Badger classic: Wisconsin 17, Ohio State 10

Over the summer I recorded the Big Ten Network's re-airing of Wisconsin's 2003 win over Ohio State at Camp Randall, which ended the defending national champions' 19-game winning streak. This being the five-year anniversary of that game, and with a Camp Randall night game against OSU scheduled for October 4, what better time to review that game than now?

-That was a nasty night, weather-wise. It wasn't such a bad day, but as gametime approached things got worse. Up here in Scandinavia, we got the same rain and wind that Madison got, which knocked my satellite reception out moments before the opening kickoff. I was miffed, but the feed came back soon enough.

-I would really like to remember this as the Lee Evans/Matt Schabert Game. The game-winning touchdown pass was a thing of beauty, a perfect route run by our All-American coming off knee surgery, the kid from Ohio who had been shut out to that point. Schabert was coming in off the bench cold, hadn't done much of anything to that point, and threw a perfect pass. Later he picked up a big first down on a naked bootleg. Never to be heard from again ...

-But whenever that game comes to mind, it's as the Robert Reynolds Chokes Sorgi Game. Five years hasn't really made me any less mad about the incident.

First Reynolds chokes Jim Sorgi, and no penalty is called. Then, Reynolds' coaches leave him in the game -- hey, he was their leading tackler that night, can't pull him, right? Then, after committing what was a borderline criminal act, Jim Tressel suspends him ... for one game!

Sure, he apologized afterward, but they were hollow words. With about five minutes to play in that game it looked like Ohio State was going to win, with Reynolds' choke of Sorgi a big reason why.

Not surprisingly, several years later Reynolds was involved in a domestic dispute with his then-wife. According to the AP story, "She said she was afraid because her husband is 6-foot-3 and 247 pounds and has a 'violent past.' She told police this wasn't the first time Reynolds had been violent, although only one report was previously filed with authorities." The Sorgi choking was mentioned at the bottom of the story.

All this self-righteousness from me aside, here's hoping Reynolds has gotten control of his violent side and is leading an honorable life nowadays.

At the time, with Maurice Clarett still a vivid memory, it seemed like Tressel was building a renegade program for the new millennium. The Buckeyes have seemingly cleaned up their act since.

-It's still baffling to me that if Sorgi was hurt so badly he couldn't speak, that if his throat or esophagus or vocal chords were that badly injured, why wasn't he taken to a hospital, or at least to the locker room? Instead he just looked like a sad little boy on the sideline, while Reynolds marched on.

-Ohio State these last 2-3 years is much, much better than they were in 2002-03, national title notwithstanding. It speaks to the overall strength of the rest of the college football world — specifically the SEC — that the Buckeyes have not won a national title with these players.

-OSU's offense in 2003 was very average, as was our defense. The Buckeyes' defense was fierce, though — Will Smith, A.J. Hawk, Will Allen, Chris Gamble. And what about B.J. Sander, the best third round draft pick in Packers history?

-Our guys looked slow wearing white shoes.

-Matt LePay commented in one of the many interviews airing around the broadcast that Barry Alvarez preferred playing teams like Ohio State because they are no frills. I feel exactly the same way — forget the Spread, line up and play football like men. Used to feel the same way about playing Michigan, until they decided to import the same offense Northwestern uses.

-Brandon Williams played really well early, did a nice job finding openings in the defense.

-Booker Stanley and Matt Bernstein were terrific pounding out tough yardage on the ground. That game showed the need for our program to have three capable tailbacks.

-Anttaj Hawthorne played a great game up front, flashing the promise that made him seem like a future NFL player. Alas, it was not to be.

-Spotted a true freshman Joe Thomas wearing #82 in the Jumbo package, funny.

-Still get goosebumps watching the end of a big Badger win like this one, even when the outcome is known ahead of time and I'm watching it on my living room floor by myself. Let's get 'em again this weekend!

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.

Matt Bernstein sighting

Looks like Matt Bernstein is back knocking heads again. Number 45 recently took part in the Giants' minicamp, and held his own.

Apparently he played with Bon Jovi's Arena League team, the Philadelphia Soul, before getting released. Before getting the call from the Giants he was helping out coaching at his old high school.

The odds of Bernie making it with New York are long, given that the Giants are the defending Super Bowl champions; Madison Hedgecock is a decent returning player; and fullbacks continue to diminish in importance in modern NFL offenses.

But Bernie will always have a soft spot in my heart for his performance against Penn State in 2004. That was the day we first fed Will solid food, and the day Bernie fasted before going out and running for more than 100 yards against a good defense.

Badgers on Facebook

My brother and I were talking about Facebook the other day, and he made this not completely untrue statement:

"Dude, when people like you are getting into Facebook, that's when you know it's not cool any more."

Ouch, but I do have a history of coming in past the prime time of cultural phenomena: downloading music, cell phones, online shopping, direct payroll deposit, high-speed Internet at home. We've purchased DVR four years after TiVo became popular, but DirecTV keeps messing up and we haven't gotten it hooked up yet.

So I don't have a great track record as an early adopter, but I'm trying to change that (why does nobody seem to care about all my Twitter messages?). However, among my long-time close friends, only Butch and Toohey have signed up for Facebook, which makes me as cutting edge as all my college-aged cousins and 40-something co-workers.

If/when you decide Facebook is for you, a. Become my friend, b. Sign up for Facebook's best Badger fan community:

http://www.facebook.com/add.php?api_key=c24ac9233116fef04c3e92aee417d3d2&next=?refuid=3097947

The coolest thing about this is the Badger trivia section. With plenty of time to kill over the holidays, I answered every last one as quickly as possible, and ended up in fourth place. Then I took the time to create about 50 questions, which put me in first until the guy I overtook for the lead noticed and created 60 more. Game on, Jeremy David Jones.

Since I found out about this community from my old college friend Vikram Naik, I joined his team and saw where we ranked among other teams. Not high - Toohey is stuck on a goose egg. But I did see who led other "teams" of trivia guessers: Zach Hampton, Justin Ostrowski, Marcus Coleman, Brandon Kelly, Brad Thorson. Looking further at these teams, I found Matt Bernstein, Paul Standring, Joe Monty, Kurt Ware, Darrin Charles, Mike Allen, RJ Morse, Jonathan Clinkscale, Kalvin Barrett, LaMarr Watkins, Andrew Weininger, Mark Gorman, Josh Balts, Ryan Flasch.

There's nothing that remarkable about finding these guys there; after all, they were/are college students, and that's what college students do nowadays. It was just cool to see these names again, as I'd forgotten most of them. Also: didn't see too many all-conference types on there. Is it too much of a hassle for a star college athlete to put himself out there on a social network? I think it makes these kids seem more like regular students.

-On another note, Mike Lucas is reporting that Bob Palcic is leaving UW to be Rick Neuheisel's offensive line coach at UCLA. Bring your guitar and canoe, Bob, Ricky's a real player's coach.

Lucas says Bob Bostad will probably take over, which makes sense. He'll probably do fine - the tight ends are better than ever right now. Bostad was here only two years, but he did a good job replacing Jim Hueber and upholding our reputation for producing top-notch offensive lines. Can't give him too much credit for Joe Thomas, but give him lots of credit for plugging holes created by graduation and injuries.