Big Ten Bloggers - an opening salvo

A consortium of bloggers -- Penn State's Black Shoe Diaries, Michigan's Maize-n-Brew, and THE Ohio State's Around the Oval decided that the Big Ten's finest bloggers (if "finest" is defined as "everyone who bothered to reply to a particular mass email") needed a group that was founded for the express purpose of promoting intraconference discourse and interblog flamethrowing. That is to say, this network of bloggers will make it far easier to show one another our Pokemans.



There's been some discussion of coming together on common topics in conjunction with the Big Ten football meetings to which, as far as I know, none of us have obtained access. In the spirit of outright audacity, I have picked myself(!) to lead open the discussion with this august group of blogmeisters, and with any luck people will find the questions I asked interesting enough to warrant a response. Look for a roundtable wrap-up post on this blog in the coming days!

On to the questions:

1a. The press and the coaches will be predicting the Big Ten champ at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago on Wednesday. That's fine, but overdone. In lieu of boilerplate predictions of who will come out on top, which Big Ten team will be the most surprising? Remember, surprises can be good or bad; the underdog who comes out of nowhere to share the title is just as surprising as the favorite who winds up with five losses and no bowl bid.

I'd look for Indiana to be your surprise team this year, although that's largely by the process of elimination. I would be genuinely shocked if the top four in the conference wasn't made up of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Penn State. Out of the remaining teams, you have Minnesota and Michigan State in shambles and with first-year coaches. You've got the Zookster at Illinois with his stable of decent recruits and absolute vacuum of coaching prowess. Then there are Iowa and Purdue, sometimes-contenders whose gameplans have both been figured out by the rest of the conference. Iowa might make some noise if Drew Tate's replacement shines, but the general feeling appears to be that this is a "rebuilding year." As for Northwestern, they will certainly annoy one legitimate contender and remain irrelevant the rest of the way.

So I pick Indiana. Lewis and Hardy are a remarkable tandem, and if other threats emerge in the IU offense, they just might be able to mitigate the damage that opponents will wreak upon their awful defense. And of course the Hoosiers will have an emotional edge, having just lost Terry Hoeppner. I think IU has a chance to be the fifth-place team in the Big Ten this year -- that's the upper half, people.

1b. Imagine it's December, and the consensus in the media is that your team's season was "surprising." Is this a Good Thing or a Bad Thing? What would have to happen for you to consider your team's season surprising?

Almost definitely a bad thing, unless you're part of the fanbase that has persisted in whining about "no respect!" for the past decade. In a worst case scenario, both Tyler Donovan and Allan Evridge turn out to be interception machines and/or headcases, new left tackle Jake Bscherer allows rushing defenders to flatten the aforementioned QB, Jack Ikegwuonu is made to stay off the field for his XBox harvesting mission in DeKalb, and the team generally suffers a meltdown. Maybe Washington State upsets the Badgers and the road trips to State College and Columbus become nightmares. We wind up with 6 losses and are shamed in the Motor City Bowl by some MAC team. The surprising 2007 Wisconsin Badgers are bad Wisconsin Badgers indeed.

2. A preseason player of the year will also be dubbed in Chicago. For your team to succeed, which player or unit is going to have to put forth a "player of the year" performance? What's the one position that would take your team to the next level if it performs above expectations?

With nine returning starters on offense and seven returning starters on defense, the Badgers aren't in a bad position at all. And of course, fretting over the quarterback is a logical and all-too-simple thing to do. So I'm going to go with the second-most-obvious position to worry about: safety. Roderick Rogers and Joe Stellmacher were above average safeties, meriting a second team all-conference award and an honorable mention, respectively, and each played important roles in giving the Wisconsin defense teeth last year, notably Rogers with his interception to kill Penn State's momentum in the first half of last year's game. Aubrey Pleasant and Shane Carter have both shown promise but need to be lights out right from the get-go for the Badgers to have a shot at containing teams that like to throw the ball.

3. Which Big Ten team's out-of-conference schedule would you most want to have this year? Why? Do you think your team will have out-of-conference losses this year?

I want Iowa's OOC schedule. They've got a neutral-site game against Northern Illinois at Soldier Field, a game at Iowa State, and home dates against Western Michigan and Syracuse. Two MAC teams and two major conference basement-dwellers is a fine if unexciting OOC schedule.

Michigan State has scheduled well too, with home games against UAB, Bowling Green, and Pittsburgh preceding a road date with Notre Dame. Everyone else has been digging in the I-AA cookie jar, which is simply unappealing. I still can't believe I'm paying actual US currency to see the Citadel.

4. Here's a chance to look like a complete genius in a few months: pick the biggest in-conference upset that will happen this season. Justify your prediction!

I don't have the heart to pick Michigan State over Michigan even though it's a classic trap game (a road date for the Wolverines the week before @Wisconsin and then Ohio State.) So I'm going to pull one straight out of my be-hind and pick another matchup from that same date. A bruised but exuberant Penn State team is coming off a very hard-fought victory over the Ohio State Buckeyes and, with one last home game before visits to Temple and Michigan State, the Nittany Lions plan to coast to Big Ten glory. Pass-happy Purdue comes to Happy Valley and catches the Penn State secondary napping in the first quarter, and an Anthony Morelli interception and another quick strike puts the Boilermakers up 21-0. The Lions wake up and play three solid quarters after that, but they never make up the ground they gave away early on, and Joe Tiller's team wins by six or less.

5. Say something nice about the Big Ten school whose name precedes yours alphabetically. Say something mean about the one that comes after.

The Purdue Boilermakers run one heck of an engineering school. Their bell tower is cool looking. They were a real pleasure to watch during the Drew Brees era, and I like the World's Biggest Drum a lot. Also, their head coach looks like the kind of guy who can really appreciate a nice bukket.

As for Indiana, it is a loser school for losers. It employed Bob Knight, one of the most classless individuals to ever be hallowed by a collegiate basketball program. (And don't give me any of this "Oh, he graduated so many of his students!" I care a little, but that doesn't forgive the tantrums or the fact that ESPN wasted my time with "A Season on the Brink.") Also, Indiana broke everyone's heart when they beat the Badgers 63-32 in 2001. Screw you, Randle-El!

edit: D'oh!!!! How dumb am I? Dumber than a loser attending a loser school majoring in loserese. So intent was I on drubbing Randle-El that I failed to acknowledge the existence of Illinois. Augh!

Just for that, Illinois is, of course, the sworn enemy of Wisconsin. The states are enemies, anyway. Illinois is full of cheap bastards who charge you to drive on their roads, then bring their H2 Hummers up I-39 to go to "the lake" and generally be obnoxious. The schools are big-time rivals too, academically, being near equals in a lot of the same fields. Unfortunately, the state of Illinois has numbers on its side, and the UW campus is inundated with snooty kids from Naperville who got some sort of Mercedes-Benz product on their sixteenth birthday and had to trade it in for a newer model before they moved to Madison, where its primary purpose is to be parked illegally on Langdon Street. I imagine that these same kids are present in Champaign in even greater numbers.

As far as athletics are concerned, the Illini are straight-up funny. Year in and year out, they await the Second Coming of Kurt Kittner, and Ron Zook coaches their team. Their basketball team is a perennial bridesmaid, which I probably shouldn't mention given the Badgers' performance in the NCAA tournament this past year. Illinois, you have my disdain. It is no wonder I skipped over you and wanted to talk about Indiana instead.

6. USC: great football program, or greatest football program? Also, how about that SEC? Damn, those guys are fast!

USC is clearly the greatest team ever, until Notre Dame wins its next bowl game. Hollywood Pete sure can coach; I'm glad that Southern Cal not only gets the job done on the field, but also that they have such luminaries as Nick Lachey and Snoop Dogg orbiting their program. Every school should strive to achieve such levels of intellectual heft.

As for the SEC, there's no question that speed kills. The Auburn Tigers and Arkansas Razorbacks sped their way to Citrus Bowl defeats at the hands of the Badgers, and Penn State's win over Tennessee really hammered home the concept that the plodding Big Ten simply can't compete with those Southern teams. Of course, Ohio State being blown out by Florida is the only thing people will remember about the SEC's postseason achievements, so come December we'll undoubtedly be subjected to the same old farce ... and the Big Ten will win half their games, once again.

Thursday Badger Bullets

Four quick ones:

* I was contacted by the Big Ten Network to interview its president, Mark Silverman, but I declined. I honestly couldn't formulate any intelligent questions at all (I know what the programming's going to be, I'm very much in favor of being able to watch the station, and they don't have a deal with Charter yet, which pretty much makes up the entire spectrum of my concerns.) However, Brian of the oft-linked Mgoblog did, and flaunts his acumen here. Very much worth a read, including a list of stations that charge a whole lot more per subscriber than the Big Ten Network does (BTN is looking for $1.10 per customer, which was deemed ludicrous by some, including myself ... but then, I didn't know that Comcast Sports Chicago pulls an amazing $3.75 per!) And of course, your headquarters for this type of knowledge has always been the Hoosier Report, which, given the state of Indiana athletics, has managed to avoid the seemingly-inevitable hydrocodone addiction such fanship would bring by instead focusing on media matters.

* Bret Bielema does some good, promoting the Restoring Hope Transplant House in a new PSA. His personal experience with the importance of organ donation adds an incredible amount to this message. We're proud of you, Coach.

* Wisconsin has picked up a wide receiver transfer, but it's not something to get overly excited about yet: Chris Maragos is transferring from Western Michigan, where he walked on. He is leaving because he did not receive a scholarship from the Broncos. Who knows, maybe he'll be the next Jim Leonhard-esque story of triumph for the Badgers. Here's hoping.

* The predictions continue to pour in; this one, from the Prognostication Station, sees the Badgers finishing third in the Big Ten -- tied with Michigan. They believe Penn State and Ohio State will be co-champs, citing Michigan's weak run defense and an overwhelming road schedule for the Badgers. For what it's worth, they predict an undefeated home slate for UW, which means a win over the Wolverines, but I don't know how much weight I'd give a prediction that predicts a conference title for Penn State based on its favorable home schedule and one for Ohio State by virtue of the fact that "Tressel owns Carr."

Trev Alberts fails to impress me

I'll lead off today's post with a link to a Q&A with Trev Alberts (the real Trev, not the awesome one). He's asked whether it's Michigan vs. Wisconsin for the Big Ten title, and mirabile dictu, he doesn't think so:

I say it's Michigan with an outside shot of Ohio State winning ... I still think they're going to have a terrific defense. They'll be just as good of a team, and have a worse record, with Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State on the schedule.

The above is a reasonable prediction, but where that ellipsis appears Trev offers the tired boilerplate we've been hearing over and again since last December: they only beat Michigan, Stocco was a caretaker, Bielema had beginner's luck. But then he goes on -- and maybe I'm reading this incorrectly, I don't know -- to say that the Badgers are clearly the fourth-best team in the conference (emphasis mine):

The two other teams after Michigan are Ohio State and Penn State. The Nittany Lions could be a little more surprising than some people think with Anthony Morelli. I know the Buckeyes lost some guys, but they have a lot of talent. They seem to be able to find some players. Remember how last year we were talking about Ohio State losing nine starters on defense?

I do, in fact, remember that. But they still had Troy Smith. Remember, the guy who got that funny little statue in New York before the bowl games? I know, and everyone knows by now, that it's patently unintelligent to count out Michigan or Ohio State under any circumstances (cue the "rebuilding vs. reloading" guy), and being a fan of a program that has seen the likes of Brooks Bollinger and John Stocco not only suffice but excel, I guess the fact that Morelli hasn't impressed me yet doesn't mean he never will. So who knows.

The bottom line here? Predicting things is stupid. Also, finding this article allowed me to get inside the Brain of Trev, which helped confirm everything I'd intuited by watching him for way too many Saturdays ... remember the days before ESPN wised up and canned his smarmy ass?

I've read that the Cover 2 is the ideal defense to use against college quarterbacks. Do you agree with that and if not, what is the best defense to use in the college game? - Jaime Lears, California

I think I know what article you're referencing, but I would caution against placing too much credence on a writer rather than having a former coach or current coach write that article.

Full disclosure: I'm not a former or current coach. Sorry for wasting teh internets with my know-nothing drivel. But let's continue:

Let me tell you, as someone who's been out there, that Cover 2 is not always the best coverage, period. If that was the case, that's the only coverage you would ever see.

The fact is there's no one coverage that's going to be the end-all. Football is too sophisticated. Cover 2 is an important, but small part of coverage.

So much of what you do depends on your personnel.

If you don't have safeties who can show you range of motion or stand in the box when needed, you have no coverage. And if you have great lock-down corners, Cover 2 nullifies their talents. If you're going to play Cover 2 for four quarters, you're going to get beat in the college game.

I'll give the poor owl a rest here.

Cover 2 has weaknesses. That's why good defensive coordinators run a whole lot of different coverages.

It's a good thing Trev's been there and done that. I certainly couldn't have gone all that in-depth.

Honestly now ... this guy's just looking for a default defense when he's playing NCAA 2008. Do you think he hasn't noticed that there are several available schemes? He's just asking, "What's best?" Which is a better question on any day of the week than "Who's Now?"

Tuesday Badger Bullets

* Bret Bielema will be singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at Wrigley next week. And after last night's Brewer meltdown (with the bases loaded in the 11th, Johnny Estrada grounded into a 3-2-3 double play; the Brew Crew lost in the 12th), can you blame him?

* Ron Dayne mentions that he'd like to be on the Badgers' coaching staff when he finishes his NFL career. How dumb would the Badgers have to be to deny him that chance?

* Ohio RB/LB Brandon Beachum praises Bret Bielema in this article, which states that he'll be announcing where he'll go to school on July 29. He also speaks highly of Bobby Bowden, and although he's been offered by Penn State and UW, when asked about academics he most approves of -- wait for it -- Nebraska.

Other people's previews, part 2

The Badgers find their way into the countdown: Rivals.com says Wisconsin is the #8 team in the nation, and while they very astutely single out the receiving corps for praise, declaring Paul Hubbard "underrated," they also take P. J. Hill down a peg, saying he's the most overrated player on the team. Maybe that's not a bad thing -- after all, someone has to be the "most overrated" -- but I think what gets me is that they knock him for being injured toward the end of last season. Is that really a basis for deciding a player is overrated? I'd probably have singled out Elijah Hodge for that dubious award myself -- seems to me he's riding the name recognition of his widely-praised brother a wee bit. One of the things I most appreciate about the Rivals preview is that they leave the door open for a Badger BCS berth without a conference title; most people give me the impression that they believe that UW will need the automatic berth to get invited to one of the big-money bowls, probably fueled by lingering memories of last year's "snub." Overall, this is an excellent preview.

Penn State blog There Is No Name On My Jersey, whose name celebrates the Nittany Lions' tradition of being either too lazy or too cheap to hire a seamstress, insists on making fatal mistakes of judgment and re-tasting the sour grapes of the season gone bye:

Bielema and Wisconsin are on my shitlist for the abuse of the clock in last years game. It was a close game and the wasting of the clock was not in the spirit of the game. Yes it was cheating. Yes, it still pisses me off.

Incorrect! It was not cheating, and it was just as much "in the spirit of the game" as taking a knee is. Perhaps there's a little bitterness because Wisconsin has a young coach who continues to innovate within the rules where PSU has a living legend who, despite his considerable accomplishments, should've been gently "retired" a decade ago? Possibly.

How do I know it's not cheating? Because the NCAA rulebook (PDF) includes this provision, in Rule 3, Section 4, under the heading "Unfair Clock Management:"

ARTICLE 3. The referee shall order the game clock started or stopped whenever either team conserves or consumes playing time by tactics obviously unfair. This includes starting the clock on the snap if the foul is by the team ahead in the score. The clock will start on the ready-for-play signal after an illegal forward or backward pass that conserves time for Team A.

The officiating crew had the power to stop this if they thought it was an illegal tactic. But they didn't. So it wasn't. And EDSBS thought it was a ballsy enough move to declare Bret Bielema Person of the Year, and you know how Orson and Stranko aren't generally prone to hyperbole. (Some have also claimed that Bielema's tactic may have hastened the death of the hated clock rules, giving us more football to watch. Penn State fans, you're welcome.)

That said, their Badger preview fails to find P. J. Hill overrated; indeed, he is compared to a grotesque, overly-muscular dog, which is something. Go and read.

The Diag has a preview of the quarterbacks in the Big Ten. Obviously, Chad Henne finds himself in the #1 spot (does anyone have a preview where Chad Henne isn't declared the best QB in the Big Ten? Because that preview is insane), and coming in second place is, of course, Kellen Lewis of the Indiana Hoosiers.

Now, I admit that I didn't watch enough Indiana or Illinois football last year, but I did watch the Badgers play both teams, and let me tell you: Juice Williams impresses me a whole hell of a lot more than Lewis. For one, Lewis-to-Hardy is something opposing defenses picked up on about 18 months ago, and it's unlikely that anyone is going to disregard it this year. Meanwhile, Zook has been picking up considerable talent, and the role players around Williams will likely make the Illini offense more formidable than their Hoosier counterparts. (Of course, Zook has never really been the type of guy who actually develops the talent he snares, so the whole point is likely moot, but you see what I'm saying here.)

The Wisconsin QBs check in at #5 on the list, just ahead of Juice and right behind turnover machine Curtis Painter of Purdue and the oft-contused Anthony Morelli of Penn State. I expect the UW quarterback to eventually find himself at #2 or #3 in the conference, just as long as we don't have to bust out the unfortunate nickname I just made up ("Allan Average") midway through the season. Whoever lines up under center for Wisconsin will have Hubbard and Swan as go-to guys and Travis Beckum as probably the best safety valve in the entire nation. With Hill keeping the pressure off, the guy who winds up chucking the ball has a good chance at success.

Finally, the mgoblog preview of Penn State is up, and toward the end this snippet of commentary is offered:

Even though I am deeply skeptical about Morelli and the Nit offensive line, the comparison that is foremost in my mind is Wisconsin. The teams were virtually identical in 2006, stiff defenses coupled with mediocre or worse offenses heavily reliant on running the ball.

The Badgers are a trendy pick for Big Ten champs based on their 12-1 2006, but replace Bowling Green with Notre Dame and rejigger the Big Ten schedule to include Ohio State and you're probably looking at 10-3 and more reasonable expectations for a team that didn't prove all that much last year. Unit by unit on offense:

* QB: PSU. Even if Morelli was meh, he has a year of experience over Donovan/Everidge.
* RB: Wisconsin, but they have similar depth issues and Scott has one-year wonder upside.
* WR/TE: Penn State. Beckum is all the Badgers have; Penn State has Quarless, two guys who would be fine #2/#3 players, and at least the hope Williams lives up to his potential, plus Bell.
* OL: Maybe a push based on the similarities -- uninspiring starters returning from last year's team; top ten LT off to NFL -- but Bob Palcic fought in 'Nam and Wisconsin doesn't have a failed LG playing LT this year.

I figure the defenses will be near mirror images. The secondaries are a wash if not a slight PSU advantage -- more faith in AJ Wallace than Allen Langford -- and the presumed Wisconsin advantage on the D-line is offset by what should be one of the nation's premier linebacking units. If you consider the skill positions even, you're picking between the Wisconsin OL's advantage over PSU's line and Morelli's advantage over whoever Wisconsin throws out there.

My point is this: if you're looking for a darkhorse challenger to consensus favorite Michigan in the Big Ten, this is probably your team. I kind of hate saying that what with JayPa and all, but there it is. The differences between UW and PSU last year laid mostly in the quality of their opponents. The defenses will both be stout, intimidating things; if you made me pick between the offenses I would wince and take the Nittany Lions.

That wincing would be justified; I agree for the most part with the above assessment but find Brian's lack of faith in the Wisconsin receiving corps disturbing. I don't blame him for underrating them, as UW and Michigan locked horns in the conference opener last year, and he probably didn't see much of the progress made by Hubbard and Swan as the season went forward. The fact that Hill and Beckum had more than half of the Badgers' receiving yardage in that game also makes the actual receivers seem all the more suspect. I realize that Brian is a lot more circumspect than this, but our perception of other teams' strengths and weaknesses are tinted by the games our own teams played against them.

Bottom line: I expect the Badger offense to be better than Penn State's, the defenses will be a wash, and a very strong coaching edge has to go to Bielema and his not-yet-past-the-expiration-date nepotism-free bevy of assistants. The Badgers will be the better team next year, have no doubt; it's the venue and the timing that frightens me about the Penn State game, and I think there's a better than 50% chance that the Badgers lose that game. However, I think the smart money is on Wisconsin if you're picking between them and the Lions for a Big Ten championship.

OPP - Other People's Previews

Big news from MSNBC.com -- some guy from Tampa, who's listed in the page's title as "Expert," doesn't think the Badgers will be playing for the national title this year. You have to admire the guy's temerity -- it takes a true daredevil to pick against a team that hasn't played for a national title in nearly half a century -- but before we address the content of his preview, let's review the rubric for creating the vast majority of Big Ten previews out there:

1. Check out last year's record. Pretty self-evident. Wisconsin went 12-1 last year, beating an SEC team in a bowl game. Noting this, we move on ...
2. Look to see who's sticking around and who bolted. John Stocco's gone. Joe Thomas is gone. PJ Hill is still here. The defense is mainly intact, and it was really good. So ...
3. Assess the losses, and assume everyone who stayed will be improved. Quarterback is a big hole to fill, so fret about that a little bit, but qualify the fretting with the fact that there's a QB battle in Madison, and both candidates have won conference games as starters. Pay lip service to the loss of Joe Thomas, because a lot of people said he was really good and he was taken really early in the NFL draft, even though most of us don't appreciate what the offensive line does except push the defensive line.
4. Check out the schedule. The non-conference games are a non-issue. Penn State and Ohio State on the road could be perilous, but PSU wasn't all that great last year (see step #1 ... it's all you need!) and OSU is depleted (see step #2. Isn't this easy!?) Michigan's at home, and they're supposed to be pretty good (again, step #2). Everyone else is irrelevant.
5. Try not to pick Ohio State or Michigan. Let's face it, they're usually the champs. But nobody wants to say, "put it all on OSU and let it ride" ... that's not sexy! It's too easy to be right with Ohio State! So, ignore the gaping hole at QB and declare Wisconsin "as good as anyone else in the conference."

Step #5 is what Joey Joe Joe seems to dislike, so that leads to the next step in the rubric, the one that goes into effect after most people's previews are already out there:

6. Compile evidence that shows why everyone else shouldn't pick the sexy team. At this point, because of step #5, everybody's got his non-Buckeye, non-Wolverine pick out there. This makes your column really easy to write: just pick up on the evidence that the other writers had to willfully ignore in order to pick their second-tier Big Ten team to win the title.

And true to form, here's what we get. An immediate bet-hedge -- "Badgers not bad, but don't believe the preseason hype" -- and then all the usual warmed-over, lazy half-truths:

* The Badgers weren't THAT good last year. (What 12-win team was?) They lost to their only legitimate opponent, Michigan, and dodged Ohio State. (Extreme ultra bonus points for actually using "dodged," as though the Badgers had any say in who rotated off their conference schedule, and even if they did, they probably couldn't have guessed five years ago that OSU was going to play for the national title in 2006.)

* Michigan and Ohio State play in the Big Ten. OK, that's not a half-truth, but come on. We know. Those two teams win a LOT of titles. But this is what Step #6 requires: pick Michigan or Ohio State. Also, throw in the other dark horse team and give it superior status to the team you're addressing. This year, that's Penn State. In the recent past, we've seen the Badgers, Iowa, and Purdue play that role. Same old, same old.

* We don't know who the quarterback is! Well, we know it's going to be one of two guys, each of whom has won games in a starting role before. Presumably the schedule, which is front-loaded with cupcakes, will facilitate the development of either Donovan or Evridge -- or both.

Overall, this is a nice, simple column to write -- perfect for summer vacation.

Lance Smith suspended

Story at UWBadgers.com confirms it.

If the suspension holds up, I'd expect it to be a one-game deal.

Another Badger running back finds ignominy

I guess I'm going to have to create some original content so that we can be rid of all the doom and gloom around here. Evidently Lance Smith thought his girlfriend owed him $10 in cab fare; she thought she owed $5. So, he shoved her down, then told her to go into a convenience store and break the $20 bill she had. She went in, he followed her, and apparently pushed her down again. She dropped the money, and he allegedly picked it up.

Real nice. Great way to settle a dispute about five freakin' dollars. Lance Smith will evidently shove a woman for the low, low price of $2.50. As you can imagine, EDSBS is adding this to the Fulmer Cup standings.

Importantly, Coach Bielema is supposed to comment on the incident at some point today. With Clay (presumably) out, it'll be interesting to see whether any suspension Smith may face will stick. I bet you can't guess what I think will happen.

And just for good measure, Badger alum and Miami Dolphin Chris Chambers has been arrested for driving while impaired. U-rah-rah.

Reaction to John Clay

Ironclad College Football Rumor Rule #1: If there's a rumor floating about and the coach takes the time and effort to go out and publicly deny said rumor, it's absolutely guaranteed that the rumor is true. See you in 2008, John. Maybe.

The situation has not escaped Mike, the writer of Penn State blog and Badger Sports Fan favorite Black Shoe Diaries. Sez he:

Wisconsin freshman running back John Clay has been ruled acedemically ineligible. Brett Bielema says not so fast my friend. You know, I'm slowly losing respect for Brett Bielema. Players seem to keep avoiding suspensions. Guys who try to rip off opposing players legs and he does nothing. And we all know about his antics making a mockery of the rule books and good sportsmanship as he paces up and down the sideline with that smug grin on his face all proud of himself as if he just got away with stealing the teacher's apple right off her desk. You're on notice, Brett Bielema...not that I'm bitter or anything.

You know it's bad when a Penn State fan gets upset about the shabby treatment of a Michigan player. He then posts this, which makes me think he's actually referring to different guy named Bielema:



And speaking of Michigan, here's MGoBlog's one-sentence take on the situation:

anyone wondering why we didn't recruit this guy, here's your answer

Uhh ... OK. You don't think a star tailback like Clay is worth taking a chance on? You think he's too much of a project for your academic advisors? That's just like, your opinion, man.

The unfortunate thing is that John Clay is supposed to represent the Bielema difference: when there is a potential superstar playing football in the state of Wisconsin, don't bother recruiting him, because he's gonna be a Badger. Wisconsin fans aren't just excited about Clay because he could be a star tailback at a school that lives and dies by the run, but because he's symbolic of what a great football program should be doing -- that is, beating out Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Michigan for a talented in-state recruit.

To be fair, Michigan wasn't in the game late for Clay, but they showed interest early in the process. They may have been spooked by the academics, sure. But the fact of the matter is that UW beat out other extraordinary schools to get this guy on board (and Ohio State said they would offer him, making the situation even more significant).

Instead, what we may be looking at is the first in a string of great football players with shaky off-the-field situations that UW tries to bring in, only to have some embarrassing situation arise as a result. I hope that's not the case, but it's a possibility. (Also embarrassing: check out what John Clay might mean in Japanese. Ugh.)

So what's it going to be? I'm hoping for great things but bracing for ugly. Either way, I think you can bank on John Clay missing the 2007 season -- but only because Bret Bielema said he might not.

John Clay is academically ineligible

Jeff Potrykus -- as usual -- has the scoop:

John Clay, a former all-state tailback from Racine Park High School and a key member of the University of Wisconsin's 2007 freshman class, has failed to meet the NCAA's minimum academic eligibility standards and won't be allowed to play for UW this season.

...

Under NCAA rules, Clay will not be allowed to practice with the team in 2007-'08 or receive athletic aid and will lose a year of eligibility. He can regain that lost year of eligibility, however. To do that, he must complete 80% of his designated degree program by the beginning of his fifth academic year.

Without Clay, UW should have just three scholarship tailbacks on its roster when pre-season camp opens next month.

With any luck, Hill will bounce back from surgery and not miss a step (as he's expected to do), and Lance Smith and Zach Brown will turn out to be solid change-of-pace guys.

Study up, John!

A work of absolute genius

Go NOW and read T. Kyle King's The Sound and the Gameday, Part One. It's chock full of Faulknerian fancy. You will love it.

Sunday Badger Bullets

A few thoughts over a Miller Chill (besides "Why did I spend $6.99 on this poison?"):

* If you haven't been reading Dave Heller's blog at the Journal-Sentinel, you ought to start. He's managed to pick up quite a few nice Badger-related tidbits recently. It's summertime, so the journalists are in full list-making mode, and in the college football world, Wisconsin is figuring nicely into a bunch of these lists. For example, UW is playing in what CFN considers to be two of the top 15 games for the 2007 season, and they even go so far as to predict the scores; Wisconsin loses the 14th-biggest game by two touchdowns to Ohio State and beats Michigan in the eighth-biggest -- all of which goes to show that the good people at CFN probably haven't seen many UW-OSU or UW-UM games over the past quarter century.

* In possibly more-shocking listmania (again, courtesy of Dave Heller), Tom Dienhart of the Sporting News names Jack Ikegwuonu the best player in the Big Ten. He doesn't give any reason for doing so beyond "he's impressed me," but it's worth noting that UW, Michigan, and Ohio State get just about equal time in the top 20 Big Ten players for the season. (Purdue, Indiana, and Illinois each have one player in the top 20, while UW, UM, OSU, and PSU get multiple picks). Another caveat: this is the work of Tom Dienhart.

* John Oates thinks it's high time that UW gets itself a football title. I don't disagree. I'd talk more about this, but his point is so obvious that it doesn't warrant much comment: large athletic department revenue ought to lead to national titles.

* Alando Tucker has signed with the Phoenix Suns. He can now officially expect his team to score 115 points every other night but still manage to melt down in the postseason.

And finally, as a reward for having read this far, here is a picture of legendary Brewers' radio announcer Bob Uecker with a furry (hat tip to the Brewers' TV announcing crew for this one).

Things to read on while you're waiting for the weekend

New Northwestern blog Lake the Posts is counting down the Top 24(?) games in Northwestern football history. Expect the Badgers to figure prominently in this series ... they're already in there twice at #21 (the 1992 game) and #20 (the horrendous 2005 game in which the #14 Badgers gave up 51 points).

Bucky's Faithful does something I planned to do ... he has a four-part series about the Badgers' representatives in the NFL. You can see parts one, two, and three here. Part four begins with a prefatory note about Kammron Taylor, who worked out with the Minnesota Timberwolves. He has joined their summer league team, and I'm sure he's glad to have an opportunity to play with his hometown professional franchise.

Heh.

Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated believes the Wisconsin-Michigan game is the fourth-biggest game of the year, UW Athletics produced the 7th highest revenue total of all athletic departments last year, and Trev Alberts has discovered Barenjager.

Badger Football: 2007 Storylines

2006 is long gone. After walloping non-conference cupcakes and dropping a single conference decision, the John Stocco-led Badgers defeated 2007 Heisman candidate Darren McFadden and the Arkansas Razorbacks for their second Citrus/Capital One Bowl victory in two years.

In the end, we saw a new coach, the irrepressible Bret Bielema, make a splash, starting his career with a 12-1 record (good for a .923 winning percentage!) We saw John Stocco become one of the most poised senior quarterbacks in the Big Ten, coming back strong after an injury sidelined him midway through the season. We witnessed a freshman, the tubby P. J. Hill, become the clear frontrunner in one of the most wide-open RB races in Wisconsin history. His path was cleared by big Joe Thomas, the lineman who wound up being the third overall pick in the NFL draft. On the other side of the ball, cornerback Jack Ikegwuonu became the leader of a unit that yielded just 12 points per game ... better than both the heralded Michigan and Ohio State defenses.

All in all, it was a very satisfying season. Thanks to a seamless coaching transition and a dozen victories, 2006 helped make the case that with Badger football, the sky ought to be the limit. Although the Bielema era is just a season old, it appears that we can discard any lingering fears of a return to the sub-mediocrity that preceded Barry Alvarez's tenure. At the very least, this program's going to be trekking to warm-weather destinations every year around Christmastime. But we're not interested in the very least; there's a not-insignificant portion of the Badger fanbase that believes that one of these years, a national championship should be on the radar -- and that year should be coming sooner rather than later.

I can't quite say I'm in that camp just yet. But I do think that Wisconsin fans have the right to expect big things this season. That should become clear as I outline what I believe to be the major storylines to watch for in the 2007 Wisconsin Badger season.

1. Settling the quarterback controversy

It's a rare year when Badger fans don't know who their starting QB will be to begin a season. And yet, here we are. This uncertainty is a luxury, though, as I'm not sure how optimistic people would be if we knew that 2007 meant a full year of 6'1", 187-pound Tyler Donovan backed up by the (by all accounts) raw Dustin Sherer. It's a little worrying to have such a small guy in a key position when every team, at least in the Big Ten, is going to have defenders orders of magnitude larger than that bent on destroying the QB every single down. Donovan is a mobile quarterback, definitely the exception for the Big Ten and Wisconsin in particular, but even as a fifth-year senior, as Jeff Potrykus puts it, "his overall play continues to be marred by curious decisions and errant throws."

Donovan is game-tested, having filled in marvelously during the Iowa game after John Stocco was hurt and, well, I guess I don't feel comfortable with calling the Buffalo game "game experience." You'd think that would be in his favor, but the guy who's competing for his job has actually played in more games. Allan Evridge sat out last year and joins the team as a junior, transferring from Kansas State after the departure of head coach Bill Snyder prior to the 2006 season. I'm not concerned by the middling numbers he put up as a Wildcat, as even good players but up so-so numbers when surrounded by mediocre talent. What you lose in mobility when going from Donovan to Evridge you gain in bulk, and probably arm strength and, eventually, poise. For now though, Evridge has struggled in spring practices.

For now, I think Donovan will be the starter -- but he'll be kept on a very short leash. I don't know an incredible amount about Bret Bielema, but I don't think he's the kind of guy who'll put Donovan out there just because he's been a Badger for five years now; his job is to win football games, and he's going to play the guy who is most likely to help him finish that job. I think that the years of experience that Donovan has had with essentially the same offense is going to be the determining factor in this quarterback race, but if he's not performing, look for Evridge -- maybe before the Big Ten season begins.

2. Picking up where the 2006 team left off

Eleven regular season wins, one loss, and an ugly, gritty victory over Arkansas in the Citrus Bowl. The question before this Badgers is this: was 2006 a stepping stone to an even more spectacular season, or is 12-1 a high water mark for the program?

Several things have to go right for the Badgers this year. They need the quarterback controversy settled, period; that's the single biggest issue for this team. Following that, everyone needs to pitch in and do his part. P.J. Hill needs to be the leader of the offense, even though he's just a sophomore; on an average play, more than half the guys out on the field will be blocking for him, stalling for time so he can use his bulk and his eyes to pick up chunks of yardage. The receiving corps, including Luke Swan and Paul Hubbard, grew up before our very eyes last season and need to continue to improve; the best medicine for a raw quarterback is a WR who can make plays on his own. Travis Beckum at tight end is already being hailed as Wisconsin's best pro prospect; he's a guy other teams will have to worry about.

As for the defense, they need to keep on keeping on. The cornerbacks should be fine, with Jack Ikegwuonu leading the way, and evidently the safety position, while questionable, has found a couple of nice surprises in the persons of Shane Carter and Aubrey Pleasant (who, incidentally, judging by their first names, might actually be girls. They are not helped by being backed up by Kim Royston.) With any luck, the linebackers will stay strong, and the defensive line will continue to improve in rushing the quarterback.

The bottom line for the team is to learn from where they've been and replace the guys who've had to depart.

3. Defining Bret Bielema

After a couple seasons as defensive coordinator and one season as head coach, we know a little bit about who Bret Bielema is. In being picked by Barry Alvarez as the heir to the UW coaching throne, Bielema was pegged as a star, and after the enormous raise he received a few months back, it appears that UW is gunning to keep him here for a very long time indeed.

He's a winner, that's for sure; indeed, he was the first Badger head coach to amass seven wins in his rookie season since the venerable William Juneau managed the feat in 1912. He's a hard-nosed recruiter who can close a deal with a high school kid; he played a major role in recruiting at Kansas State and before he landed the head job in Madison.

Still, we don't know a lot about the guy. It will be interesting to see how he handles the Donovan/Evridge situation; my gut feeling is that he'll be very interested in building continuity, and keeping Evridge for two years is more likely to pay off than a one-and-done stint for Donovan. I also feel that he's a loyal guy, which would seem to bode well for the fifth-year senior, but he's more loyal to a winning game plan than to individual players.

Another area of interest will be that of discipline and academics. Big-time recruit John Clay, the running back out of Racine, is confirmed as having some issues to work out before the season begins; those issues are rumored to be academic in nature, with one source saying that Clay hasn't even been admitted to UW yet. As for discipline, Bielema is in the unenviable position of having his star cornerback working his way through the legal system. Ikegwuonu was arrested in Novemeber but played in the bowl game, which seems to be a pattern for Badgers accused of doing wrong thus far; both Jamal Cooper and Elijah Hodge were suspended from the team last season (Cooper for academic reasons; Hodge had actually been arrested), only to be reinstated immediately before the next game, and James Kamoku received no public reprimand for a vicious, unnecessary twist to the leg of Michigan's Steve Breaston on a special teams play. This is something I addressed previously:

Wrong, coach. You're the new guy on the block so you make an example out of someone who makes an obviously dirty play. End of story. Kamoku needs to be out against Indiana. Even if he is, though, the opportunity to show the conference the type of disciplinarian you are has gone out the window.

I didn't like the reinstatement of Cooper right before the season started. I didn't like the fact that I saw Hodge in the game on Saturday. I don't like the fact anything less than singling out and making an example of Kamoku was the course of action taken in this instance. But what I really, really don't like is the pattern that's emerging. That pattern, so far, indicates that Bret Bielema wants to win football games -- and he's not particularly interested in how that happens or the character of his athletes. Any positive vibe I had from the dismissal of Booker Stanley has dissipated.

Thus far, it would appear that either every Badger is innocent or that Bielema is lax when it comes to discipline. Hopefully Jack Ikegwuonu has to face the consequences of his actions. I like our teams to win, but I dread watching UW become a place where thugs run wild.

4. Racing toward a conference title

It's a wonderful thing to force oneself to be realistic and still see the possibility of a Big Ten title on the horizon. If the quarterback situation is sorted out (big if, I know), UW could be looking at a championship year. The Badgers miss Purdue and Northwestern this year, which is just as well since these are teams that have provided inexplicable struggles for Wisconsin through the years. The two tough road games will be at Penn State and at Ohio State, and unless my predictions are way off, I expect the Badgers to walk out of those two venues victorious. Even though Ohio State always has truckloads of talent, it seems like everyone with game experience chased the NFL money last year (as opposed to that sweet, sweet Ohio State money) and I think they'll be a little bit depleted. As for Penn State, if we can mount any kind of a pass rush, Anthony Morelli is going to be rattled; I really don't think he has what it takes to win the Big Ten. The date to circle is going to be November 10 when Michigan invades Camp Randall; with their all-star offense, Michigan is going to be putting up 40 points a game, but with their utter lack of defense, they might be giving up 40 as well. Mark it -- that game is for the Big Ten title, or at least a share of it.

Blogs to watch

Before I begin to get into football gear in earnest, I'd like to call your attention to a few other places around the internets that might be of some use to you. (For those who are already looking for Badger football stuff, here's a little something: John Clay! Allan Evridge! Tyler Donovan! Bret Bielema! Waaaugh!!)

We'll begin with the creme de la creme, which obviously means the Badger blogs:

* Wisconsin Badger Sports Fan has a fantastic name and has been live since February. Look for all things UW from this site.

* Online since May, Midseason Forum covers much more than just Badger sports. Check out his recent work regarding the impending NBA draft.

* Literally born yesterday(!), Bucky's Faithful is off to a strong start. Get over there and encourage Fest to stick with the blog project!

On to the others ...

* Death Cab for Woody is an Ohio State blog that's full of snark and is touchably soft.

* There are many reasons that you're going to want to look to Hawkeye State for your Big Ten previews this season, not the least of which will be because I once again have no idea what to make of the 2007 Hawkeyes.

* Anything Hoosier, which is possibly actually entitled "IU Sports," makes mention not only of basketball but also Indiana football. Come for the Hoosierdom, stay for the early preseason basketball picks that keep Wisconsin out of the top 5 in the Big Ten!

* Defend the Rock is also a Hoosier blog and has far less to do with Sean Connery than one would suppose.

And finally, there are the Gopher blogs. At this time last year, you couldn't find a single blog devoted to Gopher football, but lately they've been popping up all over. If any more show up, I'll be tempted to go out back with a rake and crack their tiny skulls open. One imagines that this has to do with the Dynamic Duo of Tim Brewster and Tubby Smith. These blogs are all high-quality, which makes me believe that more Wisconsin residents are taking advantage of that whole reciprocity deal than I previously thought.

* Paging Jim Shikenjanski sets the standard for the new Gopher uprising. With 57 posts under his belt since May 16, PJS is sallying forth at a torrid pace. Check this site every day.

* Down with Goldy is down with the Gophers, but not down with Goldy the Gopher. Got it?

* Gopher Gal writes Minnesota Golden Gophers with brevity and aplomb. Good tidbits to be found here.

* The posts at Gopher Nation are thorough and are generally long enough to be enjoyable reads. Plus, if you need a laugh, you can always scroll up to the blog's subtitle, which reads, "We're going to take the Gopher Nation to Pasadena!"

Answering Trev's Questions

The borderline ridiculous questions answered below were devised by the wily Trev Alberts over at Fire Mark May.

Give the more zealous portion of your fanbase a religion. What's this cult following? Feel free to give the splitters a derogatory nickname.

The most passionate fans in all of Badgerdom are those who fulfill all the stereotypes outsiders hold about Wisconsin. They're Wisconsin's biggest fans because they're, well, the biggest fans -- the older gentlemen who've grown obese after gorging themselves for decades on bratwurst, deep-fried cheese curds, and a whole mess of other foods and food-like substances. They drive in from the outskirts of Eau Claire and Manitowoc, find a prime parking spot, and down the LaCrosse Lager and Point like they were water (or, at least, really watery beer). To these portly, sauerkraut-scented gentlemen, I give the name Boozin' Buddhas. They're always so jolly -- are they close to enlightenment, or is that just the half dozen Korbel old-fashioneds they mixed up in the back of the truck?

Bucky dons his Boozin' Buddha gear

Your biggest rival is in town, and College Gameday is coming....to your citaaaaaaay... Create a blatant corporate sellout promotion to appeal to the mass unwashed.

Sack of gopher bait, anyone?

Sorry, not very creative. Instead, let's pass out free Hefty bags to the crowd as a tribute to the Golden Gophers' home field. This useful promotional item can be used to pick up plastic Miller Lite bottles after the game, or can aid our Gopher friends in hastening death when they realize the only thing they have to look forward to after yet another loss is a four-hour car ride to an academically-questionable campus located in a patently awful city in which to be young and irresponsible.

Add one local delicacy to your stadium's concessions. Post-tax pricing is optional.

I never buy food at Camp Randall, so I don't know whether they serve cheese curds, but if they don't then WHY GOD WHY.

But the item they really ought to be stocking is the deep-fried pickles from Ella's Deli. Honestly, dill pickles, ranch dressing, deep-frying ... what's not to love?

With an unlimited AD budget, add or subtract one thing to your school's gameday experience that has nothing to do with football.

Good thing the budget's unlimited, because we're razing the engineering buildings, most of the apartments across Breese Terrace from the stadium, and re-routing University Avenue and Campus Drive about half a mile to the north. We're paving half of it for dedicating surface tailgating lots and making the rest of it verdant splendor, perfect for tossin' around the ol' pigskin before the game. The fact is that Camp Randall Stadium is shoehorned into a weird little corner of campus, and all the congregation and mingling has to be done at private residences or establishments of wildly varying quality along Regent Street. Or if you don't want to do that, you have to take the party WAY down to State Street ... a fun place, a nice walk if you're in the mood, but this all adds up to a discontinuous fan presence. Maybe if the kids didn't have to drink their Kool-Aid and Fleischmann's at Chadbourne and instead could carouse with their friends and treasured alumni just steps from the stadium gates they'd actually get to their seats before the second quarter begins.

Coin a hilariously unrealistic stereotype that you would like to "make stick" for this upcoming season.

Bring back "three yards and a cloud of dust" for the Big Ten! No more of this wacky forward-pass flim-flam, Vegas is setting the over/under of the Purdue-Ohio State game to 15.5! When I think Big Ten football in 2007, I want 90% of the action to occur between the 35-yard lines.

Redesign your conference or independent schedule with reckless abandon. Be prepared to include compensation for jilted schools and conferences in your explanation.

This year, the Badgers play the following teams out of conference: Washington State, UNLV, the Citadel, and Northern Illinois. Compared to previous years, this isn't so bad. We'll keep our local MAC school (NIU) and weak PAC-10 opponent (WSU) for starters. We'll expunge that road game at UNLV; we all remember when the freaking power went out at their crap-ass facility, and we're pretty bitter about the whole Big Dance fiasco, so they're gone. Also, the Citadel? Please. D-IAA has no place on this schedule, and horrible D-IAA teams are just plain out of the question. Instead, we'll replace those opponents with two more major conference opponents. What we need to do is travel for one game, but we must be certain that we can win there, and we need to invite a generally-decent team to Madison and smother them at home. So, we'll play an away game at Syracuse ... after all, if that undermanned Iowa team from last season was capable of winning at the Carrier Dome, we'll have no problem. For our home foe, we'll go with a middling Big XII team ... say, Oklahoma State or Nebraska.

The conference schedule is actually very good as well; coming to Madison are Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, and Indiana, and we travel to Ohio State, Minnesota, Illinois, and Penn State. That means we miss Northwestern and Purdue, both of which register a big fat "so what" from me. The Badgers seem to do pretty decently in Columbus, so the only thing we change is making Penn State visit Camp Randall. In exchange, we play MSU on the road. That makes things a little more favorable for UW.

Following up on your new realignment, blow up the BCS and devise a national playoff system, money grabs and missed exams be damned. Using your new fantasy conferences is optional.

Well, now that (1) defense wins championships, (2) the Big Ten is the best defensive conference in the land, and (3) it's a big deal when Big Ten games feature more than 13 points between the two teams, the parts of the country with short attention spans will be paying minimal attention to college football when our conference's teams grind away national title games with paralyzing 15-play, 88-yard, 11-minute touchdown drives. (For the curious, these are the short-attention-span parts of the country: the East Coast, any region with PAC-10, ACC, or SEC representation, and Texas.) That will allow us to sneak in a twelve team playoff:

* 6 automatic berths: 1 each for the Big Ten, Big XII, SEC, ACC, Big East, and PAC-10 champions
* 6 at-large berths, no restrictions on who can fill these slots (could be a MAC team, Notre Dame, a Mountain West team, and three major conference teams, or 4 Big Ten teams and 2 SEC teams, or anything else!)

The top four teams in the RPI (details of which are not yet clear to me), regardless of whether they won their conferences, get a bye. Then #5 plays #12, #6 plays #11, #7 plays #10, and #8 plays #9. This will give the top teams a chance to let their students take exams, and after four teams are eliminated, they can take exams immediately, leaving only four schools in the whole country with exam conflicts after one week of the playoffs. SO THERE.

Anyway, then #1 plays the lowest remaining seed, #2 the next, and so forth, and this re-shuffling of seeds continues throughout. Finally, after four weeks, we have an undisputed national champ. Well, undisputed by everyone but team #13. But who cares about #13?

Elect one public figure to replace NCAA president Myles Brand. Anyone with proper name recognition is eligible.

What characteristics does the NCAA president need to have? He needs to be reasonable -- he needs to be the type of guy who realizes that providing a star player's family with a million-dollar house or giving a recruit keys to any Escalade in Columbus is a different offense altogether than buying the O-line pizza when they show up to practicing weighing 245 apiece. He needs to realize that football and men's basketball are different animals than field hockey and gymnastics, and those lame sports need to be de-emphasized. He needs to be so rich that he doesn't care who's making what kind of money. And he needs to be willing to throw himself completely into the job ... and we all know the best way to do that is to have something from which you need to escape.

For those reasons, why not former President Bill Clinton? He's been sick to death of Hillary for nearly a quarter century, he can make six figures by shaking hands for forty-five minutes in Manhattan, and he's so manipulative that nobody'll notice that he wrote Title IX out of existence ... they'll all be captivated by that swarthy Southern drawl.

Cow-tipping, UW Hockey-style

Cow-tipping. After beer-pong, Wisconsin's most popular sport. A sacred tradition, a rite of passage, an easy go-to insult for the most slack-jawed out-of-state dunderheads to fall back upon.

Well, it really appears that Badger defenseman Kyle Klubertanz is living the dream. The Anaheim Ducks prospect was fined $200 Thursday for cow-tipping. But, as always seems to be the case with Badgers who run afoul of John Law, the story comes with a humorous, embarrassing twist:

It wasn't an actual cow.

No, it was a cow sculpture, as the Capital Times story helpfully illustrates:



The cow in question is called "Looking for Bucky" and stood, for a longer time than it should've, outside of the Kohl Center during last summer's Cow Parade. Over a hundred of these damned things took up space and helped bring stereotypes to life for an unbearable stretch of months last year, and then almost all of them sold for inexplicable five-figure amounts at a charity auction.

Reading the article, though, it certainly seems that Klubertanz and his nerdy sidekick, Badger alum Jeffery Slinde, picked on the least offensive cow in the vicinity. "Looking for Bucky" was accompanied by "Moo Rah Rah Wisconsin" (groan) and "If You Want to Be a Moosaic, Come Along with Me" (straight up WTF!?). Bill Wineke wrote, "the names alone make one want to damage the cow," and sure enough as I was typing all that in my tippin' shoulder was starting to get that telltale twitch.

So, $200 fine, 30 hours' community service, no mark on the permanent record. And Badger hockey once again gives people all around the internets something to talk about.

Rest in peace, Terry Hoeppner

Indiana coach Terry Hoeppner died this morning after a prolonged battle with brain cancer. He will be missed. Hoeppner seemed like the kind of guy who had a shot at raising Indiana's profile in the football world after a great run as coach of Miami-Ohio. He seemed like a genuinely good guy, and his players definitely respected him.

Here's to IU ... weather the storm, guys. May perpetual light shine upon you, Coach.

Phil Steele might need to submit a hair and urine sample

Picking the Badgers to finish in a three-way tie for fourth in the Big Ten? Come on now! Yes, quarterback is a huge hole to fill, but I suspect Allan Evridge will step in quite capably. Beyond that, the Badgers have every piece of the puzzle: a stifling defensive line, role players in the secondary, wide receivers who are coming into their own, big-booty P. J. Hill powering through a capable offensive line.

Mark it down - the Big Ten title will come down to the winner of the Wisconsin-Michigan game at Camp Randall. Period.

It's an odd, topsy-turvy year, with Steele being so wrong and CFN picking the Badgers to head to the Rose Bowl. Wait and see, I suppose. Wait and see.

Badger draft action

As predicted, Joe Thomas was snatched up quickly; he went as the third overall pick to the Cleveland Browns. Only JaMarcus Russell (LSU/Oakland) and Calvin Johnson (Georgia Tech/Detroit) were picked before Joe. Congrats on the big-money gig, Joe, even if it means having to reside in the Mistake on the Lake.

Unfortunately, every other Badger is still on the board, and nobody really expects any of them to be drafted. Look for Mark Zalewski and John Stocco to sign free agent contracts with the team of their choosing, though. So, one guy drafted means that UW produced the same number of draft picks as UW-Whitewater; good luck to Derek Stanley in his career with the St. Louis Rams.

Speaking of the Browns, looks like Thomas will be blocking for the guy they passed over, the ostensible QB of the Future and the inevitable focus of breathless puff-pieces for years to come, Mr. Brady Quinn. He slipped all the way to #22, until finally the Browns traded up to take him off the board. Don't fall victim to the delusions that are running wild at Notre Dame blog the Blue-Gray Sky; worth a read, if only for gems like this:

The Browns got lucky, and anybody who tries to say that this was part of their "master plan" is kidding themselves. I realize Cleveland is now claiming that they were trying to get back in ahead of Miami to select Quinn, but that doesn't pass the smell test. When Miami goofed, that opened the door. Lucky for Cleveland.

They only got lucky from the standpoint that Miami appears to be the only franchise left in the NFL that believes that Joey Harrington is a great get. Of course, there are a lot of people out there that believe that Quinn has as much upside as Harrington does, hence his long wait in the Green Room on Saturday. What the Browns did was to take a calculated risk, knowing that there would be a chance to use the third pick on Thomas and pick up Quinn right around where he belonged.

That the Browns traded two picks, including their 1st rounder next year, could be significant. Brady, if he starts for the Browns, is controlling his own value -- but inversely so. The better the Browns do with Brady at the helm, the lower their first round pick next year, and the cheaper the cost of acquiring Brady in the first place. Weird.

All that says is that they're willing to give him a shot at being the franchise quarterback. And this isn't a question of finances or "cheapness" or what have you; what the Browns want to do is to win games, and if it does turn out that Quinn has the ability to lead an NFL team, that's just another hole they don't have to fill en route to, y'know, winning those games.

It was a perfect storm for Jamarcus. What other team in this draft would have taken him #1 overall? If the Raiders hadn't been picking first, Russell could have been the one "green-roomed" yesterday instead of Quinn.

I'm certain that this is based only on petty jealousy. Although, for the record, I don't see Russell doing much at the QB position in the NFL either.

Charlie's right. All Brady has to do to wash this day away is to strap it on and kick some ass. Time to walk the walk.

This is a tough thing to do even if you've walked the walk before. Considering Quinn hasn't, he might have some trouble.

Now, the genesis of this post isn't in good old-fashioned Notre Dame hating. Although I do agree with what Bret Bielema had to say about the Irish, my feelings for Notre Dame border on the tepid. It's great that they get all these pre-season accolades, that their quarterbacks are perennially overrated pretty boys, that they occasionally steal a win from Michigan but spend most of their time beating up on service acadamies and Syracuse and losing to the big boys, and that they go to a bowl game two tiers higher than they deserve and then -- never surprisingly -- they lose, and generally lose by at last two touchdowns (the Irish have lost nine straight, and only 2 losses have been by a margin of fewer than 14 points), but this is based in charitably correcting insanity.

BGS needs to loosen the faux gold helmet a little bit and breathe the same air the rest of us are. Brady Quinn doesn't win big games because he's not an outstanding quarterback.

And you thought "prime time" was supposed to be a good thing

On the surface, the Big Ten Network -- a TV station devoted wholly to Big Ten sports -- should have cable companies scrambling for the privilege of carrying it, at least in the Midwest.

But then you sit back and think about the very public battle between the NFL Network and the cable companies who refused to pay the high price (70-80 cents per subscriber). Then you think about the popularity of the Big Ten -- a single conference -- versus the popularity of the entire NFL. And the fact that the Big Ten Network wants even more money than the NFL Network did: over $1 per subscriber. The cable companies didn't buckle to the NFL, and the realization hits: this station just isn't going to be available.

The Big Ten, though, is easing into this thing. It's said that certain football games will be televised exclusively on its network. Evidently, they're trying not to step on any toes; take a look at the prime time schedule for the 2007 season:

Sept. 1 -- Indiana State at Indiana, 8 p.m. EDT
Sept. 8 -- Syracuse at Iowa, 7 p.m. CDT
Sept. 15 -- Duke at Northwestern, 7 p.m. CDT
Oct. 13 -- Indiana at Michigan State, 7 p.m. EDT
Nov. 3 -- Illinois at Minnesota, 7 p.m. CDT

Hmm. Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Northwestern, Iowa, and Michigan State fans will all have to fanagle a way to see one of their team's conference games. Who doesn't?

Fans of Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Wisconsin, and Purdue.

Like I said, the Big Ten isn't trying to tick anyone off initially. They've managed to keep the schools with the biggest, most rabid fanbases out of the death-hole of BTN Primetime.

That's about right

If you're not reading Penn State blog Black Shoe Diaries, you should be. This post is not why, but is still ... well, something.

Thank you, Jackie

For playing the most visible role in changing the landscape of American sports. Thanks for suffering through what you did, and doing so with grace.

A good piece about Jackie Robinson Day over at Bless You Boys, and a nice tribute illustration at BCRS.

I hear that

Nicole capably sums up the Badger basketball season.

I don't really get into spring football, and there are no collegiate spring sports that interest me (although if the Badger softball team catches fire, I'll probably pay some attention.) For now, the big deal is the NHL Playoffs; I'll have no problem rooting for the Detroit Red Wings as long as that maniac Todd Bertuzzi is out. Then there's baseball, and I'm a big fan of that, but baseball is not what this site is about, especially since UW no longer fields a varsity team.

So, I'll be around. Keep checking back. And try to forget about that stupid tournament.

Not with a bang, but a whimper

And that's that. The Badgers bumbled and stumbled their way through the first game in the NCAA Tournament and followed that up with a gag-worthy "effort" in the second round. They followed the same script in both games: run up a huge deficit, go on an improbable run to take the lead, and finish in cruise control. Beating the Islanders of Texas A&M Corpus Christi on cruise control wound up being a simple task. Doing the same against UNLV helped the Rebels win a date with the Oregon Ducks.

For all the highs this season, there were so many lows that the sum of the parts far, far exceeds the whole. Alando Tucker becomes the Badgers' all-time leading scorer? Great. The Badgers pile up the most regular-season wins they've ever had, aided by a record-breaking win streak? Fantastic. The AP dubs the Badgers the #1 team in the land for the first time ever? Let's answer that one with a question -- how many hours did it take for the Badgers to lose after that announcement? Like, 30? Just perfect.

This was supposed to be our year. We don't always get a year, but this one was supposed to be it. The Badgers' 2005-6 season left us champing at the bit; yeah, they got knocked out of the Big Dance in the first round, but they weren't even supposed to be there! This team was going to do special things next year; nobody that big was leaving, Landry and Stiemsma would play, it would be stupendous.

And it was! A lone loss to Missouri State was the only blemish on the Badgers' record for months. Alando Tucker was a beast, and most importantly, it seemed that every night a new role player would emerge with a previously-unknown skill. Flowers would work defensive magic. Bohannon would knock down energy-creating triples. Landry would flip the switch and become superhuman. Everything was falling into place.

Then, we got into February. Drew Neitzel and Greg Oden put down the #1 Badgers in consecutive games, and the Badgers entered a stagnant period that continued right through the end of the season. The Badgers, the team of destiny, watched as the Ohio State Buckeyes -- a team of freshmen -- walk away with all the awards that they knew they had the talent to win. After getting the victory in the first head-to-head game with the Buckeyes, the Badgers lost the next, getting bumped off of the inside track for a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and losing the regular-season conference title in one fell swoop. Not long after, the Buckeyes were back -- the only thing standing between Wisconsin and a Big Ten Conference Tournament championship. And friends, that game was not even close.

But in March, the season begins anew. Texas A&M Corpus-Christi figured that out about 12 basketball minutes before the Badgers did; once Wisconsin decided that you shouldn't spot anyone 14 points in the NCAA Tournament, even #15 seeds, things became less interesting and Wisconsin coasted on to the round of 32 by what looked like a comfortable margin.

Then they didn't even make the Sweet Sixteen. That's what the public saw, that's what the fans care about, and that's how this team will be judged. Regular season accomplishments keep things interesting from December to February. Individual honors are a feather in the cap, but ultimately meaningless. But when you're in the Big Dance, you need to samba like nobody's watching, and the Badgers did not do that.

I guess it's football season

Still simmering down over here. Updates tonight/tomorrow. I guess the tournament's officially into the Sweet 16 tonight so basketball posting ought to happen posthaste.

Maybe I ought to shift this site's focus to non-revenue sports; while the basketball team was bricking its way to an early demise, the women's hockey team won its second straight national title and the men's track team won its first ever NCAA Indoor title. Congratulations to both teams.

Much more to come.

Chasing down that one-seed

The Badgers did it again yesterday, using stifling defense to hold the Illini to a season-low 41 points in the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament. So, the Big Ten tournament worked how it was supposed to; #1 Ohio State and #2 Wisconsin advance to the final, setting up a rubber match for the season series.

Obviously, a ton is at stake here; the winner will almost certainly get a one-seed for the Big Dance (although I think that Ohio State will get a one-seed regardless; people seem very high on them and their resume is strong) and will close out the season with 30 wins before the tournament even begins. The loser will fret for a couple hours, then ultimately hear their seeding, destination, and chump first-round opponent.

The Badgers' play in the tournament thus far has been encouraging. Kammron Taylor got his groove back, Alando Tucker's been a scoring machine (and he's become not only Big Ten Player of the Year, but UW's all-time leading scorer; congrats!), and Stiemsma and Krabbenhoft have filled in admirably for the injured Brian Butch. What you're watching is a team that's ready to make a tournament run. If they can go 13 minutes at a time without turning the ball over like they did against Illinois, the Badgers have a shot at going all the way. They just need to snap out of the offensive cold periods that they've experienced recently and they'll be all set.

It was nice to see the Badgers ready for Michigan State on Friday, too. After the first two games, I know most Wisconsin fans were dreading that matchup. Fortunately, Neitzel came out cold (and was remarkably well-defended by Michael Flowers), they played a sloppy, foul-and-turnover-filled game, and the Badgers didn't stoop to their level. I was once convinced that the Spartans were going to be a great sleeper pick for the NCAA Tourney, but after their struggles with Northwestern and their poor effort against the Badgers, I'm picking them to go one-and-done.

Hopefully this afternoon we'll see the Badgers come out with a fury and smoke the Buckeyes. Then we can look forward to that tense matchup with Central Connecticut State.

Spartans again

Three games in less than three weeks. Couldn't we have done this before the Spartans had their act together?

Keep gunning for that #1 seed, gentlemen. Best of luck.

Go Badgers!

One hour to the Big Ten Tournament

Here's how it goes down:

Thursday's Games
(8) Michigan 68, (7) Minnesota 61
(7) Michigan State 59, (10) Northwestern 44
(6) Illinois 65, (11) Penn State 53

Friday's Games
(8) Michigan 52, (1) Ohio State 51
(5) Purdue 67, (6) Iowa 59
(2) Wisconsin 60, (7) Michigan State 58
(3) Indiana 72, (6) Illinois 58

Saturday's Games
(5) Purdue 63, (8) Michigan 53
(2) Wisconsin 70, (3) Indiana 65

Sunday's Game
(2) Wisconsin 62, (5) Purdue 50

What, who'd you think I was going to pick?

More previews at Penn State's Black Shoe Diaries, Big Ten Wonk, the Final Score, and Buckeye Battle Cry.

Midweek update

Dead air kills ... here are a few juicy links:

Brian Butch is out 4 to 6 weeks. A quick recovery, then, gets him into some Final Four matchups. A slow recovery might have him ready for the national title game, or could keep him out of the season completely. What a rough break, not for the Badgers, but for him. You work so hard to be part of a high-achieving team ... and then this. I feel for you, Brian. I really do.

The hockey team got swept at Michigan Tech. All that buildup from a couple weekends ago is gone now. Hopefully they can close out the regular season in graceful fashion this weekend when they visit Minnesota-Duluth.

Big Ten Wonk thinks that Ohio State is overachieving. Their raw talent does indeed make them a prime candidate to be that 1-seed or 2-seed that doesn't make the Sweet 16.

The Sports Frog watched the OSU game and (surprise!) takes issue with something Billy Packer said!

The Wisconsin Sports Bar, with no trace of sour grapes, ranks the reasons why the Badgers lost to the Buckeyes:

1. Luck

2. They were on the road.

3. {An injury}

4. Home court officiating, again. Had the Badgers enjoyed their normal foul-shooting advantage they would have won.

5. Stupidity. How did they not get the ball at half court for the final play?

6. Bad free throw shooting. Kammron Taylor, you could have won the game.

Also, guys ... they got outplayed by one of the best teams in the nation. Just sayin'.

Michael David Smith at the AOL Fanhouse has a post all about Thad Matta's gum situation.

Nicole at Cute Sports wants you to join her March Madness Challenge.

Finally, why couldn't Drew Neitzel have caught the flu a week earlier than he did?

Losing streak

Unlike the pathetic contest with Michigan State, it's tough to sit back and instantly know what went wrong with this one.

Well, one obvious thing was having Kam Taylor at the free-throw line with a possibility to change a one-point lead in the dying seconds of the game to a three-point lead, only to have him miss the first shot of a one-and-one. The Badgers weren't doing great from the line to begin with (they didn't get there very much in the first place) but with a senior on one of the top teams in the nation, who has the sixth-best free throw percentage in the conference ... you just HAVE to make that shot.

This game was memorable for a lot of reasons. It was officiated very loosely; the referees "let 'em play," that's for sure. Greg Oden committed about twelve fouls and was actually called for three, which in my book means the game was called really fairly. (Seriously ... he didn't get away with as much as he usually did. Hell, they called him for a travel on a pivotal possession! What more can you ask for?) Then we had several replays of Brian Butch's injured elbow, a nice shot of Joe Krabbenhoft picking his contact lens off of the court and putting it in his mouth, then Thad Matta doing the same thing with a piece of gum. Jason Bohannon went off while the nation watched -- he'll ably fill the hole that Kammron Taylor leaves when he graduates.

So, the game ended with a blocked shot after a pretty finger-roll by Mike Conley, and the Badgers have now lost two in a row. It's funny; this is possibly the best team Wisconsin's ever fielded, and they're not even going to win the conference.

A Florida loss keeps some hope for a one-seed alive, and the Big Ten Tournament title is still definitely within reach. But this is a bad penultimate regular-season game result, and now the Badgers will have to go where they're going without Brian Butch's services.

So, now we sit and wait, and hopefully beat Michigan State at home. Hopefully there's some fun left for the Wisconsin Badgers this season.

(If you want to relive the game, the Capital Times has a liveblog up.)

Basketball Q&A with Around the Oval

Prepare to be Buckeyed: Sean over at Around the Oval thought it might be fun to do some basketball Q&A since this weekend's game is going to be bigger than Cats. His answers to my questions appear below; my answers to his should be up at his blog in a short time. Go on over and check out his fine site. You'll get all kinds of good info and commentary from the other side of the matchup as you anxiously await this Sunday's tip!

1. Michigan State beat the Badgers on Tuesday by doing three things, all of which were related: (1) They clogged the lane and didn't allow the Badgers to penetrate; (2) they forced Wisconsin to take a season-high 28 three-point shots, many of which they missed, and several of which occurred as the shot clock was expiring; and (3) they rebounded extremely effectively on both ends of the court. Which, if any, of these sound like hallmarks of Ohio State's game?

Number three is definitely a part of the Buckeyes' game; according to the Big Ten Wonk, the Buckeyes rank second in offensive rebounding percentage and first in defensive rebounding percentage. Number one is kind of a part of OSU's game. Players can penetrate the OSU defense, but as long as Oden's in the game and standing under the basket, those guys will generally either get their shot blocked or realize going inside was a bad idea and kick the ball outside. Number two is related to the first point in that Oden's presence forces a lot of threes (in Purdue's first game against the Buckeyes, Carl Freakin' Landry was jacking up threes). However, teams have been making enough of those threes for it to be worthwhile for them. It's great to see an opponent forced to shoot threes, but when they make 40% of them? Not so much.

2. What cost the Buckeyes the game when they came to Madison? Have you seen improvement in that area since then?

I'd say it was Greg Oden playing injured and being rusty, and the lack of a second quality big man. Oden had an okay game (ten points, seven rebounds), but OSU needs better than an okay game when they play one of the top teams in the country. He wasn't as dominating as you'd (or rather I'd) like to see. Some of that was because he was playing injured, and some was because of foul trouble. He's still not the absolutely dominating player you expect, but he's playing better, and he's playing smarter, so there has been improvement there.

If memory serves, Oden picked up at least a couple of those fouls defending pick-and-rolls away from the basket. Pulling Oden away from the basket like that was a good move: he doesn't defend nearly as well when he's not in the low post, and it freed up the inside, leading to Kammron Taylor driving to the basket over and over and getting put on the line sixteen(!) times. Now, if a team tried that, OSU would probably put Othello Hunter, a 6'9" forward who's really improved over the season, on the big man that sets the screens and have Oden just stay under the basket.

But on the other hand, the Buckeyes played pretty well in Madison. They shot well from outside, they contained Alando Tucker, they spread the scoring load. OSU has looked far worse in some games since then (in particular, they haven't shot threes as well as they did in Madison). So the improvements noted above may be offset by the Buckeyes playing worse in other facets of the game.

3. What's with the close calls to Penn State? The Badgers had no problem with them, and the Buckeyes seem to be a very solid team, and (possibly most importantly) the game wasn't on TV in Wisconsin, so I'm curious.

That's a good question. In the first game, the Buckeyes blew a big first-half lead, so the consensus was that the Buckeyes just took PSU too lightly and eased up in the second half. But then the rematch happened, and Penn State was in the game for its entirety, even leading for a while. I think the Buckeyes just had trouble with the Nittany Lions' 2-3 zone, especially the shooters, who didn't shoot well enough to take advantage of the openings given by the zone. Additionally, Oden didn't get the ball enough, particularly in the second game, though I'm not sure whether that's a result of the zone or Buckeyes players choosing to ignore the 7', 280 pound guy going up against 6'5" Jamelle Cornley in the low post. Overall, I'd chalk the close games up to a lack of focus by the Buckeyes (something the Badgers probably won't be able to take advantage of) and trouble handling a zone (something the Badgers might be able to take advantage of, if they so desire).

4. Rapid fire prediction time! Give me the percent likelihood of the following: Ohio State wins the Big Ten regular season title; Ohio State wins the Big Ten tournament; Ohio State makes the Final Four; Wisconsin goes farther in the NCAA tournament than the Buckeyes.

Regular season title: 60% outright, 95% co-champs with Wisconsin (assuming that, as in football, a team can share the title with a team that beat them)

Big Ten tournament: 40% (several teams will have more to play for than the Buckeyes and might pull off an upset, then there's the possible re-rematch with the Badgers)

Final Four: 30% (16 of 40 one seeds have made the Final Four in the past ten years (40%), then a deduction because the Buckeyes could be a two seed and because they aren't a dominating team like many of those one seeds)

Wisconsin going farther: 55% (I'm still hoping the Buckeyes reach their potential and play like a great team, but the Badgers have been more consistent and more consistently impressive this season)

5. Fill in the blank: Greg Oden will play basketball in Columbus for _____ season(s).

I gotta go one season. Oden could improve his game by staying for another year (or more), and college is fun, but he has nothing to gain financially by sticking around, and he'd be risking injury or slipping down draft boards Leinart-style. As much as I'd hope otherwise, and regardless of what he says, I still expect he'll make the safe financial decision at the end of the day.

Women's hockey: in a position for huge embarrassment

I might be late to the party on this one, but I just noticed that women's hockey is hosting North Dakota this weekend for some WCHA playoff action. And guess what:

Wisconsin won the WCHA regular season crown with 50 points and a 23-1-4 record in conference play. North Dakota finished the regular season 0-27-1 in the WCHA.

Can you imagine if the Sioux were able to knock off Wisconsin this weekend? What an enormous embarrassment.

Go get 'em, Badgers!

In non-losing-to-Michigan-State-news

Two things: football offensive coordinator Paul Chryst, rumored to be headed to any number of NFL teams as a coordinator, will in fact stay in Madison next year. There's an Ash Wednesday joke about Chryst in there somewhere, but that's not up to me to find.

Also, it appears that the University has bullied a few high schools in Iowa and forced them to give up their versions of the Motion W logo. Way to protect that trademark!

Looks like the AP voters were wrong

Brent Musberger said it first, and everyone else on the planet has repeated it by now: this Sunday's matchup between Wisconsin and Ohio State will still be a #1 versus #1 affair, since the polls don't come out till Monday. But I can say with relative confidence that the team that we saw playing the Michigan State Spartans last night has a long way to go before they can be considered the top team in the country.

First, let's look at the consequences of this loss. Obviously it gave UW a second conference loss, which means that Ohio State now has sole possession of first place in the Big Ten. It most likely got the Spartans into the NCAA Tournament, which is a bad thing since they're obviously a dangerous squad and they'll have a low seed. They might cause some chaos in those March brackets. And finally, it reduced the Badgers' claim for a #1 seed in the Big Dance (although I think it would take another loss to cost them completely).

So, why did the Badgers lose last night? There were plenty of reasons, some of which were under their control and others that were not. The spark that ignited the Spartans was Drew Neitzel, who kept the Spartans in the game during the first ten minutes by scoring 13 of Michigan State's first 15 points and who nailed clutch shots throughout the second half to keep the Badgers at bay. That's one of those things you can't control; a guy is going to get a certain number of open looks every game, and if he converts on ten of the seventeen shots that he tries, you simply can't stop that.

But one hot hand is not sufficient to derail the Badgers. And the Neitzel situation was most certainly not the biggest reason for the loss. The two things that absolutely killed the Badgers was their inability to get inside due to a pesky Spartan defense, and their propensity for taking stupid shots. Down the stretch, the typical Badger possession looked something like this:

* Get the ball
* Pass it around the perimeter until the shot clock get to about 8
* Fire off an errant triple
* Watch the Spartans get the rebound because all the Badgers are busy watching from beyond the arc

Mix in a couple uncharacteristic Alando Tucker travels for variety, and voila: the perfect recipe for a road loss to a tenacious team.

The inability to penetrate combined with the frantic three-point shooting kept the Badgers off the boards and forced them into coinflip situations; either come away with three big points, or surrender the ball after one field goal attempt.

Kammron Taylor didn't make a shot all night, which didn't help matters, but Marcus Landry came up huge. It looked like he was ready to will the team to victory, but the team wasn't ready to follow. And that's too bad.

The Ohio State game was a must-win before; now it's a really really really must-win. The Big Ten regular season title WILL be won on the floor on Sunday.