BlogPoll Ballot Draft

Let me know where I went wrong. Opinions accepted for the next 48 hours or so.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio State	--
2	Michigan	--
3	Southern Cal	1
4	Texas	1
5	Auburn	1
6	Florida	1
7	Clemson	2
8	California	3
9	Tennessee	1
10	Arkansas	1
11	Wisconsin	1
12	LSU	2
13	Louisville	3
14	Notre Dame	1
15	Rutgers	2
16	West Virginia	--
17	Boston College	3
18	Wake Forest	1
19	Georgia Tech	6
20	Missouri	6
21	Nebraska	--
22	Oklahoma	2
23	Texas A&M	2
24	Boise State	2
25	Washington State	1

Dropped Out: Oregon (#18), Pittsburgh (#23).

Technorati tags: wisconsin badgers, college football, university of wisconsin, UW-Madison

Wisconsin 24, Purdue 3

Excellent game yesterday. The Badgers have a few areas that need work, but all in all, yesterday's effort was amazing. Let's leave the numbers to Jeff Potrykus:

The Boilermakers (5-3, 2-2) entered the game tied for 17th nationally in scoring at 33.1 points per game, with 30 touchdowns in seven games. They had scored at least 10 points in 35 consecutive games and had scored in double figures 113 times in Joe Tiller's 117 previous games as Purdue coach.

UW's defense, which has grown more confident, assignment-sure and aggressive with each week this season, stopped the Boilermakers 10 times in 11 possessions and limited them to a season-low 286 yards, 185.7 yards below their per-game average. Purdue came in No. 1 in the Big Ten in third-down conversions (49.5%) but went 3 for 14 (21.4%) against UW and 0 for 3 on fourth-down tries.

Add that to an offensive display including another 161 yards by PJ Hill and 201 yards passing from John Stocco, and you can see what the Badgers have become.

The conversation in the Big Ten is dominated by and defined by Ohio State and Michigan. And that's fine. That's how it should be; both teams look unstoppable, they're both undefeated, and the biggest rivalry in college football might just be getting its biggest chapter ever on November 18.

Still, give the Badgers some love! They give up 3 points to a team that hasn't scored fewer than 17 all season, and the coaches and media STILL have them ranked below Boise State and Rutgers? Pathetic.

Technorati tags: wisconsin badgers, college football, purdue, university of wisconsin, UW-Madison

Making sense of Purdue

Really briefly here ...

So, we're going on the road, heading to West Lafayette, ready to take on Purdue. 5-2 Purdue, even, so they've shaken off the dust of the abysmal season they had last year and started winning again.

But this will not be shades of 2004. This will not be the defensive chess match ending in a glorious fumble and recovery. It's destined to be Shootout City. We all know what PJ Hill and the Badgers have been up to, but Purdue is getting its first shot at national exposure on ESPN and is bringing in an offense that has scored under 30 points four times this season. They're averaging close to 500 yards per game and over 320 of those are coming through the air.

What Purdue lacks is defense of any kind. Their defense might actually be worse than Minnesota's. The Boilermakers have surrendered an embarrassing number of points to some pretty embarrassing teams. D-IAA Indiana State scored thirty-freaking-five points on Purdue. Miami of Ohio banged in 31, and Ball State (lowly, lowly Ball State) managed 28.

What this boils down to is Wisconsin scoring on all but one or two of their possessions. The Boilermakers have a chance of keeping the score respectable if the Badgers' defensive secondary doesn't show up. But they will not be able to stop Hill, they won't win the turnover battle, and they'll lose the game.

Maybe I'll look stupid, but I'm calling it Wisconsin 45, Purdue 24.

Technorati tags: wisconsin badgers, college football, university of wisconsin, UW-Madison

Pay no mind to that 6-1 Big Ten team

EDIT: BlogPoll votes update. Explanations below. Still 12.5 hours to go before the ballot goes final.

***

BlogPoll voters, allow me to exhort you: be unto the Badgers as the national voters. Yea, in their wisdom, the AP and the Coaches have seen fit to rank the Badgers at #21 and #22, respectively. This is a position that suits the Badgers, a 6-1 team that has played one bad half of football all year.

Yeah, you could point at PJ Hill and exclaim, "this man is second in the NCAA in rushing yardage, gaining over 1000 yards and creating 11 scores, and there are still six games to go!" Or you could look at their record and say, "Why, they're already bowl eligible, and they still have to play five more regular-season games!" Or maybe you might notice that Wisconsin is leading the Big Ten in scoring, garnering 33.9 points per game. You could even look at the fact that UW is only allowing 12.7 points per game, and that the only time they ceded over 20 points was when they visited what the AP poll is calling the #2 team in the nation.

But why would you do that? Surely, the AP has it right; the Badgers, at #21, don't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the Boise States and Rutgerses of the worlds. They simply don't have the marquee losses like Oregon (by 21 to Cal) and Notre Dame (by 26 to Michigan ... the Badgers only have a 14-point loss upon which to hang their hats!) And you certainly shouldn't rank Wisconsin higher than Iowa ... after all, they lost to Indiana, and we only beat the Hoosiers by five touchdowns.

So, BlogPoll voters, don't waste your credibility; do the right thing and follow the lead of the brilliant voters in the AP and Coaches polls.

Here are my rankings, FWIW. Point out my mistakes ... EDIT: Mistakes have been pointed out. I have come around to the idea that LSU is not top ten material, but that forced me to put a very non-top-ten-worthy team, Louisville, in their stead. This displeases me, but whatever. I also dropped the Badgers one spot, but that's as low as I'm going. Reasoning: I think the Badgers would beat everyone below them. Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, and West Virginia would get chewed up and spit out by PJ Hill, and the defense would bring the pain on Quinn, bottle up Johnson, and stone Slaton.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio State	--
2	Michigan	--
3	Texas	4
4	Southern Cal	1
5	California	4
6	Auburn	10
7	Florida	4
8	Tennessee	2
9	Clemson	2
10	Louisville	2
11	Arkansas	4
12	Wisconsin	7
13	Georgia Tech	1
14	LSU	4
15	Notre Dame	5
16	West Virginia	12
17	Rutgers	4
18	Oregon	7
19	Wake Forest	7
20	Boston College	6
21	Nebraska	1
22	Boise State	2
23	Pittsburgh	3
24	Oklahoma	2
25	Texas A&M	1

Dropped Out: Georgia (#13), Iowa (#14), Missouri (#17), Virginia Tech (#23), North Carolina State (#24).

Technorati tags: wisconsin badgers, college football, university of wisconsin, UW-Madison

I have just one question to axe you

How many m's are in "dominated?" Is it one, or zero? Can I exclude the m? Because the m's I saw on Saturday weren't doing much of anything. I figure their presence was superfluous.

How about the n's? Is the word spelled doMINNation? Are there two n's?

On Saturday, Minnesota's football team went the way its academic reputation, admissions standards, campus atmosphere, and location do when compared to the University of Wisconsin: on the losing end of a ridiculously one-sided battle.

Obviously, it was nice to see everything come together for the Badgers. PJ Hill was his usual badass self, turning in another 150+ yard effort and finding the end zone twice. John Stocco was on the freakin' money with FOUR touchdown passes. I know that the Gophers don't have a secondary, but the fact that receivers were (a) catching the ball and (b) making it to the end zone is very, very, very encouraging. The only negatives were the blocked extra point that got returned for two points, and the fact that the axe was already sitting on the Wisconsin sideline so the linemen didn't have to rush over and take it from the stoopid Gophers.

And that's not to mention the defense. Jack Ikegwuonu had an insane game, setting the tone by running back an Amir Pinnix fumble for a score when the game was barely a minute old. The fumble was caused by DT Jason Chapman, who was a monster all day long. He sacked Cupito twice, which is applause-worthy. The Badger Herald has a great article about the defensive duo here.

I was impressed by our tight ends, Crooks and Beckum, and Stocco's poise. What a fantastic all-around effort, and how especially sweet that it came in the form of the obliteration of this team's main rival.

Plus, now the Badgers are bowl eligible, which is a nice bonus. More thoughts later, but the great thing to consider now is that we have five weeks to climb the bowl ladder, with home games against Illinois, Buffalo, and Penn State (now featuring two dead quarterbacks), and away games against hapless Purdue and the not-as-good-as-Indiana Iowa Hawkeyes.

If they take care of business and a couple bounces go against the Wolverines or Buckeyes, and this team could be looking at a trip to Pasadena ...

Technorati tags: wisconsin badgers, college football, university of wisconsin, UW-Madison, minnesota golden gophers

Am I back?

Oh. Oh, yes. And let us speak not of my travels, but of the Badgers.

Which, of course, I am fully unprepared to do at this juncture. Turns out the international media, much like the American media, do not care much about the doings of our intrepid Badgers. But let me just say that I am happy to see that Wisconsin is 5-1 and has, in the past two weeks, thoroughly destroyed two teams that were marked for thorough destruction.

I'd like to thank Nicole for filling in extremely capably. Read her non-Badger thoughts at Cute Sports.

Since I'm so woefully in the dark about the on-field doings of the Badger football team (last I saw, they were up 28-0 on Indiana), let's focus on an extraordinarily silly drama that is playing itself out in the student media: the Chancellor has found something amiss with the band! The band members aren't sure what it is, but it may involve foul language and/or the consumption of liquor! I am scandalized! More on this as it develops.

Also, a Badger disco king at the Michigan game caused Daily Cardinal writer Ryan Reszel to see the light about older fans:

Consider this: In the past 13 years, UW has had two losing seasons. From 1964-1992, they had six winning seasons.

How many of today’s students would have stuck around through the winless seasons of ’67 and ’68. Who among the “road warriors” in Ann Arbor could have endured four consecutive four-win years in the 1970s?

So next time you’re tempted to yell at the “old people,” stop and think. Haven’t they earned the right to sit during a game, to be unrealistically optimistic, to have their own disco dance party in a hotel bar?

Technorati tags: wisconsin badgers, college football, university of wisconsin, UW-Madison

Blog Poll

I'll admit to having no idea what to do with this week's poll. I haven't seen a top 25 this screwy in a long time. The AP has two two-loss teams in the rankings. Most years were worried about having too many great teams in the polls. This year we've only got a few great teams and then a lot of mediocre ones. There's been a lot of shakeup in college football - lots of upsets and lots of disappointments.

This is the best I could come up with:

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio State	--
2	Michigan	1
3	Florida	2
4	West Virginia	5
5	Southern Cal	1
6	Tennessee	5
7	Texas	1
8	Louisville	1
9	California	5
10	Notre Dame	5
11	Clemson	1
12	Georgia Tech	6
13	Georgia	--
14	Iowa	3
15	Arkansas	11
16	Auburn	14
17	Missouri	4
18	LSU	12
19	Wisconsin	1
20	Boise State	2
21	Rutgers	2
22	Nebraska	2
23	Virginia Tech	2
24	North Carolina State	2
25	Oregon	15

Dropped Out: Oklahoma (#16), Washington (#23).