i love appalachian state t shirt wisconsin
#1215 jason bohannon drinking game
#1499 mock draft, tyler donovan
#1637 picture of bill callahan farewell tour
#1854 swan family website fennimore hamstring
#1921 tight end schwalbach (fill in your own punchline)
#2063 what is mike kelley former uw basketball player doing now?
#2279 matt schwalbach casino (search was from Pompano Beach, Fla. – did Megan hire a private investigator to look into our Vegas trip?)

UW football and basketball books

The holiday break gave me a chance to read two other Wisconsin sports books by UW alum Dave Anderson. The books cover the Badgers' football and basketball history.

While these books will help fill out the UW section of my bookshelf, I can't in good faith recommend buying them - save the combined $30. Instead, buy The World Without Us (read it over Thanksgiving, still getting my thoughts together for a review), and download the history sections of the media guides posted at uwbadgers.com. Because that's all these books really are: a collection of team, stadium, and athlete pictures from the UW archives accompanied by redundant captions that often contain errors. There's no new analysis or historical context.

The first thing I said to Jana about them was "I can't believe this guy got paid to put these books together," and then kicked myself for not getting there first. In fairness, Anderson probably didn't set out to write a Halbertsam-esaue tome about his alma mater's athletics, and my expectations shouldn't have been to receive anything along those lines. Also, having been exposed to so many media guides over the years, I probably know more of this historical stuff than the average fan.

Anderson does make the good point that while the last 15 years or so have undeniably been a Golden Era in UW athletics, it wasn't always as bad as the preceding couple decades. In fact, UW athletics in the first three or four decades of the 20th century were pretty damn good, with plenty of conference titles, All-Americans, and even a few national titles. Then we hit a 50-year dry spell with a good season here and there.

What happened? Good question, and one that's not answered in these books. My thought is that the coaches of the times did not adapt quickly enough to changes in strategy and recruiting; the radical/turbulent nature of Madison during the '60s and '70s scared off many kids who weren't up for that kind of college experience; and a bad football team drags down everything else. Without the '93 Rose Bowl, does the Kohl Center get built?

Also took the time to read Game Day: Wisconsin Football by Athlon Sports. A much better book, it had lots of color photos and in-depth sections on players, coaches, games, rivalries, etc. If you're a true Badgers fan, you need to learn about Pat O'Dea, Pat Harder, Dave Schreiner, Crazylegs Hirsch, Alan Ameche, the Hard Rocks defense, Dan Lanphear, Ron Vander Kelen, Pat Richter the athlete, Dennis Lick, Ray Snell, Mike Webster, Tim Krumrie, Matt Vanden Boom, Al Toon, Ivy Williamson, Harry Stuhldreher, Milt Bruhn, Dave McClain, and the other men who made Badger football great in previous generations.

I recommend taking the time to learn UW athletics history. It does, in fact, predate Barry Alvarez and Dick Bennett.

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.