Receiving little help

We've talked much lately about the Badgers' mediocre passing attack. In fairness to Allan Evridge, his best receiver, Travis Beckum, has played only 2-1/4 games because of injury this year, and his second-best receiver, Garrett Graham, has missed the first two Big Ten games.

The problem here is not just the injuries, but the fact that beyond our two superlative tight ends, we have little consistency at the wide receiver position. We have plenty of promising young players who have shown signs of becoming playmakers, but so far, none of them has progressed into a producer along the lines of Luke Swan, Brandon Williams, or any of them many other above-average wide receivers we've had.

Look at the depth chart. All five wide receivers listed on the two deep are sophomores (David Gilreath, Daven Jones, Kyle Jefferson, Isaac Anderson) or freshmen (Nick Toon). Maurice Moore also factors in, depending on his health. It's not a stretch to think that at least two of these guys will become 40-catch receivers at some point in their career, maybe even average 15 yards per catch. But right now they're either too small (Gilreath, Anderson, Moore), too skinny (Jefferson) or need to work on their hands (Toon, albeit only going on the TD drop at Michigan).

Plenty of recruiting misses, in addition to a lack of signees at the position, have led to this overreliance on youth.

In the class of 2004, which would be redshirt seniors this year, our only wide receiver recruits were Marcus Randle El and Jarvis Minton, and Randle El wasn't definitely going to play wideout. Obviously neither one of these guys panned out, although Randle El was great at running the fake end around.

In the otherwise very productive class of 2005, which would be true seniors or redshirt juniors this year, our wide receiver recruits were Jarmal Ruffin and Elijah Theus.

There's also the matter of the wide receivers' coach. For so long Henry Mason tutored the wideouts, and drew wide praise for his coaching and his recruiting. DelVaughn Alexander has replaced Mason during the latter's recuperation from injury, and while I don't know enough about coaching receivers to question Alexander's methods -- how many different drills can there be to help guys work on their hands? -- it makes you appreciate even more Mason's influence on the Badger passing game over the years.

So we have is a corps of receivers who would have been better served playing complementary roles this early in their careers, like Jefferson did so well early last year. Were Beckum and Graham healthy, that is where they would likely still be. Since the tight ends' health is going to be touch and go all year, our pups need to grow up in a hurry.

UW-Ohio State postgame thoughts

The better team won. Even though Ohio State is not up to the standard of recent top-ranked teams, they looked good today, mainly in the fourth quarter. Here's why they won:

-They didn't beat themselves. How many blocking-related penalties did we have today, especially on kick returns, 20? How many fumbles? Poor passes? Ohio State didn't do that.

But mainly ...

-The Buckeyes' lines completely dominated play. From my vantage point, our skill position players are every bit as good as theirs, if not better, especially if PJ and Swan are healthy and play. Wells will get a lot of pub, but he wasn't touched on his touchdown runs, any one of our backs could have converted those opportunities. Their D-line had 10 sacks, although Donovan didn't help things by immediately tucking the ball at the end of his drop and making a beeline for the nearest defender.

Other thoughts:

-Have you ever seen Bielema as fired up as he was after that chop block call on Randle-El? I liked it, seemed like a bad call but couldn't tell for sure. Even if it was bad call, why do we still play Randle-El? All he seems to do is generate negative plays.

-Great pass and catch by Donovan and Beckum on the play immediately following what could have been a crushing penalty.

-Glad to see Pressley still involved in the offense, can't remember seeing him catch a pass before.

-Too many short fields for the Ohio State offense.

-Donovan still seems to be struggling progressing beyond his primary read. Case in point was a third quarter play in which he stuck on Beckum all the way and threw incomplete, even though Travis was tightly covered and Hubbard was more open five yards further downfield.

-Boeckman continued to hurt us with his legs, which just killed me.

-Did Vanden Heuvel's absence (Bscherer subbing) hurt us? I'm guessing EVH would have struggled to contain OSU's pass rush just as much. The Buckeyes have a scary young defensive line.

-Didn't like the second fake punt call, even if it might have worked, but the way they were moving the ball at that point it was probably worth a shot.

-Great catch by Robiskie, although Boeckman's pass probably wasn't intended for him. Those are the kind of breaks great teams make for themselves.

-Brown played pretty well today against a stingy defense. I think he'll be a four-year backup, next two years to PJ and/or Smith, after that to Clay or someone else, but he'll be a factor the whole time, like and Eddie Faulkner or Dwayne Smith.

-Hubbard really contributed today too.

-Brian Hartline = Curt Schroeder. The guy was hurt after every play he was involved in.

-Bielema just said it doesn't look good for EVH, Langford and Chapman; Chapman was down a couple times. We really need him against Michigan.

-Let's appreciate Beckum while he's still here - what a big-time athlete and gamer. He was the most talented guy on the field today - 140 yard and a touchdown. Hopefully he feels he needs to put on weight or work on his blocking and doesn't go pro after this season.

A little bit disappointed because we were in position to win but got beaten in the area the program is built upon - playing physical football. Still think we've got a great chance to pull an upset at home next week.