As Mark Hasty mentioned Friday, there is much pressure on the Wisconsin Badgers football team this fall. After a disappointing season a year ago, the heat is on to prove it was nothing but a fluke.
To do so, Wisconsin will rely, in large part, on a "new" starting offensive backfield in 2009. 2008's starting running back, P.J. Hill, is gone. Also gone is the guy who started the season as the top quarterback, Allan Evridge.
In the first installment of the end-of-season report card on the Big Ten, we looked at the schools in the first half of the alphabet. Know what letter is in the first half of the alphabet? That's right. F. But then, all the other grade letters are in the first half of the alphabet too.
Even though it wasn't a great year overall for the conference, there were plenty of bright points and hopeful signs and "wait until next year" moments which should have Big Ten fans excited for next season. Either that, or we'll all look like Charlie Brown did five seconds after Lucy teed up the football. But I digress. Let's take a look at the teams in the second drawer of the Big Ten file cabinet, shall we?
RIGHT: One of these is the alpha cub. But which one is it?
They're 6 and 1. They've lost to the only good team they've played. Their signature win thus far is over a team that, in retrospect, may not really be that good. They're solid on one side of the ball but they have issues on the other. Quick, which 6-1 Big Ten team am I talking about?
Answer? All of them. Ohio State, Minnesota, Michigan State, Northwestern ... on some level, they're all the same team. You know about OSU. Lost to USC, has a gutty win over Wisconsin which seemed huge at the time, solid defense but an offense that suddenly isn't doing so hot. Minnesota lost to the Buckeyes but beat Illinois. So have two other teams. The Gopher defense is much improved but still isn't great. No complaints about the offense.
Northwestern has seen tremendous improvement in its defense. coupled with an inexplicable drop in its offensive production. The Cats' biggest win is over ... who? 3-2 Duke? Or 4-3 Iowa? 3-2 Southern Illinois? Those are the only teams NU has defeated who currently have winning records, and SIU doesn't really count, being a 1-AA Football Championship Subdivision squad. When the Fightin' Fitzgeralds went up against Michigan State, a team with a pulse, they got flounced.
Oh, and what about Sparty? Does Mark Dantonio's team break the pattern?
These are unsteady days here in Wisconsin. The Badgers are on a three-game skid which includes a loss to Michigan that grows less explicable every week. The Brewers made the playoffs for the first time since the early years of the Reagan administration, only to get blown out by the Phillies. Worst of all, last week Aaron Rodgers got hurt on the same day Brett Favre threw for six touchdowns.
The Badgers are a team in disarray. A month ago they were a consensus top-ten team and people were praising them for a gutty win over Fresno State. A month ago nearly everyone thought that Bret Bielema's team was the only thing standing between Ohio State and the Big Ten title. A month ago, everybody was wrong about the Badgers.
Blame is like fruitcake: Somehow, it always seems like there's more than enough to go around. This week's designated hate sink is woebegone quarterback Allan Evridge. He was beyond dreadful last night. His first touchdown run as a Badger (he started his career at Kansas State, where Bielema used to coach) was nullified by his passing statistics: 2 of 10 for 50 yards. One touchdown. One interception. No wonder the UW faithful cheered backup Dustin Sherer when he came in halfway through the third quarter.
RIGHT: Let's face it, this is what everybody's talking about in the Big Ten this week.
We're now two weeks into the conference season and already things are starting to sort themselves out. It's clear that Penn State and Ohio State are going to duke it out for the conference title and a Rose Bowl berth, unless Penn State wins out and gets some help from the Big XII and SEC. It's clear that Illinois, Michigan State, and (probably) Northwestern constitute the conference's second tier. Just below them, put Minnesota (gadzooks, how long has it been since you could put the Gophers ahead of anybody in this conference?) and ... yeesh. Is Minnesota all alone in the third tier?
That leaves us with five teams who right now are fighting for one bowl slot, unless two Big Ten teams wind up in the BCS. Early estimates would favor Wisconsin, though it's starting to look like the Badgers may have been overhyped. (I'll save you the trouble, SEC fan: "All teams in the Big Ten are overhyped!" Oh, look, none of your teams have beaten Vanderbilt!)
Iowa is a strange case, as usual. The Hawkeyes have been more unlucky than awful in their three-game skid, but there aren't any easy games left, except maybe this week. Purdue, Indiana, and Michigan? Stink, stank, and stunk.
ABOVE: Wisconsin's Jonathan Casillas couldn't catch the above quarterback, who is not John Elway. Perhaps if Casillas had a motorized vehicle of some sort ...
Okay, I know it's still quite early in the season, but I think we've seen the Horrible Pants-Blasting Loss of the Year. Not to take anything away from the Wolverines, but when you look at the box score from last Saturday's Wisconsin/Michigan game, you can't help but come away thinking, "How on Earth did the Badgers lose that game?" Up 19-0 at halftime against a team that had only scored 19 points once in three games, with a clock-gobbling running game and a usually stifling defense ... and they gacked.
Sure, there are some good reasons why they lost. Allan Evridge is an inexperienced quarterback. Then again, he's more experienced than Steven Threet, who looked like John freakin' Elway in the fourth quarter. (Okay, he looked like Elway would have looked if Elway had been able to run. I haven't forgotten all the O.J. Simpson jokes, you know.) Again, you have to give Michigan credit for doing what it took to win that game ... but how did Wisconsin lose it? You can only reach one conclusion: Pants-blast.
Other teams whose lower body laundry you wouldn't have wanted to do last week: Indiana, Iowa, and Purdue, who I think became the first team ever to not intercept Jimmy Clausen. How will these teams rebound this week? Hint: like a dead cat.
ABOVE: Minnesota native and Montana State alum Craig Kilborn is probably anticipating a different game than you are this Saturday.
Are you excited?
Are you REALLY excited?
I mean, it's not every week you get a matchup of this caliber, one between two teams who basically set the bar for other programs aspiring to mentioned in the same breath as them.
Every detail, every nuance, every last matchup on the field up to and including the training staff has been and will be dissected, analyzed, and compared as we all try to figure out just who has the edge, hoping that maybe we can make a solid prediction which later will allow us to say "Ha! I told you so!"
All across this great land of ours, this momentous date has been circled for months. Plans have been changed, vacations moved, even weddings accelerated or postponed, all to accommodate this very weekend. Yet "weekend" seems too, well, weak of a word to describe this truly ... epochal experience that may never come our way again. You will never forget The Game. Even if you, by some stroke of outrageous misfortune, happen to miss The Game, you will at least remember where you were when you heard The Score. It will be engraved into your mind's eye as surely as if it were chiseled in granite.
But enough about the Minnesota-Montana State game. Let's look at some of the other games first.
As Mark Hasty mentioned Friday, there is much pressure on the Wisconsin Badgers football team this fall. After a disappointing season a year ago, the heat is on to prove it was nothing but a fluke.
In the first installment of the end-of-season report card on the Big Ten, we looked at the schools in the first half of the alphabet. Know what letter is in the first half of the alphabet? That's right. F. But then, all the other grade letters are in the first half of the alphabet too.
Every Thursday, Pickin' On the Big Ten breaks down action across the conference.
These are unsteady days here in Wisconsin. The Badgers are on a three-game skid which includes a loss to Michigan that grows less explicable every week. The Brewers made the playoffs for the first time since the early years of the Reagan administration, only to get blown out by the Phillies. Worst of all, last week Aaron Rodgers got hurt on the same day Brett Favre threw for six touchdowns.
Every Thursday, Pickin' On the Big Ten breaks down action across the conference.
