Coz and Brew

Looks like Timmy Brewster has hired Kevin Cosgrove to be his new defensive coordinator. Interesting choice, especially making him co-coordinator with former UW secondary coach Ron Lee. A veteran-newcomer pairing, similar to our Hankwitz-Doeren pairing of a couple years back.

Also interesting because his last stint as a coordinator, with Bill Callahan at Nebraska, was an unmitigated disaster. The way the Cornhuskers were giving up points that last year under Coz, the finals looked like basketball scores, not football. From what I can gather, Gopher fans aren't too excited about the hire, either.

But Coz did a nice job at UW, although his departure and Bret Bielema's arrival was a necessary jumpstart to the defense. Coz is also an ace St. Louis recruiter, which might hurt us there, just as we were starting to re-restablish ourselves there with the likes of Montee Ball.

My guess is he lasts no more than two years in Minneapolis.

Good for Lee, nice to see a minority getting a chance to make a name for himself as a coordinator and audition for head jobs.

1998 vs. 2006: Which was the better defense?

Raised this question in last week's bye week stat marathon, but wanted to take a closer look. Before delving back into the stats, let's consider some other variables first:

Coordinator: Kevin Cosgrove (1998) vs. Mike Hankwitz and Dave Doeren (2006). Not sure quite how to call this one. By this point in Barry Alvarez's tenure, he had probably moved away from much micromanaging of the defense and become the chief delegator. So this was likely Coz's show. But the '06 team was Bret Bielema's first, and after a great start as defensive coordinator in 2004, the defense was awful in 2005, and he was probably eager to show people Barry didn't make a bad choice. I'm going to go with Coz on this one. Edge: 1998

Defensive line: Tom Burke/Ross Kolodziej/Eric Mahlik/John Favret (1998) vs. Joe Monty/Jason Chapman/Nick Hayden/Matt Shaughnessy. Burke had one of the best seasons a UW defensive lineman has ever had (22 sacks!), Kolodziej played in the NFL, Favret was in his second year of a four-year starting career, and Mahlik was underrated. Monty was a plugger, Hayden regressed in his junior season, and Shaughnessy was solid if not spectacular. Edge: 1998

Linebackers: Bob Adamov/Donnel Thompson/Chris Ghidorzi (1998) vs. DeAndre Levy, Mark Zalewski, Jonathan Casillas. The '98 unit was long on experience and chemistry, the '06 unit was long on speed and big-play ability. Edge: 2006

Secondary: Jamar Fletcher/Mike Echols/Jason Doering/Leonard Taylor (1998) vs. Allen Langford/Jack Ikegwuonu/Joe Stellmacher/Roderick Rogers (2006). I like the '98 corners better, even if they were freshmen, and the '06 safeties better. Edge: Even

Schedule difficulty: The 1998 team held a high-powered Purdue team to 24 points in that classic night game when Jump Around was invented, gave up 27 points to Michigan in its only loss, and held just enough (31 points) against UCLA to win the Rose Bowl. No Ohio State on the schedule.

The 2006 team also gave up 27 points in the team's only loss ... at Michigan ... and allowed 24 points at home against Illinois, but missed high-scoring Ohio State. My first inclination is to call this even, but I saw all of the 2006 games, and the Big Ten was pretty bad that year. Holding an Arkansas team with Darren McFadden and Felix Jones, both of whom look like Pro Bowlers, to 14 points is impressive, even if the Hogs' passing game was pathetic. Neither team stoned any dynamite, versatile offenses. Edge: 1998

Rushing yards allowed per game: 1998 - 92.2, 2006 - 114.8. Edge: 1998

Passing yards allowed per game: 2006 - 138.3, 1998 - 200.4 Edge: 2006

First downs allowed per game: 2006 - 13.7, 1998 - 16.0. Edge: 2006

Third down conversion % allowed: 2006 - 28.2%, 1998 - 34.7%. Edge: 2006

Turnovers forced per game: 1998 - 2.8, 2006 - 1.9. Edge: 1998

Points allowed per game: 1998 - 11.9, 2006 - 12.1. Edge: Even

It appears the numbers slightly favor the 2006 defense, but the personnel of the 1998 defense strike me as better, and in my opinion they did it against better competition. So I'm going to give the slight edge overall to the 1998 defense. What do you think?

If the 2008 defense can even approach these levels, we ought to be in good shape this year.

Badger coaching tree, part 2

Thanks to ajs for commenting on these guys who should definitely be mentioned as prominent parts of the Badger coaching tree. I feel like I was trying too hard to look for long-ago guys and missed these more recent ones.

-Dan McCarney, Barry's old defensive coordinator, had a fairly successful stint as the head at Iowa State. Mac's now the assistant head coach/defensive line coach at South Florida, which we all know had a Cinderella season of sorts.

-John Palermo, now Miami's defensive line coach. It's cool to read his bio and see all the All-Americans he produced while at Wisconsin.

UPDATE - Polzin comment: Just to clarify, Palermo left Miami after the 2006 season and spent last season as the defensive coordinator at Tennessee Tech under Watson Brown (Mack's brother). Palermo has since announced his retirement.

-Ron Lee, our secondary coach for a couple years, moved on to coach cornerbacks at Michigan in 2006, now coaching Minnesota's defensive backs.

-Bernie Wyatt - ajs says he took another job at Iowa after leaving UW in 1996, but I haven't been able to find any evidence of that, and we all know that Google is infallible. Jimmy, you worked with him on your All-Alvarez team, right? What did he do after UW?

UPDATE - Polzin comment: I believe Wyatt was a ``consultant'' at Iowa.

-Todd Orlando, who played linebacker at UW and was a member of the '93 Rose Bowl team, is the defensive coordinator at Connecticut, which had a great season. Dave Heller's JS blog says Orlando is a candidate to be Pittsburgh's new defensive coordinator.

Anyone else?

UPDATE - I somehow forgot Kevin Cosgrove, also shown the door at Nebraska along with Bill Callahan. Doesn't look like he's found a new job yet. Interesting tidbit I found with a story that mentions the new Huskers staff: they had eight de-commits following Cally's departure. Shows you the value of getting your new coach in place at the right time.

Bill Callahan Farewell Tour

Jim Austin emailed this to me earlier this week, with the note: "may be blog-worthy is the Badgers match up with the Huskers in a mid-December bowl."

I'm pretty sure mid-December bowls are reserved for the Minnesotas and Northwesterns of the Big Ten, so I'm going to go ahead and post it now.

The situation in Lincoln is interesting. Apparently Cally has made it known he will not resign before the end of the season - Tom Osborne has to be loving that. Funny thing is, when they fired Frank Solich a few years back to guard against "slipping into mediocrity," I could see where they were coming from and sort of agree. But man, has Nebraska fallen.

And consider Callahan's slide: Super Bowl coach with the Raiders in 2002, fired after the next season, and then almost personally responsible for the steep decline in one of college football's most storied programs.

A litlle while back I jokingly broached the subject of Cally and Cosgrove rejoining the UW staff next year. Won't happen, but what if they were to join Brad Childress, Jim Hueber and friends in the Humpty Dome next year? They could turn Tarvaris Jackson into Mike Samuel 2008, or Brooks Bollinger into Brooks Bollinger 1999. They could bring back Brian White to help Adrian Peterson get better. ;)

Of course, this all assumes Chilly is back next year, which my Vikings fan friends would probably cringe at.