UNLV 17 - 51 Wisconsin

Like last year, I'm going to try to do some quick thoughts after each game this season. It might be tougher this year because I'm at a short term position in Rhode Island and did not bring my TV. It looks like I'll be spending some time in bars this fall (for the Packers too, of course).

I barely followed Wisconsin football this offseason. About all I knew was that Watt, Carimi, and Kendricks were all drafted (and should play major roles for their teams this year). If you asked me this summer who the QB was going to be I might have said Tolzein --- I couldn't remember if he graduated or not. After I finally emerged from the football-shaped rock I was hiding under I heard lots of great things about Russell Wilson, but my concern was that he wouldn't have anyone to throw to. Between this and the talent drain from the draft I was uneasy with the predictions being thrown around about UW winning its division, let alone winning the B1G and contending for a national title.

How Wisconsin won: Russell Wilson got plenty of praise for his performance, but it was Wisconsin Football that won the day - running, running, and yet more running. At one point they listed all of Wisconsin's drives and they were averaging fourteen yards per play . Ball and White look in midseason form. Wilson looked great in the pass attempts he did make, though he overthrew two passes early. However, there's little doubt that the run game set those throws up so it will be interesting to see how he does against a stouter defense. The Badgers didn't see many third downs and those they did see were mainly third and shorts. Wilson made some great plays with his legs, and the best compliment I could make was that he didn't remind me of Brooks Bollinger*. He made good decisions on when to tuck and run and ran one in for an easy touchdown with WRs blocking down field.

*Bollinger was notorious to me for giving up on plays and trying to run with it. I can't count how many times I heard "Bollinger on the keeper....gain of one yard on the play".

How UNLV lost: I can criticize a few things about UNLV's game (mainly lousy red zone execution), but given expectations this was a win for them. Aside from the financial aspect (which was the main reason they set up this series), their "Pistol" offense gave the Badger defense fits, as well as the camera crew. I must have been misdirected five or six times with their option plays and had no idea who had the ball. They were consistently getting to the edge against a Wisconsin defense that looked very slow. The defensive line was definitely missing J.J. Watt, and Chris Borland (who I had completely forgotten about after he missed last year with an injury) did not seem like the impact player that he was when he won the B1G Freshman of the Year award after the 2009 season. Jesse Palmer or (ugh) Craig James mentioned that they could just be gaming Oregon State with their defenses this week, which is right about the level of analysis I expect from those two.

Game ball: Montee Ball

Next week: Oregon State (who just lost to a FCS team!) at Camp Randall. Wisconsin's non-conference schedule is nuts this year. Three games at home and one game at Soldier Field vs Nothern Illinois.

Midweek Scrap Heap

Spurs lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their Carling Cup match. I had this game on while I was working but missed the extra time goals. No big deal, since the last thing this squad needs is even more games. Phil has a recap up over at Yankee Yiddos.

Bulaga may have passed Clifton on the depth chart at Left Tackle. Clifton has been having some knee issues and was benched for Bulaga in the second quarter of the Bills game. Give him some time to recover, and Bulaga some time to develop and this is a good thing for the Pack. Bulaga is the LT of the future anyway.

Bears fans are riding high after their improbable 2-0 start. I love how they're suddenly Super Bowl bound. Chicago media FTW. Enjoy it while it lasts. Remember that Martz, for all his offensive genius, doesn't have Orlando Pace at LT anymore. The Vikings are at 0-2 and but luckily face the suddenly-frisky Lions at home.

The UW-Austin Peay game will be on the BTN national feed (since I don't get 'extra' channels here). The B10 opener against Sparty will be on ABC/ESPN.

Blake Sorenson will pick up most of the playing time void left by Chris Borland's injury. Expect to see more of James White in this week's game. Nick Toon is also close to returning.

Penn State just received a huge donation to start a hockey program. As they will be the sixth Big Ten school to add a hockey program, this means that there are now talks to start a Big Ten hockey league. That would be pretty cool, especially because it would mean watching UW hockey on the BTN.

Borland may be done for the season

Borland re-aggravated his separated shoulder in today's game, and there was talk by Bielema after the game that they might have to red-shirt him. He can play in one more game before he has to sit out.

This is a huge blow for Wisconsin's defense. Borland exploded on to the scene last year after Mike Taylor went down for the year with a knee injury. A LB corps of Borland, Taylor, and St. Jean would be pretty formidable, but now it is weakened considerably.

Arizona State defeats Arizona state (UW wins 20-19)

Wisconsin was lucky to win this game. They looked terrible, especially on defense and special teams. Wisconsin just couldn't tackle. At all. They were further hurt by the fact that 2009 Big 10 Defensive Freshman of the Year Chris Borland re-injured his separated shoulder three minutes into the game. DE and defensive captain J.J. Watt had to be taken off the field twice (though he returned each time), and Culmer St. Jean missed a fair amount of time too.

Arizona absolutely shredded UW's special teams, running one kick back in the first quarter, taking another to the house in the second (that was called back for two blocking in the back penalties), and nearly got a third at the end of the half (mentioned below). All in all ASU netted 256 return yards. That's just inexcusable.

The story of the game was ASU's miscues. They committed 8 penalties in the first half, including one I hadn't seen before - a sideline penalty on the ASU coaching staff. That sparked a tirade by ASU coach Dennis Erickson that probably should have been flagged a second time. They also committed a costly late hit penalty to keep UW's final, clock-killing drive alive. Erickson waited far too long to burn ASU's timeouts during the last drive, and found Wisconsin able to run out the clock before they could get it back.

Most importantly though, ASU left 15 points on the field. As they were slashing through UW in the first half, ASU missed out on two straight touchdowns, one by a clumsily dropped pass by one of their players, and another on a catch out of bounds by another reciever who just missed getting his foot down by inches. After UW scored to take the lead with 10 seconds left in first half, UW kicked off to ASU and they nearly ran it all the way back until Shelton Johnson finally made the tackle at the one yard line.

Most painfully, ASU led a drive to tie the game late in the 4th quarter and carved through the porous Wisconsin defense yet again to apparently get the game tying score. But then Jay Valai dove in and blocked the extra point, and the Badgers held on to win.

Wisconsin was outplayed in all aspects of the game. The offense looked out of sorts in the first half. When the Badgers were only down by 3, from the playcalling you'd guess that they were trailing by 2+ TDs. Too much passing from Tolzien, though he did make some nice plays to Kendricks. The 'real' Wisconsin only showed up in the 3rd quarter, when they ground out an 85-yard drive for a TD, followed by finally getting some pressure on Threet for once. Clay had a quietly decent game. For some reason they were barely using him early in the game and the announcers were confused that he was on the bench while the offense was sputtering. He still ended up over the century mark.

Game Ball (tie): Sheldon Johnson and Jay Valai
Tip o' the Cap: Steven Threet had a fantastic game. He was fully in command of that offense and was shredding the decimated UW linebacker corps.
Wag of the Finger: Obviously, the special teams coaching staff. I wonder if they'll run around tackling random people during the week, much like P.J. Hill and the rest of the running game had to carry footballs around all week when they had fumbling problems a few weeks ago.

The Badgers are banged up, but at least they effectively have a Bye next week against Austin Peay before B10 play starts in East Lansing on Oct. 2.

Game preview: Arizona State (2-0) at Wisconsin (2-0)

Arizona State Sun Devils (2-0) at Wisconsin Badgers (2-0), 2:30 PM CT

Well, at least we're playing a somewhat credible opponent, even if they are expected to finish 9th in the Pac 10. I'm hoping to see the Badgers bounce back from their general carelessness in their last 2 games (especially the SJSU game), and hopefully having a real opponent here will wake the team up, though playing Austin Peay next week won't help much on that front.

I love how the UW Badgers website has billed this as a "clash of unbeatens", as if that means anything in the quasi-preseason.

Badgers injuries
KR Gilreath (concussion) and WR Nick Toon (turf toe) are both expected to miss the game. Honestly I'm surprised that Gilreath can even walk, let alone practice, following that nasty hit last week. RT Oglesby will probably be kept out this game too. LB and returning defensive rookie of the year Chris Borland will return tomorrow, further bolstering the Badgers' excellent linebacking corps.

ASU's quarterback is Steven Threet, who Badgers fans might remember from Michigan's 3-win season (the Appalachian State year) a few years back. I'd laugh at them for it, except UM beat the Badgers that year in a game that Threet led them back from a 19 point deficit in the 4th quarter at the Big House. He's now ASU's QB and has put up a QB rating of 157 in 2 games against the perennial powerhouses North Arizona and Portland State. We'll see how they do against a credible team. For what it's worth Tolzien has put up a QB rating of 147 against the crappy opponents UW has played, so I guess it doesn't mean much. I would bet he's probably better than Tolzein.

How the Badgers win this game

What do you want to do tonight Brain this week, Bret?

The same thing we do every week - try to take over the world run the ball down their throats.

You can't really say much about ASU's run defense given their opponents so far (and the scores they ran up on them). Their defense was top rated in the Pac-10 last year, and their secondary is especially good. However, I still expect UW to run all over them.

How the Badgers lose this game
They make a few dumb mistakes early and have to rely on Tolzein's arm. As I mentioned above ASU's secondary is apparently pretty good, and Tolzein's top 2 WRs are out this week. However, I think both of them are pretty mediocre anyway (especially Gilreath) so there shouldn't be a big dropoff.

Prediction
Badgers win, 30-17

The Vegas spread is 13 points, which seems just right to me. I think Clay rushes for 2 TDs, Tolzein hooks up with Anderson for one, and Ball or White pick one up too.

Predictions in other B10 games of interest:
Iowa 27 - 17 Arizona
Notre Dame 17 - 21 MSU
USC 1,000,00 - 3 Minnesota

UNLV 21 - 41 Wisconsin

A decent start for UW. It was a classic non-conference Wisconsin game, in that they dominated the other team but still made enough mistakes to make you nervous at halftime. Tolzien threw a pick 6, and Nick Toon fumbled in the red zone, which led directly to 14 of UNLV's 21 points.

However, aside from that one bad throw Tolzien looked really good. I think I heard the phrase "game manager" half a hundred times during the broadcast, and generally when the Badgers needed a completion he and the wideouts came through. But of course, Wisconsin's calling card is the running game and holy crap did it look good. The only negative I can say about it is that they have so many great backs that Clay might not get enough carries to win the Heisman. Clay had several of his trademark runs where he was hit and then ran another 7-8 yards with a guy on his back, and Ball looked good too. But the player who impressed me the most was freshman James White, the 'speed back'. He got 11 carries and looked great, and what especially pleased me was that the Badgers put him back for a few kick returns, though from the stat sheet it looks like he didn't get a chance to run with any of them. Despite all the love the announcers were giving Gilreath I've never thought that he was an especially good returner.

The offense in general was in good form, starting from the first drive where they marched down the field, eating a ton of clock on the way (~7:30 on the opening drive). Wisconsin dominated the TOP by 17 minutes and it felt like a LOT longer.

The special teams have looked better so far, and the best news I saw all game was that Bielema is no longer coaching the special teams himself this year. There was lots of criticism in the media the past few seasons that Bielema's handling of the ST unit was weak due to his other responsibilities, but that could just be a correlation = causation fallacy.

The defense looked great, but of all the team's units I can't really say much about them until they face a real offense at ASU or MSU. Watt still looks great, and Borland looks just as dominant as he did last year. The Badgers were also all over the Rebels backfield early in the game, which was great to see. Valai got beat on one of UNLV's touchdowns but that happens sometimes (that's what the play action is for anyway). The safeties are good but I don't have any clue about the cornerbacks this year.

My memories of the second half are a lot hazier after the Badgers pushed the score up to 41. We were watching it on DVR (to skip commercials) and it was after 1 in the morning at that point, so I was nodding off. I put on the rest of the game in the morning but already knew that not much else was going to happen.

Final stats:
Total Yards: UW 475, UNLV 217
Rushing Yards: UW 278, UNLV 112
Passing Yards: UW 197, UNLV 105
Fumbles: UW 1, UNLV 1
INT: UW 1, UNLV 0
TOP: UW 38:19, UNLV 21:41