Coming off of a dominant bowl win over 14th ranked Miami - which easily could have been a blowout - Badgers fans have to be looking forward to 2010.
First off, the bowl win over a speedy, Top 15, nationally-branded program like Miami has some benefits of its own. At 10-3 with that good win and with many, many returning starters, we can expect a couple of things that make 2010 exciting:
(1) The Badgers' preseason poll-position will be Top 15, putting them in an inside lane for the BCS.
(2) John Clay will be media-hyped for the Heisman from day one.
Let's look at what Bucky brings to the table for 2010. It's encouraging.
Offense: This was a good offensive unit, and all starters come back with the exception of TE Graham and blocking TE Turner. Good players, but I think Kendricks gave a good "Garrett who?" performance last night, both receiving and blocking. This looks like fun:
QB: Tolzien, Phillips, Budmayr, plus promising frosh
RB: A guy named Clay, Ball, Brown, Smith, aka fucking loaded
TE: Kendricks rocks, Byrne / Korslin can fill the anonymous blocking role of Turner, or maybe we'll see less double TEs and see a fullback like Ewing spend some time blocking
WR: Toon, Appleton, Anderson, Gilreath and Jefferson
OL: All five starters return, plus 4 other guys who started at least 1 game.
With more experience and growth for this unit, they will be bad-ass, no doubt in my mind.
Defense: A little more to be lost here. Schofield is a major loss at DE, but we have some promising guys to step in, and the emergence of Watt is very encouraging. DT is an issue, we are losing bodies but no stars, and there is some depth to be sure - more than in recent years. McFadden goes, but I like our young LBs. We lose a small balding guy at safety, but I like the future there as well. Here 'tis:
DT: Butrym returns with size and experience, look out for big-body youngsters like Westphal, Kohout, Muldoon, Hein, scout-team superstar Ethan Hemer, and my favorite, 2010 recruit Beau Allen. (Watt will play wherever needed most, DE or DT.)
DE: Watt is a beast, Nzegwu, Gilbert, Kelly all show promise
LB: Young talent returns, look for Mike Taylor to return to join St. Jean and Borland.
FS: Aaron Henry made the move from CB, and he has the tools to be better than Maragos
SS: Starter Valai and backup Claxton return
CB: Top 4 corners return, Smith, Brinkley, Fenelus, Cromartie
Even the questions appear to have some good answers. Looking good like chocolate pudd should.
The schedule is reasonable, with a pussy non-conference slate, roadies at MSU, Iowa, Michigan and Purdue, home games against OSU, Minny, Indiana and Nerdworstern. No PSU on the schedule. UW should be favored in all but 1, maybe 2, games and all of them are winnable. Yeah, I guess I'll renew my season tickets one more time.
I guess Bo's team looks pretty good as a time-passer for now, but the Brewers really better show me something or it will be a long summer waiting for this to start.
5 comments:
Great post TK. I won some money on Bucky last night so it was a great end of the year. I agree with pretty much everything you said. I am interested to see what the ceiling is on the Oline. They didnt seem as dominant as lines in the past, but there offense moved the ball better than I have remembered in a long time. Besides the OSU game, and the second half of the Iowa game we really moved the ball at will. If there is any growth and there should be, we should be in for a treat.
My two big concerns for next year is our defensive backfield and special teams. Our dbacks came a long way. i was at that Fresno game, and I couldnt believe how terrible our dbacks were. At that point I would have been happy with a 7 or 8 win season. I give credit to the staff for benching Henry and going with Smith, Brinkley, and Fenelus. However I dont see a lot of upside with those guys. I hope I am wrong, but if they dont improve I believe the defense will regress next year. I do think Henry can be a nice qb back there like Maragos and I hope Valai rebounds after a so-so year.
Special teams was pretty terrible all year. I was pretty happy with the kicker and punter, but every return unit stunk. We did block a few this year which is huge, but we need to find a guy that can change field position. Guys like Nick Davis, B-Will, J. Leonard, used to provide a great spark. I really think we miss that. Oh and after watching that fag from the U run 250 yards untouched for a score, I would say our coverage team needs a little work as well. One thing I liked about this years team is Bret didnt carry about putting the best "combine" guy in there. He put the guy that could play the best, and I think we saw an added boast of energy and emotion from guys like Taylor, Borland, and Maragos. I dont think they would have played for Brett in previos years (See McFadden, Shane Carter, Aubrey Pleasent, etc). The thing that I love most about watching Alvarez coached teams were the guys that walked on, or came from Deforest or Toney WI, to become studs. Those guys are the heart and soul of your team, and we need to find those guys as well as the flashy kid from Florida or Ohio. Either way the state of the program is much better than it was last year at this time. Yeah you should probably re-up the tickets.
Totally agree on the blue collar guys, and Bielema talked a lot about getting back to Wisconsin football, and I'm sure that's because Barry talked to him about it. I think that is part of Maragos getting the benefit of the doubt despite looking like a vacuum cleaner salesman.
Speaking of guys from DeForest, did you see who was named the all time greatest double-nickel in Badgers history in Jim Polzin's new book, "Badgers By the Numbers?" He was also mentioned by name in Mike Lucas's "Top 25 Moments in Camp Randall History" for netting 3 sacks and several other hits and hurries on Kirk "The Herb" Herbstreit in Bucky's upset of the Buckeyes in '92. Don't fuck with a Norski.
Tk, who is the guy from Deforest? You don't mention his name?!?
True story, the 92 upset of OSU was my first Badger game ever. Chad Yocum is who you are thinking of Geigs. I believe he had his career derailed with back injuries, though I could be thinking of Chad Cascadden.
Yeah, Yocum was the guy with the back problems, very similar to your problem, Browne.
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