Michael Bennett is fast

In another hit from the Charlie Woke Up Really Early collection, the other morning we watched the replay of the Wisconsin-Oregon game from 2000.

Here's the lead from the AP story:

Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez is staggering the suspensions just right.

Sure seemed like it, didn't it? After we pulled this one out, I was pretty sure the Shoe Box thing wouldn't stand in the way of us having a big season. Wrong-o.

Watching this game was a painful reminder of just how much talent that team had, and how they managed to lose four games.

Even without Chris Chambers, Mike Echols, and Nick Davis -- all future NFL players who sat out that game -- we still beat a very good non-conference opponent.

The way he ran the ball that day, it seemed like Michael Bennett could have carried the Badgers to national championship contention all by himself. It's not a stretch to say that no one has run faster in a Wisconsin uniform than Bennett did that day. Of course, previous post subject B.J. Tucker finished second to Bennett in the 100 at the Big Ten track tournament, but he was repeatedly burned by Joey Harrington that day while replacing Echols.

But look at who else played that day. Jamar Fletcher had three picks. Brooks Bollinger ran for the last touchdown. Lee Evans averaged 19 yards per catch.

And that doesn't even include guys like Al Johnson, Casey Rabach, Ross Kolodziej, Wendell Bryant, Jason Doering, and Nick Greisen. Kind of makes you appreciate the recruiting efforts in the years immediately following the first Rose Bowl, which didn't seem that great at the time but turned out to be pretty damn good.

B.J. Tucker sighting

Got a nice email from Brian Hermann the other day, bringing up a name from the not-so-distant Badger past. Here's the story:

I thought I'd write and tell you about a B.J. Tucker sighting…in British Columbia of all places.

Long story short, a colleague of mine in Montreal (named Benoit) is a huge football nut ... played college ball, coached at McGill University for a while and now coaches middle-school aged kids on the side. He tries to get into as many training camps as he can and he found a way to get all access at the BC Lions training camp near Vancouver.

Last week he got all access to all of the practices, film sessions, held clipboards, did some "go for" stuff and got to call out plays during practices. Anyway, B.J. Tucker is new to the team (after not catching on with Dallas and the Niners) and is fighting for a nickel back spot.

Benoit ran into him in the food line and yelled out "Hey Bucky!" and BJ turned and said something like "Aw yeah, Wisconsin all the way." So Benoit talked with him for a while and told him all about his one magical experience at Camp Randall when we beat Michigan in 2007. It sounded like he was excited to talk about UW football for a bit.

Thanks for the story, Brian!

In finding a link for this post, I discovered three things:

a. B.J.'s name Baigeh Joe.
b. He's from Sierra Leone.
c. He had a better senior season than I remembered -- five picks, including one returned for a touchdown, to go along with a fumble recovery and forced fumble.