Linkfest 8/27/06: cleaning house before the season starts

It's coming! The season is just six days away! If you were born with polydactyly, you can count the days on one creepy, disfigured hand! But for the rest of us, we'll have to wait till tomorrow morning.

If you've been living under a rock and/or relying upon this fine site for your news about Badger sports, we've lost Marcus Randle El for the season. This is bad, as Randle El was the most game-tested member of our receiving corps, but experience isn't everything; hopefully one of the freshman will stand up and be serviceable. Well, two of the freshmen, I guess; it's safe to say the Badgers were counting on one of them to contribute before the injury bug bit. The people who know stuff say that DB Zach Hampton is due to take over as punt returner with Randle El sidelined. Again, the bottom line is that we ought not to panic. I mean, it's not like we lost Stocco or anything.

Which brings us to the QB situation: somewhat surprisingly, Tyler Donovan appears to be the guy. That is, if Stocco's not ready to go ... which he could be. This news has taken a few people by surprise; the vibe before seemed to be that Dustin Sherer was looking solid in practice. It certainly wouldn't hurt to have three capable quarterbacks by the time the season started.

Egad! Material aplenty in the Journal-Sentinel, including this:




That's a spicy meatball! Anyhow, if you'd rather read than look at a silly manipulated photo of Coach B, the Badger Tracker's favorite Wisconsin sportswriter, Jeff Potrykus, has a beefy feature article about the season. It's accompanied by the five questions the Badgers must answer this year, a nice game-by-game rundown of the whole season, and some fluff about how awesome the Big Ten is (WARNING: QUOTES LOU HOLTZ). And speaking of Potrykus, he's gonna get his chat on with Internets fans tomorrow, Monday the 28th, at 7 pm. If you want to submit a question, do so here. Potrykus writes well, doesn't engage in incendiary behavior or hopeless homerism, and actually treats readers and especially anonymous online personalities as if they were intelligent, respectable people. So go and shoot your mouth off, and if Potrykus thinks your question is intelligent, you might just get an answer tomorrow.

Miscellany: Some Badgers have new numbers. The basketball team went 5-0 in Italy (national championship trophy should be arriving from Milan any day now). And who recruited Jimmy Stallons? From what I can gather from the Detroit Free Press, Lake Mendota. Here's hoping that Jimmy considers algae a marinade.