This Week in Badgers: We Have Games!
Season 2, Episode 6
Welcome to This Week in Badgers - OPENING WEEK EDITION. Its been a journey to get here and I have no idea how this all is going to work, but any 2020 football is a bonus so let’s enjoy it.
Today we’ll look at Fall Camp takeaways, preview Illinois, celebrate a win against Ohio State that didn’t involve David Gilreath, remember some Gary Andersen era recruits and end with a quick look at the 2019 recruiting class.
Housekeeping
Prop Bets? Let’s do some prop bets for the Illinois game. Link is here, winner gets a virtual pat on the back.
One person was able to identify the #23 in the background of the 2009 Tolzien run against Minnesota as Maurice Moore. Of course it was Max who knew it, of course.
Bunch of new subscribers which is awesome. Welcome. As always feel free to @ or DM me on Twitter, reply to this email or comment below with any thoughts, questions, topics, Jaypo theories. Whatever.
The most common question I get is when I misspell a players name, is it some sort of inside joke? No, its always a typo. Always. I’m hyper-aware its Sanborn not Sandborn, and I promise I’ll mix it up every other Newsletter.
Last year a kind reader sent me a link to an unofficial Bill Connelly SP+ spreadsheet with stats for each team. If you happen to come across that for 2020 and want to send my way it’d be much appreciated.
Alright, let’s get on with the Newsletter.
Fall Camp Takeaways
Figuring out what matters and what doesn’t matter from camp is always a challenge and its REALLY a challenge when Mike Lucas is the only “media” member allowed to watch practice. For COVID reasons, of course.
Last week we looked a couple potential breakout players and now we finally have a DEPTH CHART!
Positions to feel better about: OLB
This was a big question mark in the offseason and I think there has been some clarity since. Noah Burks, Izayah Green-May, Nick Herbig and CJ Goetz are your two deep, and I don’t think Spencer Lytle (if healthy) is far behind. That’s a big group of pretty well regarded recruits who on paper seem to have the size and skill set you’d want for the position. Burks flashed a bit last year and hopefully ready for a big Senior year. Goetz and IGM have been waiting their turn while Lytle and Herbig are the high upside Freshman. Good mix of players.
Its hard to really put this into words, but it feels like some good competition and guys really “earned” the spots vs a bunch of guys just ending up in the 2 deep because there were no other options. Speaking of which…
Positions we have questions on: Safety
This isn’t the thinnest position - that is probably the ILB spot where they couldn’t even humor us and put a 4th guy in the depth chart. The big difference is the ILB spot has a pretty well established top 3 with Sanborn, Chenal and Maskalunas, where the top line guys at safety are all big question marks.
The loss of Reggie Pearson seems pretty big, and they’re left with essentially Scott Nelson, Eric Burrell and Collin Wilder at the position. Nelson hasn’t been able to stay on the field the past two years, Burrell was solid if not really spectacular last year (PFF grade aside) and I thought Wilder was pretty rough in his reps, especially in coverage. I’m not sure where Madison Cone fits in here but wasn’t able to help out much last year either.
Of course there are some younger guys there with Travian Blaylock and Titus Toler and maybe they push for playing time. We can also recognize that Wilder missed almost all of 2017 with a knee injury and 2018 was a lost year after the transfer, so maybe we will see a bit of a jump from him in 2020 as he’s more experienced and healthy. Like always, there’s a path where the unit could be ok, but lots of questions at this point.
Punter
I realize this isn’t top of mind for most people, but it seems weird that the Badgers plan at Punter seems to be bringing in a guy who averaged 36 yards per kick at the D3 level last year. I’ve been holding off judgement on this because, well, I guess I am just hoping he is actually pretty good, maybe they fixed something in his mechanics to give him some yardage. There had to be something beyond the stats in play here.
Colton at the WSJ tackled this on Saturday, and tried to find optimism in the stats.
Vujnovich likely becomes the Badgers’ top option at the position. His per-kick average (36.7 yards) was altered by four blocked punts, but he’s proven to have a big leg. Five of his 49 punts were 50 yards or more, he had a long punt of 62 yards
Perhaps D3 is different, but every other level of football charges a blocked punt to the team, and not the individual player, I don’t think that makes sense as a rational for the low average. I’ve asked for clarification and I’m sure the lack of response is Colton consulting with D3 stat keepers who are notoriously slow in responding to questions. The D in Dubuque stands for dial-up modem.
Setting that aside, does 5 of 49 punts over 50 yards prove a player has a big leg? Is this what gaslighting is? I feel like I’m being expected to believe that averaging 36 yards a punt and almost never hitting a 50+ yard kick in D3 football is actually good, help me out here.
Maybe he really has figured out something with the Badgers staff that they couldn’t in D3 (that’d be awesome!), and maybe the bar is so low that just catching the snap is all he needs to do to be considered a positive but it’d be nice if someone clarified! I wish I felt better about this.
We should probably address this
Every alarm bell in my head goes off when they talk about giving RB reps to the Fullback, but I assume this is just part of some short yardage Super Jumbo type thing. I hope. I really, really hope.
Bonus points to Flood for the HS rushing stats shout out. Always one of my favorites. Yes, they may be relying on a 240 lb FB against the Ohio State defense, but he did put up 223 yards against Chetek.
Recruiting
The weight room stuff between the recruits was a logical conclusion to 7 months with no actual Badger content. If this would have gone on any longer we would be watching a hamburger eating contest in December between two Sophomores with Badger offers, thinking about what decisions we made in our lives to reach this point.
Holy shit we have an opponent! Welcome Illinois!
I really didn’t know much about them other than the *thing* that happened last year, so let’s take a quick look.
Offense
Their passing game could get a little feisty on Friday. QB Brandon Peters is back after a fairly strong 2019. He’s got an arm and can sling it if he’s got time. The “having time” part is probably his biggest liability. He struggled when facing pressure last year, taking 24 sacks on 274 attempts, fumbling 8 times and throwing 8 INTs.
The Badgers have faced him twice - he went 9/18, 157 yards 0 TD/0 INT when he was at Michigan in 2017, and of course last year he only completed 9 passes while taking 4 sacks, but those completions went for 174 yards and 2 TDs. Ugh.
Josh Imatorbhebhe, a former 4 Star, USC transfer is the main threat at WR. He put up 634 yards at 20 yards per reception last year, so figures to be a deep threat against a bit of a question mark at the Safety position for Wisconsin.
They have to replace their top two RBs last year and return 4 of 5 OL which might be good, but they gave up 39 sacks last year and averaged 3.8 per carry on the ground, so I don’t know that its necessarily a positive they’re all back.
Defense
Illinois really had some guys on the DL last year that gave the Badgers trouble, limiting them to 156 rushing yards on 43 carries. According to Bill Connelly’s “Havoc Rate” stat the Illinois DL unit was 27th best in the country, so it wasn’t limited to the Wisconsin game, they were the strength of the Illinois team all year. Thankfully most of those guys are gone this year with Ayo Shogbonyo, Jamal Milan and Oluwole Betiku graduating/leaving. They do return their MLB and some DBs.
Turnovers
Not sure where else to put this and again, I don’t want to re-live 2019 but Illinois was really fortunate with turnovers last year. The Jonathan Taylor one handed catch/fumble last year was one of the most absurd things I’ve ever seen on the football field. I’m not mad, you’re mad. Illinois recovered 18 fumbles and had 12 picks in 13 games. Bill Connelly had them as the 5th luckiest team in the country in turnover margin. Something to think about when projecting for this year.
Specials
The asshole that kicked the game winning FG against the Badgers last year is still on the team, and apparently they have one of the best Punters in the country. Good for them.
Verdict
Having experience at QB, WR and OL is going to put Illinois ahead of a lot of teams in the conference. The 23 point spread seems like a lot for a no-fan Big Ten game against a team that has some offensive weapons, so I’m going to guess that Bucky won’t cover it, but will win comfortably.
Think we might see Illinois test the deep stuff in the pass game and maybe hit a couple, but if Wisconsin limits the turnovers, special team mistakes, etc, I’m thinking Bucky wins 35-17.
Let’s Remember Some Games
We’re a couple of weeks from the Presidential Election, so let me talk to you about why QAnon seems crazy but actually it mak…oh wait, yes, football. My favorite election tradition is listening to Brent Musburger use garbage time of the 2004 Badgers vs Ohio State game to tell people that if they don’t vote they can’t bitch. I’ve mentioned this quite a bit in this space and on Twitter, but if you’re new here, I tracked down the video and you can watch it here. I love it so much.
In a way, 2004 was sort of the start of the “new era” of Badger football. After a mediocre stretch from 2001-2003, Barry moved on from longtime defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove and hired 34 year old Brett Bielema from Kansas State. Bielema was handed a loaded defense full of upperclassmen and this unit carried the team all year.
The Badgers started 5-0, which doesn’t seem all that notable today but after sweating out bowl eligibility for a couple years it was a welcome relief. The 2004 game was part of the stretch where the Badgers really gave Ohio State fits. Of course turning the 17-0 deficit to a 42-17 win in 1999, the super weird win at the Shoe in 2001 and the Schabert to Evans game the year before (maybe the greatest single play in Badger history? Discuss).
The Badgers got down 7-0 quickly on a Ted Ginn Jr Punt Return TD. You can watch here if you hate yourself. Ohio State would add a FG to make it 10-0, and then the Badgers just, sorta, dominated the rest of the way.
Stocco had a classic steady and unflashy Badger QB performance going 15-24, 160 , 2 TD / 0 INT. Anthony Davis had 39 (!) carries for 168 and a TD.
The game was pretty much punt city and the the type of thing the SB Nation people on Twitter would make unfunny jokes about today, so it was fitting that a Santonio Holmes muffed punt inside his own 20, recovered by Scott Starks, was the biggest play of the game. With the ball inside the Buckeye 20, Stocco threw it to the corner of the end zone and Jonathan Orr made a fantastic diving grab you can see here. This put the Badgers up 10 and pretty much ended it.
The story of the game was of course the Badger defense. Suffocating performance, holding the Buckeyes to just 224 total yards of offense and 8 punts. If it wasn’t for the Ginn Jr return, it would have been more of a blowout.
This game unfortunately signaled the end of a good run for Wisconsin against Ohio State. They went 4-2 between 1999-2004, and 1-11 since. Again, I’m not mad, you’re mad.
2004 Ohio State game, remembered.
BOLD PREDICTION TIME
I’ve got 5
Semar Melvin is a starter by the end of the year
They have a game where the leading rusher is a WR
Jack Sanborn has a pick-6
Chase Wolf has a game winning drive
Jack Dunn takes a punt to the house
I asked Twitter and got many that made me laugh and a couple that made me scratch my head. I was going to pull a few that I liked but there are so many great ones, you can click on the Tweet and read the replies if you want to find some oddly weird things to root for.
Lets Remember Some Gary Andersen Era Decommits
There were some many of them! What ever happened to them?
Today we’ll remember Rohan Blackwood. Blackwood was a 6’5” 210, 3 Star, .86 Rated OLB from Florida, originally brought on by Dave Aranda. He was able to visit Wisconsin in September of his Senior year when he had some downtime after getting suspended by the Florida HS association for swinging at an opposing player.
His commitment lasted from September 2013 to January 2014. Academics were suspected and as we’ll see later, likely correct. The Badgers probably knew this was coming and were able to flip a Western Michigan recruit named TJ Edwards a month earlier. I’d say that worked out.
He would later commit to South Florida, though wasn’t able to qualify for school and didn’t make it to his first fall camp.
I don’t know how South Florida handles recruiting social media in 2020, but hopefully they’ve improved from lifting a quote from ESPN that says the player you just signed will definitely need to redshirt, isn’t an immediate contributor and has “some upside.”
After failing to qualify at South Florida, Blackwood would end up at Cohwan University, a D2 school in North Carolina where our Internet trail of him ends.
Rohan Blackwood, remembered.
2019 Recruiting Class
2019 was one of the more heralded Wisconsin recruiting classes in recent memory. Though it came in at #29 in the country (per 247) and didn’t necessarily make national headlines, it was impressive for the top end talent (Mertz, Brown) as well as the ability to put together a good class when the High School talent in the state had a down year with only Davis, Chenal, Benton.
Of course you really need to wait a few years before judging a recruiting class which is why we’ll tackle this today, a year in.
A quick status check to where we’re at so far.
In the 2 Deep by Year 2
Keeanu Benton
Leo Chenal
Graham Mertz
Hayden Rucci
Titus Toler
Logan Brown
Joe Tippman
Pushing for playing time, in the mix, on the travel roster, etc
Semar Melvin
Spencer Lytle
Stephan Bracey
Clay Cundiff
Not mentioned much
Rodas Johnson
Maaema Njongmenta
Julius Davis
Gio Paez
Dean Engram
Quan Easterling
Gone
Skyler Meyers
James Williams
Seems like we’re off to a good start! 11 of 19 recruits appear to have a role by year two, and its hard to get down on the 6 that don’t appear to be in the mix. Some are just buried behind some upperclassmen depth, have battled injuries, and the usual developmental reasons for not playing. I might have expressed some concern about Julius Davis in an earlier Newsletter but I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of these guys become starters by the time they leave.
As we get into year 2 and beyond, developing into solid starters, and hopefully stars, will be key but so far so good for most of these guys.
On paper the Badgers have improved their recruiting and it will be fascinating to see how this plays out on the field. Benton forced himself onto a DL full of older guys last year. There didn’t seem to be much of a competition between Mertz and older QBs Wolf and DOB after Coan went down. Herbig is a rare True Freshman starter. Chimere Dike a Twitter star and seems to be pushing some older guys for playing time.
Of course the Badgers have had plenty of Freshman standouts before, but it does seem like maybe we’re seeing a little more early impact from guys leaping older players on the depth chart and not necessarily Freshman forced to play because they don’t have anyone else. Or maybe I’m just being overly optimistic, wouldn’t be the first time. A thing I like to do to hedge on this stuff is to say “time will tell”, so I’ll just say that time will tell on this.
Alright that’ll do it for this week. Next week we’ll have an ACTUAL GAME to discuss. Go Badgers.