Breakfast at Tiffany's

Random memory from the Minnesota game ...

Sometime during a timeout in the second half, while the game was still very much in doubt, the scoreboard played a number of Badgers singing karaoke.

It was funny. Elijah Hodge's bit was good, and Aaron Henry sang a country song. But the bit that got everyone going was lineman Kenny Jones' rendition of Breakfast at Tiffany's by Deep Blue Something.

First of all -- what is any guy doing singing that song? And singing it seemingly without irony? And singing it pretty well?

Second of all -- at the end of the bit, the in-stadium cameras caught Jones on the sideline, and everyone around him was giggling, as were many of us in the crowd. Because it was funny.

But if you're a coach, or someone who was actually playing in the game, wouldn't the timing of this funny video seem in appropriate? I mean, you're locked in a battle against your bitter enemy, with players trying to get rest from 2-1/2 hours of a physical game, and coaches trying to figure out the next schematic move. All the while everyone's laughing at your guys, most of whom aren't playing.

I'm all for the kids having fun, and think this karaoke thing is great. But how about playing it in the first quarter, when the mood is still light? Or how about I just get less sensitive about these things?

Recapping the stats

Way back on September 22, I wrote this post:

Now that I've numbed you all to sleep with four days of numbers — hey, wake up! — I'm going to tie it all up with the statistical thresholds I believe the Badgers need to hit for 2008 to be a great season.

OFFENSE
50 rushing attempts per game
245 rushing yards per game (4.9 yards per carry)
47% third-down conversion percentage
1.2 turnovers per game
30 points per game

DEFENSE
35 rushing attempts per game
120 rushing yards per game (3.4 yards per carry)
215 passing yards per game
37% third-down allowance percentage
2.5 turnovers per game
16 points per game

If time permits, I'll compare each week's performance to these standards, and hopefully keep a running total on how we're doing. Of course, if we lose three of our next four, I'll start writing about recruiting and whether Dustin Sherer or Curt Phillips will be starting at quarterback in 2009.

We all know what happened -- lost the next four, talking about Dustin Sherer replacing Allan Evridge, and whether or not Curt Phillips can take the job next season. Sigh.

But how did the Badgers do in these stat categories? Let's see how it stacks up against my prescription for success.

OFFENSE
44 rushing attempts per game - low
212 rushing yards per game (4.8 yards per carry) - low
39% third-down conversion percentage - low
2.25 turnovers per game - high -- double!
28.7 points per game - close

DEFENSE
34.3 rushing attempts per game - close
133.2 rushing yards per game (3.9 yards per carry) - high
189.1 passing yards per game - low
38% third-down allowance percentage - close
1.8 turnovers per game - low
25.2 points per game - way high

So, as if it wasn't going to be painfully obvious, the Badgers fell short of greatness in just about every key statistical category this season. Turnovers were the biggest problem -- 16 lost fumbles, 25 overall!

What we ended up with was a slightly-better-than-average team with no wins over good teams. Here's hoping for more next year.

Badgers are Champs, after all

So the bowl destination is ... Florida. Again. It beats Christmas in Madison, but I was sort of hoping for Pasadena or New Orleans or Phoenix or Miami. Oh well.

The Champs Sports Bowl it is, set for December 27 against Florida State. My thoughts:

-Love the opponent. Florida State is a brand name in college football, and was arguably the top program of the 1990s. As a kid I was enamored with their uniforms, the mascot, the Tomahawk Chop that Braves fans stole from FSU fans.

What I also love is that they are eminently beatable nowadays. The Seminoles lately have been a shadow of what they were in the '90s, for a variety of reasons. A decline in offensive coaching. The resurgence of in-state rivals Florida and Miami. Off-the-field problems.

Can't say I paid close attention to this year's team, but looking at their results their four losses are respectable: Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Boston College, and Florida.

Their quarterback, Christian Ponder, has thrown more interceptions than touchdowns and has been sacked 17 times, but has run for more than 400 yards. Antone Smith, their leading rusher, is a well-regarded running back. Wide receivers Greg Carr and Preston Parker are also highly thought of, even if neither has more than 40 catches or 500 yards receiving.

-I want to learn more about this Myron Rolle kid. If you've been paying attention, he's the guy who recently was named a Rhodes Scholar, interviewing for it on the day of a game, then flying in to join the team while the game was underway. Great story.

When my brother, dad, and I were hearing about this a couple weeks ago, our shared reaction was "He was a potential Rhodes Scholar and he went to ... Florida State?" Surely Stanford, Northwestern, Vanderbilt could have challenged him more academically. Whatever, good for FSU and good for Rolle.

-Rolle and his teammates had the 13th-best defense in the country this year, yardage-wise. That D is going to be a tough test for the Badger offense, lot of athletes and well-coached.

-As much as Orlando is starting to seem repetitive, and the trip might be a tough sell to Badger fans, going to Florida for the fifth straight year is a good thing. It's a state that Bret Bielema has made a recruiting priority, and we're doing pretty well there lately. Zach Brown. Aaron Henry. Jae McFadden. Elijah Hodge. Eriks Briedis. Anthony Mains. Kevin Claxton. Antonio Fenelus. Xavier Harris. Josh Nettles. Recruits David Gilbert and Conor O'Neill. (Florida State was also reportedly in the mix for O'Neill.)

Florida is an important state for us, and the more we're there, the better. Even if our fans aren't showing up in the usual numbers, you can bet that the family and friends of all those guys above will be in Orlando, and might even bring along some other promising young athletes.

-Even though this trip will be a tough sell, I'm hoping the opponent will be attractive enough to entice Badger fans to make the trip. (Disclosure: I won't be going.)

-This is our seventh straight bowl appearance, the second-longest in the Big Ten behind Ohio State. That's nice.

-Finally, this will be a battle of maligned coaches with the the initials B.B. If we think what Bielema has been going through this year is tough, imagine what it's been like for Bobby Bowden. He's presided over the slow decline of his program while enduring constant talk that he's too old, the game has passed him by. Sort of like Joe Paterno up in our conference.

My take on it is that Bowden really isn't that far off from having his program great again. He still hasn't recovered from Mark Richt leaving for Georgia (or too an extent from Chuck D'Amato leaving for North Carolina State), and putting his boy in charge of the offense didn't go that well. The other part of the downfall, off-field troubles, probably come from taking chances on kids of questionable character in an attempt to keep up with Florida and Miami. Or a run of bad luck. Iron those two things out and Florida State is not far from being golden again.

Hopefully it doesn't start with a win over Wisconsin.

Draft prospects

My Sporting News this week had a list of the top 99 prospects in the 2009 NFL Draft, including underclassmen, and three Badgers were listed.

-Travis Beckum was #30.

-Kraig Urbik was #63.

-P.J. Hill was #76.

The last one was surprising. Is anyone really thinking about P.J. coming out early? He's ranked ahead of backs like Ian Johnson of Boise State and Javon Ringer.

Beckum appears to be the second-ranked tight end, after Oklahoma State's Brandon Pettigrew. Urbik appears to be the second-rankid guard, after Oklahoma's Duke Robinson.

Aw nuts

Since tonight's game against Marquette was on ESPNU, and I sure as hell wasn't going to travel around Central Wisconsin looking for a bar that had it on, Jana and I took advantage of my parents' generosity watching the boys to go Christmas shopping and enjoy a birthday dinner a few days early.

As we're being seated at the Charcoal Grill in Plover, in which each booth has a framed photo or photo collage pertaining to state sports, I notice that my wife and I are being seated in the Dwyane Wade booth.

It was an omen.

So I didn't listen to or watch the game, glad I didn't. Instead of gnashing my teeth as the lads blew a chance at a really nice win, I was able to spend some quality alone time with Jana, which was needed after spending more than five minutes in Wal-Mart.

Checking the box score:

-When's the last time we had 26 fouls in a game? They shot 10 more free throws and made seven more than we did. Unusual.

-Landry only had five points. We're not going to beat many good teams with our best player scoring five points.

-James, Matthews, and McNeal combined to go 18-for-49. 37% for their big three and we lose.

-On the plus side, Nankivil had 11 and Rob Wilson had seven, that's encouraging.

How did I do?

I'm in a reflective mood. Let's look back and see how I did in my Friday game predictions this year.

Wisconsin 36, Akron 17
Actual: Wisconsin 38, Akron 17

Wisconsin 31, Marshall 20
Actual: Wisconsin 51, Marshall 14

Fresno State 26, Wisconsin 23
Actual: Wisconsin 13, Fresno State 10

Wisconsin 27, Michigan 13
Actual: Michigan 27, Wisconsin 25

Ohio State 21, Wisconsin 17
Actual: Ohio State 20, Wisconsin 17

Penn State 33, Wisconsin 20
Actual: Penn State 48, Wisconsin 7

Wisconsin 16, Iowa 14
Actual: Iowa 38, Wisconsin 16

Illinois 46, Wisconsin 27
Actual: Wisconsin 27, Illinois 17

Michigan State 24, Wisconsin 16
Actual: Michigan State 25, Wisconsin 24

Wisconsin 27, Indiana 17
Actual: Wisconsin 55, Indiana 20

Wisconsin 20, Minnesota 16
Actual: Wisconsin 35, Minnesota 32

Wisconsin 41, Cal Poly 36
Actual: Wisconsin 36, Cal Poly 35

That makes me 8-4 on the season, not too shabby. Damn close on the Akron and Ohio State scores, as well as the Cal Poly and Michigan State point totals. I'm sure you'll all be waiting to see how I feel about Nebraska, Kansas, Florida State or Miami before making your bowl game bets.

Leonard Taylor

The other day Schwalbach emailed me about this Leonard Taylor story, it was the first I'd heard of it. Schwib remarked that he remembered LT from our dorm days, and I did too. He used to hang around the female soccer players who lived on our second floor (good move), and always seemed to be as much like a regular student as a scholarship football player can be. Nice guy.

He even ended up being a contributor on a Rose Bowl championship team, which frankly surprised me, as none of the Badgers' defensive backs during my time on campus seemed that great.

Aside from the obvious hopes that Leonard get the help he needs, and the bizarre nature of Maria Sharapova's involvement in it, this is what struck me:

Are Taylor's rants wholly the result of his schizophrenia? Frustration over not being paid for this TV job? Or did Barry Alvarez and his coaching staff somehow plant the seeds for this with their treatment of Taylor and his teammates over the years?

The answer is likely almost all #1. There have been thousands of demanding coaches at a variety of levels over the years, yet very rarely if at all do you hear about anything like this. But isn't that in itself surprising? Mental health problems afflict more people than ever before (or are at least being acknowledged with greater regularity than ever before), and you would think that some current or former athletes who played for abusive or borderline abusive coaches have had these tendencies, yet there haven't been many stories like this.

This isn't to accuse Barry and his staff of abusive behavior. And it does not imply that demanding coaches deserve death threats from former players.

Get better soon, Leonard, don't fight what can make you better.

Big Ten pride?

Something strange happened tonight while I was watching the Ohio State-Miami game during the Big Ten-ACC Challenge.

Miami's excellent guard Jack McClinton was being guarded closely by Ohio State's Anthony Crater, and passed the ball away. After doing so, he took a swing at Crater, grazing his face with his fingers, and apparently nicking Crater's eyes.

While feeding Charlie, I instinctively yelled at the TV "That's a technical! Toss him!"

This is exactly what happened, as the refs made the correct judgment. This probably gave Ohio State the win. The Bucks were down 12 at the time and McClinton was making everything he threw up, but OSU rallied to win by five.

But what was that emotion? Me getting worked up along with Thad Matta?

Later, after Will and I had gone to watch the local high school team, I was feeding Charlie again during the Virgina-Minnesota game. When Blake Hoffarber made a 3-pointer, I found myself mouthing "Yeah!" silently.

To use Will's new favorite saying: "What the?"

I haven't pulled for Ohio State or Minnesota to win at anything in years.

I suppose it's just that I'm sick of the Big Ten losing this challenge every single year. It's not like it's been some sort of fluke or conspiracy, the ACC has had the better teams every year, or, better put, has had less horrible teams than the Big Ten every year.

With our big leadoff win over Virginia Tech I was thinking maybe it would kick off a run and the Big Ten would win this thing for once and silence the critics. Minnesota and Ohio State held up their end of the bargain, but Iowa and Illinois lost to thoroughly mediocre opponents, and Purdue's best team in years was crushed at home by Duke, which never loses in this thing. All tied at 3, first conference to 5 wins.

Tomorrow looks bleak. There's no way Indiana beats Wake Forest, and almost no way Michigan State beats North Carolina. That leaves Michigan and Maryland, Penn State and Georgia Tech, and Northwestern and Florida State. Yeesh.

Pretty sure the Big Ten has won its last game in the "rivalry" for this year.

UW-Virginia Tech thoughts

Wow, great win. Believe me or not, I truly thought we were going to score on that last possession of regulation, liked the ball in Pop's hands in a helter-skelter setting. Didn't see that particular shot coming, though. I kept watching the replay over and over to see if his feet touched ground before the shot was off, but it was too close to call that.

This is one of those wins that should look really good on our resume come March, because that's a nice team we beat -- in an extremely hostile environment. The Badgers had a number of chances to fold late, but never yielded the lead. Impressive, should go a long way toward building this team's confidence, like the Texas game last year.

-When's the last time we shot 3-pointers that well? Once J-Bo got it going in the second half, there wasn't anyone out there who that was a bad shot for. Coincidentally, that was a great time for Jason to get his act together, hopefully it continues.

-Conversely, that was about as poorly as we've defended the 3-pointer in awhile. Give all the credit in the world to A.D. Vassallo, he was amazing and I thought he'd never miss. But we didn't do a great job of forcing him to catch the ball in uncomfortable spots.

-In a similar vein, Marcus Landry's defense stuck out to me as a real weak spot tonight, and that was without VaTech's best post player, Jeff Allen, on the floor because of questionable ticky-tack fouls. Marcus seemed to get beat to spots a lot, then be off-balance when in help position. Of course, he was superb on the other end of the court with 18 points, including 4-of-4 on 3-pointers. Twice early he hit baseline turnarounds but we could never seem to get him the ball in that position again.

-Player of the game for me was Jon Leuer. His development has been the story of the season thus far, and has eased the sting of J-Bo's struggles. Tonight he took 11 shots and only two of them were 3-pointers. He did miss to point-blank putbacks, but overall penetrated effectively and used a variety of shots to score. He's definitely back on the right track.

-Still loving what Rob Wilson brings to the team. He gets in the game, and about a second after ripping off his warmup jacket jacks up a 3 from the corner -- and hits it. He struggled from the line tonight but he draws fouls, is fearless and, more importantly, more aggressive than anyone else on the roster. I wish we could perform an aggression transfusion and give some of Rob's to Keaton Nankivil, a skilled player who is too content right now to set screens.

-I've won a few hundred less games than Bo Ryan, but if I were him Jordan Taylor would have been on the floor in those last 30 seconds to give the team another quick ball handler. Jordan had a nice penetration and finish early. He's on pace to play more minutes at point guard than any freshman for Bo in Madison. Taylor and Wilson are a nice set of backup guards to bring along, making contributions as they learn.

-Krabby made two clutch free throws late and had some nice slashes to the hoop. Did you see him finish a layup on the right side with his left hand?

Time to rest up for Marquette on Saturday. Before tonight I would have put our chances of winning in Milwaukee at about one in four, but like them more after this one.

Bowl practice goals

As the Badgers' season turned into a struggle just to become bowl-eligible, much was made of the importance of the extra practices that come with playing in a bowl game. "It's like another spring practice" they say, although I find that hard to believe it's as effective.

Coaches give guys off for awhile after the last regular season game. Then practice attendance is spotty during finals time. So it's not like the kids are getting solid, uninterrupted practice time.

But it's better than not getting any additional time, and given what we're staring at next season, the practices are imperative for keeping our bowl streak alive in 2009. Here's what I'd like to see addressed in December:

Quarterback
Dustin Sherer played much better as time wore on, seemingly shaking off the rust. Outside factors played a role. The schedule got easier; the wide receivers -- Isaac Anderson, Nick Toon, David Gilreath -- all grew up to an extent; Travis Beckum's season-ending injury forced him to look for other guys.

Still, I think we all want to see what Curt Phillips can do. From the little we've seen of him, he seems like a kid who can make plays with his feet, a skill that will come in handy behind an inexperienced offensive line next season.

Should Phillips be getting more work than Sherer in bowl practices? I say no. After such a disappointing season, we need to win the bowl game, and getting Sherer as prepared as possible is important. Phillips will benefit from the experience, and maybe you give him some of the backup reps, but at quarterback, prepare for the bowl game first, not 2009.

Offensive line
Kraig Urbik, Andy Kemp, and Eric Vanden Heuvel all depart after this season, leaving behind just Gabe Carimi and John Moffitt. Who will be the new starters at left guard, right guard, and right tackle next season?

There are plenty of good candidates. At tackle, Josh Oglesby got off to a good start but struggled later. Jake Bscherer has the credentials and spent this year redshirting so he could retain eligibility once EVH and Urbik left.

At guard, we've got Kevin Zeitler, Bill Nagy, and Jake Current. Nagy seems to have a leg up here, having played extensively this year when injuries hit. I could see Oglesby sliding inside to guard, as most of his struggles this year stemmed from dealing with speed edge rushers.

In any event, the path to sorting out which of these five guys ends up in those three spots starts now.

Defensive line
I am worried sick about our '09 prospects at this position. Who replaces Matt Shaughnessy, Jason Chapman, and Mike Newkirk? I feel OK about defensive end. Louis Nzegwu will be OK, sort of like O'Brien Schofield was this year.

It's tackle that looks bleaker. Right now the incumbents would be Patrick Butrum and Jeff Stehle. Neither one stood out in their playing time this season. Dan Moore needs to show he can play tackle, which is where he was recruited to play.

Someone from the group of Eriks Briedis, Anthony Mains, Brendan Kelly, J.J. Watt, and Tyler Westphal has to emerge as a contributor. I like Watt, seeing him at Family Day he looked the part. Briedis and Mains had nice frames for tackle as well, Kelly was drawing positive reviews in fall practice, and Westphal was the most highly-recruited of this bunch.

Unlike quarterback, where I feel Sherer needs all of the work to get ready for the bowl game, on the D-Line the focus on the future needs to start now.