The Draft

One of the best things about our vacation was that I got to read three books. Three books! That used to be an average week for me; now it's an average year.

The first was The Draft by Pete Williams, an excellent behind-the-scenes look at the NFL draft.

What made it good was his focus on the agent-selection and Combine training prospective draftees go through. Especially the agents. Guys like Leigh Steinberg and Drew Rosenhaus get all the pub, but there are hundreds of other guys who work their butts off recruiting prospective clients. Sometimes they spend money sending them to training, but the kids fall in the draft and the agents' cut of the signing bonuses is smaller than their initial outlay.

Anttaj Hawthorne is a focal point of the book, as he, his uncle, and a family lawyer go through the agent selection process. The book brought back the painful memory of Hawthorne (and Jonathan Clinkscale) testing positive for marijuana leading up to the draft, sending Taj's stock plummeting. He is not happy with the advice his agent gave him; if you'll recall, Northwestern's Luis Castillo had a positive drug test but an aggressive repentance campaign helped him land in the first round.

Plenty of other Badgers are mentioned in the book, including Erasmus James, who the Vikings picked in the first round that year. For instance, according to the two NFL scouting services, BLESTO and National Football Scouting, Inc., ranked the following Badgers among their senior classmates before the 2004 season:

Anthony Davis, ninth and sixth among running backs (went in the seventh round to Indianapolis)
Morgan Davis, seventh among offensive tackles (ahead of eventual first round pick Jammal Brown)
Dan Buenning, sixth and seventh among guards (went in the fourth round to Tampa Bay)
Clinkscale, ninth among guards
Hawthorne, second and fifth among defensive tackles (went in the sixth round to Oakland)
Jason Jefferson, ninth and seventh among defensive tackles (went in sixth round to New Orleans)

Interestingly, James and Scott Starks (a third rounder to Jacksonville) were not rated at their positions.

That 2004 team had some talent on it, too bad shaky quarterback play and injuries at running back hurt them so much in the last three games.

Anyway, good book, especially interesting because I read it in the days leading up to this year's draft.

Top Badger running backs of all-time

In the wake of P.J. Hill's NFL declaration, Mike Lucas ranked his top five Badger running backs of all-time. For whatever reason, I can't find the story on BadgerBeat.com now, but I know that Ron Dayne and Alan Ameche were his top two. That's where I'll start my top 15 list.

1. Ron Dayne
Who else?

2. Alan Ameche
You win a Heisman, you're at the top of this list.

3. Brian Calhoun
Quality over quantity. His 2005 was the most well-rounded season by a Badger offensive player, ever.

4. Brent Moss
Many would pick Billy Marek over Moss, but Moss led the Badgers' current resurgence. He was so good on that stretch play. Had a pretty damn good line in front of him, too. Did sharing carries with another great back help or hurt him?

5. Billy Marek
Did it for some bad teams, but never lifted them beyond that.

6. Pat Harder
"Hit 'em Again" Harder.

7. Rufus Ferguson
The Roadrunner.

8. Alan Thompson
Thompson-Ferguson-Marek was a pretty damn good back-to-back-to-back for some pretty damn bad teams.

9. Terrell Fletcher
May have been better than Moss, as he showed in late '94 after Moss was kicked off the team. Lasted a long time in the NFL.

10. Michael Bennett
That speed ...

11. Anthony Davis
Injuries limited his last two years, but he was electrifying.

12. P.J. Hill
Better than many fans gave him credit for.

13. Elroy Hirsch
Thing is, Crazylegs didn't have eye-popping numbers in college, just a couple incredible games on a balance team. Probably better at Michigan and in the pros.

14. Larry Emery

15. Marvin Artley

This list probably excludes some worthy guys from the very early days of Wisconsin football, but it's so tough to compare those guys with the others.

What does your list look like? Even just a top five or 10?

How about a 100-yard rusher?

You want to hear something disturbing? The Badgers haven't had a 100-yard rushing game from a running back since P.J. Hill went for 112 against Fresno State. John Clay has come close the last two weeks with 89 and 88 yards, but come on. This is Wisconsin football for Pete's sake! That's five games, five loooooooong games of watching a rushing attack bordering on impotence.

How's this for a misleading statistic: Wisconsin ranks 22nd in the nation in rushing. The 404 yards against Akron probably helped, no?

Odds are against us having a 1,000-yard rusher this season. That used to be one of my favorite traditions, until it was shattered by Anthony Davis's fragility. Brian Calhoun got the ball rolling again and P.J. kept it going, but again, injuries to backs combined with injuries on the offensive line make it tough sledding. (Granted, P.J. does need only 387 yards to reach 1,000, but his injuries and Clay's emergence conspire against him, as does the fact that a bowl game is inexplicably not a given.)

Conversely, Javon Ringer is averaging 152.6 yards per game, on 33 carries per game. Those are Ron Dayne numbers for a relatively little guy!

My thinking is that, like Shonn Greene for Iowa a couple weeks ago, Ringer's going to get his. Last week's defensive performance against Illinois was impressive, but as has been pointed out, our defense is better suited to play the Spread than power offenses nowadays.

Hopefully we can make some game-changing plays in their passing game. Brian Hoyer seems like a decent quarterback, albeit one who probably isn't going to beat you by himself. The receivers seem pedestrian.

In order to pull this one out, I think Hoyer has to turn the ball over once or twice, we have to hold Ringer to about his average, and Dustin Sherer has to take care of the ball and make one or two plays.

Oh, and a 100-yard rusher would be nice. As for a score? Drum roll please for Bob Bummer:

Michigan State 24, Wisconsin 16

The Lance Smith situation

It's been a couple weeks now, but it seems like Lance Smith is off the team. Again. I won't go into details about that situation, but in a nutshell, it's sad that a kid given a chance to escape a tough lot in life through athletics has messed up that opportunity.

From a strictly roster management standpoint, my initial thought was this:

Four good running backs seemed like too many. Three good running backs seems like not enough.

Anyone else agree with me?

The 2004 situation where Anthony Davis and Booker Stanley and Dwayne Smith all went down, leaving Matt Bernstein to start at tailback in a huge game at Iowa, reminds me of this. With P.J. Hill being injury prone (like Davis), Zach Brown being sort of a plugger (like Stanley and Smith), and John Clay being young and tall, it's not inconceivable that all three could be too nicked up to play at some point. Leaving ... Bill Rentmeester, Chris Pressley, or Erik Smith to play tailback?

Sure, call me Bob Bummer, but it's happened before and it could happen again. I'd much rather manage one talented back who can't get enough playing time than deal with a lack of talented backs.

Anthony Davis, eh?

Can you believe that in over 300 posts on a blog called Badgercentric there has not been one mention yet of Anthony Davis? The Anthony Davis who is Wisconsin's second all-time leading rusher, with 4,676 yards and 42 touchdowns? Who was just incredible his first two seasons, before injuries derailed his college career?

Well, here's the first. Was reading a pretty good Mike Lucas story today on Tyler Donovan's emotions during the NFL Draft, and what his future in the CFL looks like. It's funny, because several times during the draft Saturday I made a remark to Polzin like "Hey Jimmy, the Ravens just took Donovan, time to get to work." Interesting to see that NFL teams actually were talking to Tyler, although it would probably have just been for tryouts.

Anyway, back to Davis. According to Lucas's story, Davis played the last couple years for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats before being traded to the Toronto Argonauts in December. Unfortunately, the Argos' website indicates AD was released three weeks ago.

Davis was on my mind last fall when we were debating here how the Badgers' current running back depth chart should shape up. Some people indicated that they wouldn't be disappointed if P.J. Hill moved on, since Zach Brown, Lance Smith and John Clay could fill in just fine. I disagree. When you find a superstar back - like Davis was his first two seasons - the dropoff to guys who are just pretty good can change a season.

When Davis got hurt in 2003 and 2004, Badger fans probably thought it would be no big deal since Dwayne Smith and Booker Stanley were waiting in the wings. They proved capable, but the offense bogged down at times. It wasn't until Brian Calhoun came in the next season that the offense again had a dynamic threat out of the backfield, and that side of the ball was explosive for the Badgers.

My point is, when you have a guy who's a true game-changer right off the bat, you ride him as long as he can, because the guys behind him might not necessarily be better.