This Week in Badgers: Home Quarantine Edition
This Week in Badgers: Season 1, Episode 34
Welcome to This Week in Badgers where we talk about, something I guess? Weird times.
So obviously with all that’s going on, sports have rightly been pushed to the back burner. I understand Badger football isn’t top of mind right now, but I’m still going to push forward with this. Earlier this week I found myself deeply into NFL FREE AGENCY TWITTER just to have some relief from the constant COVID related news, a huge yikes. I’ve made it my life-long goal to not have strong Packer takes and I can feel those coming on. Help.
Badger football is a useful distraction so let’s treat it as such today.
Am I alone in this feeling? Let me know if there's a topic you'd like to explore in this space, you can reply to this email or get at me on Twitter. Literally no topic is to boring or far-fetched, as you're about to see below.
NEWS
Everything cancelled of course. Extremely disappointed to miss Spring Football and Spring Practice Reports but as mentioned above, there are much bigger issues and football is the sport that (potentially) faces the least amount of disruptions. I don’t know how I will handle this if it goes longer into the fall.
I keep thinking about Paul Chryst grinning when social distancing and self quarantine were described to him. After stocking up on Skoal, Diet Mt Dew and Oranges, I imagine he’s watched every past game 20+ times, and whenever they do come back we’re going to have 20 new Fullback dive plays that all look the same to the untrained eye, but are slightly different.
I'm also 99% sure that he thinks part of "social distancing" means turning off his cell phone.
SPRING ROSTER
We did get a few nuggets of Spring News before everything shut down last week. Jesse Temple had the best write-up on these. Cormac Sampson being moved back to OL was the only notable position change, which seems like a no-brainer. He has a much higher ceiling as at OL instead of trying to fit into a blocking TE role.
Temple also had a whole list of weight changes, which are always pretty interesting to me.
Let’s break them down as follows.
Deep Depth Chart Guys I don’t really care about right now
OL Logan O’Brien: +18 (265 to 283)
LS Peter Bowden: +16 (217 to 233)
WR Mike Gregoire: +11 (171 to 182)
OLB Marty Strey: +10 (219 to 229)
LS Josh Bernhagen: +8 (241 to 249)
ILB Tatum Grass: +8 (222 to 230)
P Conor Schlichting: +8 (222 to 230)
TE Gabe Lloyd: +6 (231 to 237)
OL Andrew Lyons: +6 (311 to 317)
WR Emmet Perry: +5 (186 to 191)
FB Quan Easterling: -8 (238 to 230)
WR Cade Green: -5 (185 to 180)
WR Cam Phillips: -5 (176 to 171)
Changes I don’t find all that interesting
WR Kendric Pryor: +8 (180 to 188)
QB Graham Mertz +8 (215 to 2230
DE Garrett Rand: +6 (279 to 285)
S Madison Cone: +6 (182 to 188)
ILB Jack Sanborn: +6 (232 to 238)
LS Adam Bay: +5 (229 to 234)
S Collin Wilder: +5 (194 to 199)
RB Garrett Groshek: -8 (220 to 212)
OL Joe Tippmann: -8 (312 to 304)
CB Travian Blaylock: -7 (200 to 193)
TE Clay Cundiff: -5 (251 to 246)
OL Cole Van Lanen: -5 (312 to 307)
Let’s talk about these
Isaiah Mullens +8 (283 to 291): At 6’4” 291, this is veering into DT depth range instead of DE. Still time.
TE Jack Eschenbach: +11 (224 to 235): Well HELLO there. Tight End is just dying for someone to step up and help out, and Eschenbach was in the mix in fall camp. 224 lbs isn’t realistic for a TE, but 235 gets him in the conversation for playing time next year.
QB Danny Vanden Boom: +5 (207 to 212): I’m just putting this here because I see stuff on Twitter every so often about moving him to TE. He’s 6’5”, 212 heading into his Junior year. TE isn’t happening.
ILB Maema Njongmeta: +7 (220 to 227)
OLB Spencer Lytle: +5 (223 to 228): We can put Njongmenta and Lytle into the same category of guys who were expected to grow into roles and it seems like it is happening. Both are close if not already at the size needed to play in the Big Ten.
OL Cormac Sampson: +7 (280 to 287): He had two ways to go - lose some weight and focus on TE or bulk up for OL. Obviously choosing OL makes perfect sense as we discussed above.
OLB Izayah Green-May: -6 (221 to 215). The biggest “downer” if you want to call it that. Doesn’t appear that he’ll have the size to play OLB. They rave about his athleticism so perhaps he can find a role as a 3rd down rusher, or maybe some hybrid DB/LB type player. So not totally desperate but it will be a challenge. He seems like a guy that is probably really hurt by lack of practice time in Spring.
OLB C.J. Goetz: -6 (241 to 235). Seemed he didn’t have a future in the OLB rotation and thought perhaps he could bulk up to play DE. This suggests he’ll primarily be a special teams guy in 2020, I think. Maybe a Noah Burks like resurgence will prove me wrong.
RECRUITING
Hello Jake Cheaney, ILB from Lehigh Acres in Florida. He gets Chris Orr comps on message boards, which I think means more of a physical battering ram type instead of a nimble athletic guy like Ryan Connelly, maybe. I'm not sure exactly what that means.
The Badgers haven’t recruited much in the Fort Myers area, only pulling Rasheed Golden in the mid-90s, a WR who lasted a couple years before transferring.
They’ve been building up the depth at ILB quite a bit recently. Chaney joins 2021 recruit Bryan Sandborn and the 2020 trio of Malik Reed, Preson Zachman and Jordan Turner at the position.
With the lack of sports news I have to assume that Jake Chaney is one of the most covered 3-Star verbal recruits of all time. Jesse Temple went long as did Jon at Rivals, Jake at AllBadgers, a random National SI guy and even Jaypo mentioned it.
Changes to recruiting?
Have to wonder how recent developments will affect the recruiting cycle for 2021. With campus visits presumably pushed to the summer (at least) it is really going to limit the amount of prospects teams are going to be able to target.
The Badgers seem to do a good job of identifying guys early and getting them on campus as soon as possible, which would be a good thing for an unexpected shutdown like this, and it might be harder for teams that had coaching turnover. The Badgers under Chryst do like to wrap up recruiting pretty early, do they “settle” for more in-state guys and others ready to commit now or wait and let it play out? Will be a really weird recruiting year.
I also wonder how recruits handle this. If your best offer is Wisconsin and there are going to be limited opportunities to get in front of other schools in Spring/Summer with visits or camps, do you jump at the Wisconsin offer or wait and see what happens in the fall? Badgers generally aren't in the mix for the 4/5 star guys who can wait until February, they're after 3 star guys who have options, but also don't want to be left out and have to settle for a lower Power 5 team.
Other Stuff
Jake had a good interview/article with David Moorman and his post-playing plans. Seems like a guy who has his stuff together, something I certainly did not have at that age and also now.
Markus Allen has the Badgers in his final 10. Yes, I am only interested in this recruitment because of his name.
Graham Mertz, I feel you.
Christian Bell to Illinois, and playing DE! Hadn't really thought about the possibility of him changing positions but a 4-3 DE makes a ton of sense. He had the size but not really the quickness to play LB, playing on the line in a 4-3 defense seems to be a good idea.
Friend of the Newsletter Ty Hoeft made a cool "One Shining Moment" video for the recent basketball season if you're into that sort of thing.
The guy Barry Alvarez met at the Airport Chili's had sort of good Pro Day numbers. He won't catch on with an NFL team...right? Right???
Let’s Remember Some Guys, COVID-19 Edition
We’ll add some gallows humor to the Newsletter today by ranking the top #19s in Badger history. Was this just an excuse to write about Sorgi? Perhaps.
The number 19 might be one of the least glamorous numbers at Wisconsin. Throughout its history its mostly been a holding place for Walk-ons and Freshman to wear until a better number opened up. Joe Schobert actually wore it his first year at UW before getting a more acceptable, LB number.
Obviously no QB has worn it since Jim Sorgi graduated, leaving mostly DBs and Specialists to use it since.
Today let’s Remember the top 9 guys to wear the #19 for Wisconsin.
#9.: RJ Morse, Punter. Pure Beef at 6-1, 245. Also really not a good punter, though he did improve a bit his last year. RJ Morse ran so Rafael Gaglianone could fly.
#8. Paul Partington, OLB. Partington was a walk-on who lettered 3 years and started his last year in 1988. That's all I have to say about that.
#7. Collin Larsh, Kicker. #TEAMLARSH
#6. Tim Fullington, Combo Punter/RB (sure, why not) who had 573 yards from scrimmage in 1985
#5. Paul Hubbard, WR from 2004-2007, 936 career yards and 5 TDs. He sat his first 3 years behind Lee Evans, Brandon Williams and Jonathan Orr, had a promising Junior season with 627 yards and 5 TDs, but tore his MCL his Senior year and wasn’t all that effective, though he did end on a strong note with a 7-134 game in a regular season ending win against a pretty good Michigan team.
#4 Daryl Carter, LB. Carter was a 2 year starter from 1995-1996 at OLB. Part of a really good front 7 with Burke, Saleh, Jurewicz and Pete Monty that only allowed 115 rushing yards per game, the passing defense on the other hand...torched. I feel like he had huge shoulder and thigh pads with a bare midriff, as was the style, but can’t find a good photo.
#3. Roger Knight, LB - Two year starter at OLB and some ILB. Defensive MVP of the 2000 Rose Bowl. I always thought he was just “ok” but that’s largely because I was comparing him to the other LBs Ghidorzi and Donnell Thompson, both studs. It also might have been because wearing 55 pounds of shoulder pads made him slow.
#2. Leo Musso, S - Played 52 games, with 17 starts. 8 INTs including an awesome TD against Michigan State. 3rd team All B10 his senior year.
Looked like he liked to party, if you know what I mean.
#1. Jim Sorgi, QB: What’s to say that hasn’t been said? 8th in career passing yards with 4,498 and 7th in TDs with 33.
All while having to split time with Bollinger, missing time because of the Reynolds-Sorgi incident that somehow has its own Wikipedia page, and carrying some iffy Badger teams in the early part of the decade.
If he’s not there to save the team does Alvarez survive the early 2000s and later take over the AD spot? I’m not saying the answer is no, but I am saying its a question we should be asking.
Guys who wore #19, remembered
And that is it for this week. Obviously this Newsletter is semi-dependent on something happening in the Badger-verse, so we'll be back when there is something to talk about.