This Week in Badgers: The Cold, Sad Reality of the Off-Season
This Week in Badgers: Season 1, Episode 27
Welcome to This Week in Badgers, where the slow news trickle of the off-season has hit and it is not very fun. We’ll talk transfer news, Friday night games and finish by ranking the Running Backs.
Housekeeping
We need your Badger Thoughts more than ever. Please. Help.
2011 article about Barry Alvarez getting caught up in a Ponzi Scheme
The big news of the week was Aron Cruickshank saying adios to Wisconsin. On one hand, his main skill was returning kicks in a sport that is trying to eliminate that position (45% of B10 kickoffs were touchbacks last year) and he was behind Jack Dunn on the WR depth chart. I did a “Most Important Badger” survey in mid-November and 36 Badger players (and one mascot) got votes, Cruickshank was not one of them.
On the other hand, he was really good at returning kicks and seemed like the classic guy that would grow into a bigger supporting role as a Junior and Senior. His speed and athleticism clearly stuck out so in that respect it stinks to lose him. They’ve thrown a lot of numbers at the WR position in recruiting, time for some of those guys to step up in 2020.
I’ll be curious to see where he goes and what sort of role he ends up in. Life as a 5’6” 160 lb WR in the Big Ten is hard. Transferring down a level to get more playing time as a WR seems like his goal and Rutgers is the early and logical thought there.
Other Stuff Happening:
Jim Leonhard was a candidate for the Rams DC job. I’ve heard from a couple people that Wisconsin believes Leonhard will eventually end up in the NFL, so not too surprised to see his name floated. As much as we’d like to have him be Badger DC for life it does seem logical that he would make a jump at some point for the right opportunity.
Badgers will open next season on Friday night against Indiana. I’m pro-Friday night openers. It's a great excuse to take a half-day and hang out at a Regent St beer garden before heading to a game on a warm summer night. There aren’t a lot of other games on the college football schedule so it doesn’t get lost in a slew of other 11 AM openers.
It also drives the HS Football media crazy, which is an added bonus.
Wisconsin has 3 early entries into the NFL draft, the only schools with more so far are Alabama, Georgia, Miami and Texas A&M (though more to come from LSU/Clemson I’m sure).
Jesse Temple with a good off-season checklist and story lines.
Kenzel Doe bowled a 300 over the weekend. This is why you subscribe.
Lets Remember Some Guys
This week's guy is Jay Valai. Valai played safety from 2007-2010 and was an extremely fun guy to watch. Surprisingly only had 2 career INTs, was known as more of a hard hitting guy who played near the line a lot.
If he played today he would have to adjust to modern day targeting rules.
One Valai play I’ll always remember was blocking an Arizona State PAT in 2010 to preserve a 20-19 lead in a win that would be crucial for the Badgers Rose Bowl bid.
Valai has gotten into coaching post-Wisconsin career, with stops at Georgia, Kansas City Chiefs, Rutgers and was recently hired at Texas.
Jay Valai, remembered.
Deep Thoughts:
(1) Did anyone get a snap count from Barry's final (public) recruiting effort, Travis Wiltjer?
(2) How many carries did All-Spring running back Brady Schipper end up with?
We need to stop reading off season articles. - @lawclerkthree
Stop reading off-season articles? Never!!
Wiltjer played in 6 games and made a tackle! I noticed him on kickoff coverage a few games. One day you’re eating a depressing and overpriced dinner at an Airport Chilis, the next day you’re in the Rose Bowl. Classic American success story.
The 2019 Spring Hype for Schipper never translated, alas. It is a good reminder to not pay too much attention to an out of nowhere guy getting lots of attention simply because there’s no one else to take reps at his spot.
I will of course completely forget this reminder and get very 1) Hyped about Jaylan Franklin getting mentioned just ONCE and 2) Over the top nervous when there’s a report that Jack Dunn was the most impressive WR in some random practice.
Njonmetta to OLB really thwarts my bold prediction of him starting with Sanborn at ILB. Was thinking they’d want a sideline-to-sideline type to replace Orr, which I would not call Chenal. Combine those 2 with Noah Burke and let’s just say Green-May/Franklin better cover Zack Baun-level ground next year. I love being irrationally scared about the defense in January.... - Matthew S
I'm pretty curious to see where Chenal's career takes him. He played a lot as a True Freshman which usually means a huge jump the next year (much like Sandborn from 2018-2019) but also somewhat tough to project him physically since he's already 6'2", 250 lbs. Any growth there usually means a move to the DL.
Lets Rank the Running Backs
With Jonathan Taylor now finished with his college career, the “Best Badger RB of All-Time” discussion has started up again. It's a fun one for me because there are so many fantastic options to pick from. We have numerous All Americans, Heisman trophy winners and a bunch of All Conference guys to pick from.
So with any trivial Badger debate, I also have to weigh in with my rankings. Feel free to submit yours and tell me where I’m wrong.
Impossible to Rank: Alan Ameche. He’s deserving of #1 on this list, but basically played a different sport than the rest of the guys. Its too hard to compare. He finished 6th in the Heisman voting his Junior year, won the award his senior year and left school with 3,345 yards rushing, an NCAA record at the time.
The rule prohibiting Freshman from playing was suspended Ameche's Freshman year because they were short players due to the Korean War. His Junior year the NCAA instituted Iron Man rules so Ameche added the LB position to his resume and almost never came out of the game on offense or defense. Like I said, different times.
Wikipedia sent me down a rabbit hole to this 1974 article from some coaches advocating the return of the Iron Man football rules. One of the reasons they state were fans struggling to remember players when they had defensive and offensive units. The real reason is it was cheaper to have smaller rosters. I can't believe they tried to hide their true reasoning behind a proposed rule change. One of the supporters of this idea was Joe Paterno.
Anyways we’ve gotten off track, which happens in this Newsletter. Ameche was one of the best football players anywhere in the 1950s but the game was so different its hard to put that up against a modern day player. I'm not going to try to rank him.
Let’s get to the rankings.
First, the full list:
Ron Dayne
Melvin Gordon
Jonathan Taylor
Montee Ball
Brent Moss
Billy Marek
James White
Anthony Davis
Terrell Fletcher
Rufus Ferguson
Brian Calhoun
Michael Bennett
John Clay
Larry Emery
PJ Hill
Corey Clement
Marvin Artley
Dare Ogunbowale
Alan Thompson
Carl McCullough
Red Pants and a Rose Bowl win, go figure
The Legends
#1 Ron Dayne: I’ve seen a lot of arguments that don’t have him #1 that I assume are from people who weren’t around during his career, which is totally understandable. If you are first experiencing him in 2019, you see grainy YouTubes of a huge guy who doesn’t seem to be running all that fast. You might see his career 5.8 yards per carry and aren’t blown away or maybe just look at his surprisingly decent, but not great NFL stats and don’t see the big deal
But make no mistake, he’s number one. A few things work in his favor: he played 4 full years, his peak was awesome and he was instrumental in making the Badger program what it is today.
Dayne finished 2nd, 6th, 6th and 1st in the nation in rushing yards. Just amazing consistency. His career stats and production will rival anyone. He was recognized in his time as one of the greats, 3 time All-American and obviously a Heisman Trophy.
Dayne’s peak was as good as Melvin Gordon and his durability and consistency matched Jonathan Taylor. Combine those two, your #1 guy.
A last tiebreaker for me is his role in building the program to what it is today. Alvarez went 5-6 twice in a row before breaking through in 1993 with the Big Ten Championship, but then fell back to earth a bit, going 8-3-1 in 1994 and then a disastrous 4-5-2 in 1995. There was no guarantee that this program would be here to stay. Dayne carried a team that had Mike Samuel (God bless him) at QB for 3 years to a 37-13 record, then of course led the 1999 team to a Rose Bowl and one of (the?) best season in school history.
They immediately dropped off once he left, but he had gotten Wisconsin on the map as something more than a flash in the pan. By the time he left there was enough enthusiasm and fan support to expand Camp Randall and make sure the Athletic Department would never struggle. Maybe this happens without him, but it's an open question.
Ron Dayne, #1. Legend.
#2 Melvin Gordon: The Taylor/Gordon debate will probably live on for a while, but to me Gordon is a clear number two because his peak was better than Taylor’s. 2600 yard season and a 400 yard Big Ten game. My God.
Dayne was a hammer that wore down opposing teams over 4 quarters. Taylor casually ripped off 8 yard runs and occasionally something longer. Gordon was a legitimate threat to score a touchdown every single time he touched the ball.
Gordon averaged 7.8 yards per carry and had 45 TDs in what was essentially 2 seasons of work. Like Dayne, Gordon had iffy QB play his entire career and still carried the offense. His overall production doesn’t reach Taylor, but he also had Montee Ball and James White in the backfield taking carries from him. Taylor had Tawain Deal and Garrett Groshek.
7.8 yards per carry!!!
#3 - Jonathan Taylor: He’s a modern-day Dayne in a way. A guy who showed up and produces no matter what is going on around him on offense. He’s so consistently good he doesn’t have one particular “moment” but I think we’ll look back a lot at the 2018 season where the offense was a complete trainwreck and he put up 2,000 yards most fondly.
#4 - Montee Ball: His reputation was at its peak in 2011. Nearly 2,000 yards rushing and 300 receiving, 39 touchdowns in an absolute force of an offense. His 2012 was still good, but NFL and post-caeer issues have been well documented. At his peak he was one of the most complete players in college football.
#5 - Brent Moss: Another guy who’s post-career struggles are well documented, he’s a clear #5 for me here. Before the 1993 season the Badger single season rushing record was 1,222 yards and between 1975 and 1992 only one Badger RB had rushed for 1,000 yards in a season. Moss put up 1,637 yards absolutely blowing past what people thought a Badger RB could do. Big Ten and Rose Bowl MVP to boot.
Old Guards
#6 - Billy Marek: Old school facemask, 3700 yards, 44 TDs and a 5.2 yards per carry average was fantastic for the time. Together with #10 Rufus Ferguson they were two guys that were the clear standouts of 1970s Badger football and put up 1,000 yard seasons at a school where that had never happened before.
Great Players overshadowed by teammates
Both #7 James White and #9 Terrell Fletcher would have put bigger numbers without talented backfield teammates and were both great receiving options at a position the Badgers didn’t throw to much
Wish we had seen more
We have #8 - Anthony Davis, #11 - Brian Calhoun, #12 - Michael Bennett next. All dynamic backs and entertaining as hell, but didn’t have a large enough sample - whether injury, transfering in, playing on pass-happy Jim Sorgi teams or backing up Ron Dayne, to make it higher on this list
Other Notables
These guys weren’t All Americans but all had their moments and would be deserving mention in any Badger Football History discussion. These include #13 - John Clay, #14 - Larry Emery, #15 - PJ Hill, #16 - Corey Clement, #17 - Marvin Artley, #18 - Dare Ogunbowale #19 - Alan Thompson, #20 Carl McCullough.
That's it for this week, thanks for reading. I think at some point in the off-season it will make sense to do these every other week but I'll plan on going every week at least through the late National Signing Day.
Go Badgers