How about a 100-yard rusher?

You want to hear something disturbing? The Badgers haven't had a 100-yard rushing game from a running back since P.J. Hill went for 112 against Fresno State. John Clay has come close the last two weeks with 89 and 88 yards, but come on. This is Wisconsin football for Pete's sake! That's five games, five loooooooong games of watching a rushing attack bordering on impotence.

How's this for a misleading statistic: Wisconsin ranks 22nd in the nation in rushing. The 404 yards against Akron probably helped, no?

Odds are against us having a 1,000-yard rusher this season. That used to be one of my favorite traditions, until it was shattered by Anthony Davis's fragility. Brian Calhoun got the ball rolling again and P.J. kept it going, but again, injuries to backs combined with injuries on the offensive line make it tough sledding. (Granted, P.J. does need only 387 yards to reach 1,000, but his injuries and Clay's emergence conspire against him, as does the fact that a bowl game is inexplicably not a given.)

Conversely, Javon Ringer is averaging 152.6 yards per game, on 33 carries per game. Those are Ron Dayne numbers for a relatively little guy!

My thinking is that, like Shonn Greene for Iowa a couple weeks ago, Ringer's going to get his. Last week's defensive performance against Illinois was impressive, but as has been pointed out, our defense is better suited to play the Spread than power offenses nowadays.

Hopefully we can make some game-changing plays in their passing game. Brian Hoyer seems like a decent quarterback, albeit one who probably isn't going to beat you by himself. The receivers seem pedestrian.

In order to pull this one out, I think Hoyer has to turn the ball over once or twice, we have to hold Ringer to about his average, and Dustin Sherer has to take care of the ball and make one or two plays.

Oh, and a 100-yard rusher would be nice. As for a score? Drum roll please for Bob Bummer:

Michigan State 24, Wisconsin 16

Trick or Keaton

What a terrible Halloween-related play on words, that headline. Best I could come up with, sorry.

Here's hoping that the glowing reports from Keaton Nankivil's play during last night's intrasquad scrimmage are not of the flash-in-the-pan variety.

(For the best recap of the scrimmage, check out Hoops Marinara -- thanks for the comprehensive update, Phil.)

All offseason I've contended that Nankivil is the guy I want to be #5 in the Badger lineup, but thought it might not happen as much because of a lack of traditional bigs for him to bang with. But if he proves to be an asset on offense, he might force Bo to play him, regardless of who the opponent runs out there. Sounds like last night he showed mid-range touch and explosive moves punctuated by dunks. Can't wait to see him against live opposition.

Apparently Jordan Taylor looked good too, which is a good thing, because a. Trevon Hughes hurts his ankle a lot, and b. There is no other logical ball handler like Michael Flowers was last year. You could argue J-Bo could be that guy, but it would diminish his scoring. At the very least, he can guard quicker point guards like Pop did sporadically his freshman year.

Pssst

Basketball season starts Saturday, when the Badgers play an exhibition game against Augustana. Given the football team's struggles, this will be a welcome arrival. More to come ...

The Wire: The greatest television show in the history of Earth

Jana and I finished watching the final season of The Wire a couple weeks ago, but I'm just now getting around to writing about it. Now that we've gone without it for awhile, there's a void in our lives, like a good friend moved away.

The show was just that good. When we were somewhere in the fourth season, and I was gushing about how much I enjoyed the show, Jana said "What's funny is you never watch other cop shows." Which is true.

But that's also exactly the point: The Wire wasn't just a cop show. It was so much more. That's why I'm anointing it the best television show in the history of Earth.

In the end it came down to The Wire and The Sopranos, which had been my favorite show until now. Just like The Wire isn't just a cop show, The Sopranos wasn't just a mob show. It was a show about family, about class tensions, about immigrant assimilation into American life several generations in.

The Wire earns my nod because it's about ... America. Definitely it's about the good guys and bad guys of the drug trade, but what else? The working class. Poverty. The negative effects of absent parents. Corruption. Education. The media. Parenthood. The legal system. Friendship. Career-family balance.

It's easy to emerge from five seasons of this show feeling pretty down. If this is about America, then America has a lot of warts. But that's the truth, and instead of denying it or letting it get you depressed, look at the positives.

Bunny Colvin first with his Hamsterdam project trying to concentrate drug trading in a confined area, then with his educational experiment to reach out and help especially at-risk kids. Bubbles battling his demons, finally allowed to join his sister and her child at the kitchen table.

Kima finally realizing it's not just about her job, but about her son. McNulty finally realizing it's not just about his job, but about Beadie and her kids. Carver growing up and becoming a responsible police officer.

Cutty using boxing to keep kids off the street. Gus Haynes' fight to keep the Baltimore Sun on the straight and narrow. Prezbo's attempt to teach kids in a way they'll actually learn. Daniels' crusade to make crime statistics as true as possible and run an upright police department.

Of course, all these things are balanced out by the sad stories of Michael, Omar, Dukie, Randy, Clay Davis, Scott Templeton, Marlo. Especially Marlo -- what a smart, talented leader, who knows what he could have contributed to society had he not turned to drug dealing.

But I'll take with me the stories of the individuals who fought to fix a broken system.

So what do we watch now? Season two of Friday Night Lights came from Netflix. Soon we'll get the latest season of Weeds. We're thinking about Mad Men next. Any other ideas?

Beckum injured, out for season

Guess Travis Beckum's injury Saturday wasn't just a rolled ankle, it was a fractured fibula. As such, his college career is over.

That's too bad, obviously not the way anyone wanted Becks' time in Madison to end. This season was shaping up to be a massive disappointment for him anyhow, with the hamstring injury, then the gaffes against Michigan and high number of drops. He had seemed destined to go out on a high note.

Beckum's commitment coming out of Oak Creek was a huge deal for us at the time, as many services had him ranked tops among high school linebackers, and we typically didn't land anyone from that talent-rich high school. He never fit in on defense, though, which wasn't that surprising given his frame. After his freshman season, he seemed on the verge of bustdom.

But his switch to tight end was a brilliant move for everyone involved. His breakout 2006 season played as much a role in our unexpected 12-1 record that year as anything. With the departure of Brandon Williams, Jonathan Orr, and Owen Daniels, John Stocco needed a reliable receiving target, and Travis filled the bill far better than anyone could have hoped.

He was a natural receiver, running good routes, displaying excellent hands, and expertly adjusting to passes in the air. Just look at that classic picture above.

Beckum made a wise choice to return to Madison for his senior year. He needed to put on good weight and improve his blocking skills without losing his agility. His play in limited action this season showed he still has work to do on the blocking front. Still, this week's Sporting News projected him as a first round pick (#23 to Atlanta), and provided this injury heals in time for spring workouts, he should be fine.

Where will he end up in the NFL? I'm skeptical that he'll ever be a tight end in the classic sense, but some creative offensive coordinator will find a use for his skills and he'll put together a solid career. He'll get open and catch passes in the NFL.

What does it mean for the current Badgers? Even more balls thrown Garrett Graham's way, for one. Dustin Sherer looked his way a lot against Illinois, and I'd like to think Garrett's up for the challenge.

It also means it's time for Lance Kendricks to grow up even more. He's shown potential and made plenty of mistakes this year while filling in for Beckum, and he's going to get plenty more opportunities to contribute. After one special teams play yesterday Bret Bielema was especially congratulatory toward Lance, I'm guessing it's part of some work to build his psyche.

I'd also say this means the wide receivers have to step up and make more plays, but that's been the case all year and we haven't seen much of it. David Gilreath's play against Illinois was encouraging, though.

Travis Beckum is done as a Badger, five (hopefully six) games too soon. Yet another thing to go wrong in 2008.

Sunday morning thoughts

Woke up this morning feeling better about college football. Breaking a four-game losing streak will do that for you. But what I can't get over is how, since the Marshall game (the last time we scored more than two touchdowns), everything has been such a struggle for the Badgers.

John Clay for three yards. Pass to Garrett Graham for six. A frantic Dustin Sherer scramble to get a first down. You can still score points that way, but it's like trying to win a baseball game without any extra-base hits. There's very little margin for error, and this team still makes plenty of errors.

Around the Big Ten, last night's big Penn State-Ohio State game, which turned out to be excruciatingly boring, at least sorted out the way things stand in the conference. Good for Penn State for not caving against a team they're clearly better than.

1. Penn State. They played things way too conservatively on offense, but still showed they have more talent and guts than Ohio State.

2. Ohio State. Thank goodness they won't be playing in the national title game again ... probably. A good team but one that by no means captures the imagination.

3. Michigan State. I watched the Spartans' game against Michigan with Uncle John yesterday, and for awhile it looked like they might fall prey to the kind of crap that usually goes against them in this series. But in the end Michigan's lack of talent and experience was its undoing. State has some players, obviously starting with Javon Ringer, but it looks like they're prone to mistakes too, which we need to pull out next week's game in East Lansing.

4. Minnesota. Yesterday, watching them slog through their win against Purdue, it dawned on me that the Gophers' year is reminiscent of our Cinderella 1993 season. They won a couple non-conference games that excited no one, but that the needed for confidence, and have taken advantage of a favorable conference schedule for a strong start there. They could win or lose any or all of their remaining four games, and missing Penn State and Michigan State is a huge break.

5. Iowa.

6. Northwestern. Losing at Indiana? Sheesh.

7. Illinois. They didn't look good at all yesterday. They fell victim to our Can't Line Up Properly Disease, must be contagious.

8. Michigan. Speaking of contagious mental mistakes, two plays in yesterday's game had to be infuriating for their fans and coaches the way the Badgers' mental mistakes have been infuriating for us. They were both by Donovan Warren on State field goal attempts. On the first, State's kicker was short on a 50-yard attempt. Had Michigan let the ball just go, they would have had the ball on their own 40. Instead, Warren fielded the ball, returned it to about the 20, and Michigan got called for a block in the back. So they started at their own 10, a 30-yard loss. Later, Michigan blocked an attempt, which Warren picked up and then slipped, costing the Wolverines 10-15 yards in field position. Seems the guy attended the Leon Lett Special Teams Academy. Obviously I was happy to see it, but eventually it just made me more angry that we lost to these guys.

Another note: Steven Threet and Sherer are a lot alike in their size, the way they throw the ball and in their overall lack of foot speed.

One more note: During the game I saw much coverage of a quote former Michigan running back Mike Hart made after their win over State last year: "Sometimes you get your little brother excited when you're playing basketball and you let him get the lead. Then you come back and take it from him." Classy. Do UM fans really not understand the animosity directed at that program?

9. Wisconsin. We can win in Lansing, but will need some help from the Spartans.

10. Indiana. Hopefully Kellen Lewis's ankle injury takes two more weeks to heal.

11. Purdue. Too bad they're not on the schedule this year.

UW-Illinois thoughts ... whew

Can we add "proud" to my poll at this time? Guess not, but that's how I feel right now. Today's win in no way excuses or obscures the missteps of the past four weeks, but lots of credit to the Badgers for putting an end to the slide today against a talented if inconsistent team.

As Barry used to say, winning is good for the soul. Bret Bielema's got to agree.

-So who was the idiot that said Illinois was going to hang 50, or at least 46, points on our defense? Oh, right, me. Credit Mr. Man for pointing out that our defense is actually better built for stopping this type of team than we've been in the past. Also credit Juice Williams for having a subpar day. Without looking at the stats, big defensive game balls go to:

-DeAndre Levy, who always seemed to be around the ball.

-Allen Langford, who had an Al Harris-type day in coverage. By that I mean he was consistently straddling the line between tight coverage and interference, and thank god those judgments went our way today.

-Jay Valai, who set a physical tone with hits belying his 5-9 frame.

-Niles Brinkley for that game-changing pick, a really athletic play that showed great hand-eye coordination.

-Dave Doeren and the coaching staff. They've been maligned for the disappointing performances, let's give them lots of credit for this game. Especially for the pressure packages that were called. It makes sense to me -- in our base defense our guys are prone to giving up big plays, so why not blitz more often? The threat of giving up big plays is still there, but so is the chance for forcing a mistake by the other guys.

Another pivotal moment came in the fourth quarter when we called timeout before an Illinois third down attempt. After the timeout Jae McFadden had a nice middle blitz and knocked down Juice's pass. That's good coaching and execution.

-Dustin Sherer grew on me as the game went on. Aesthetically, he's still not much to behold. His throwing motion is so far from textbook, it's a wonder coaches haven't corrected it yet -- he pats the ball, his feet don't often seem to be in the right spot, his pocket presence is shaky, and his arm slot is low and inconsistent.

However, today he made plays when he needed to, and he didn't have any turnovers. So for that, I'm going to send him a drink on Facebook.

Sherer's two touchdown passes to David Gilreath were far from perfect strikes, but they got where they needed to be for the receiver to score, and that's all that matters. His two big runs were very nice plays as well. His touchdown run was instructive as to how he might be effective as a scrambler. Teams are logically going to blitz him up the middle to take away his passing lanes to his tight ends. If he can duck that pressure and get outside, there's not much of a middle line of defense to run him down, even though he's not exactly fleet of foot.

Sherer's last long run on the naked bootleg reminded me of Matt Schabert's game clincher against Ohio State in 2003. Great call by Paul Chryst.

Bottom line: he's the best we've got at this moment.

-Travis Beckum's ankle injury made me, owner of two balsa wood-weak ankles who has suffered such injuries too many times to count, cringe. But Becks was having a bad game before then. His penalty on the first drive completely negated the positive momentum created by John Clay running the ball, and we never found a consistent rhythm running the ball after that. He also had a drop. I hope he's OK, though, he's running out of time to redeem his disappointing senior year.

-Nice to see Garrett Graham get so heavily involved in the offense in the second half. If Beckum's out, Graham isn't a bad guy to have as a go-to receiver, even if it is for just 6-7 yards a pop.

-Clay has to get his pad level down, he's still running too high at times.

-Credit Matt Shaughnessy with the pressure that led to Chris Maragos's interception. Juice has a cannon for an arm, but today was one of those days when you don't know exactly where that cannon is shooting, and our pass rushers helped out.

-Is it time yet to call for Bielema to give up coaching the special teams? Two weeks ago we give up a punt return touchdown. Last week a punt is blocked. Today Benn has a long kickoff return that leads to a field goal, and a penalty for lining up wrong on a punt. Time to let someone else worry about that.

-You know what I thought after Gilreath's first touchdown? "Illinois's defense looked like us on that play."

-Ron Dayne is looking very Ricky Williams-esque with that scraggly beard, no? Wonder how he's passing his time after football.

It doesn't get any easier from here, but at least we're off the schneid in the Big Ten and still in the running to spend Christmas in Detroit.

The Badgers got me feeling emotions

The other day my friend Jim popped his head into my office to shoot the breeze. The subject of the Badgers and the blog came up. "I feel bad for you, man," he said. "I mean, you didn't even write halftime thoughts during the Iowa game!"

There was a good reason for that; I had the boys at my grandma's house, and she doesn't get the Big Ten Network, so I watched the game recorded after returning home. Those two hours Will and Charlie spent with their great-grandma are more important than me watching the game live.

But I also didn't feel the strong urge to rush home and see the game, either, or write about it afterward. As noted earlier in the week, it's that numb feeling that has washed over this losing streak. But numbness is just one of the many emotions I've felt regarding Badger football lately.

Playing amateur psychiatrist, I posted the poll in the upper right-hand corner this week asking people to describe their emotions regarding the current state of Wisconsin football. As I type this, "embarrassed" is #1 at 53%, followed by "depressed" (25%), "angry" (21%), and quite possibly the most dangerous -- "disinterested" (19%). I'm not surprised to see no one has checked "optimistic," and am relieved no one checked "vindicated" -- who saw this coming, this year anyway?

The overwhelming embarrassment is easy to understand. Losing to the worst Michigan team ever; the confusion on Terrelle Pryor's game-winning touchdown run; Allan Evridge's turnover-every-20-snaps performance; capitulating in the face of Iowa's offensive line; the penalties, oh the penalties.

I checked "embarrassed." I'd much rather just be angry.

This poll is open past tomorrow's game against Illinois. Hopefully the Badgers will give us reason to check "optimistic."

Probably not.

Illinois 46, Wisconsin 27

Another T-Money?

Who has two thumbs and now apparently shares my nickname? This guy.

Leave it to Andy Bernard to bestow "T-Money" on Jim Halpert. In a Save the Date card, no less.

Rocket Badger

Just a brief interlude to remind Badger fans that we're not the only ones having a rough year ...

Funny: I lived 45 minutes from Toledo 10 years ago and was never once tempted to buy a Rockets shirt. Thanks to Uncle John, that gap in my wardrobe is now filled.