When I originally previewed the Wisconsin Badgers in the summer, it appeared as though they would be one of the conference’s top teams, especially if their pass defense was able to step forward despite the loss of NFL early-entrant Jack Ikegwuonu. When we spoke to Derek Zetlin this week, we learned that a lot has changed for the Badgers so far this season, but the expectations are still high.

First, let’s take a look at Derek’s list of things that weren’t quite right with the preview:

• Evridge actually won the starting job last year but a hamstring injury allowed Donovan to step in and win the job. He’s also not as immobile as you make it seem.
• I wouldn’t consider Hill a “Fatty” anymore. He’s lost weight and is now elusive more than ever.
• WR Maurice Moore is seeing more snaps than the other backups after Jefferson and Gilreath.
• O’Brien Schofield starts at DE opposite Shaughnessy.
• McFadden starts over Hodge at MLB. Hodge is actually 3rd on the depth chart behind St. Jean because he sucks that much.
• Goins and Brinkley have split time opposite Langford. Jay Valai starts at SS over Pleasant.
• Nortman punts over Debauche and he’s looked good so far.

In addition, some important things have changed since then:

• Lance Smith was kicked off the team prior to the first game for violating the First Offender Program regarding a domestic violence charge from a year ago. He transfered to Memphis.
• Beckum did miss the first 2 games because of a hamstring injury. Evridge threw for 308 yards i that game, granted it was against Marshall. But Graham has really looked great and in my mind will be an NFL TE.
• Kirk Decremer is out for the season with a back injury.
• Henry has been hurt all year, but might be back for the Michigan game.

So it appears that the Badgers have been missing a couple key pieces to the team.

As per usual, the Badgers look to move the ball behind a power run game on the newly-slimmed legs of PJ Hill. There will be lots of between-the-tackles action behind a strong O-line, and a play-action passing game relying mostly on the tight ends.

However, there is a bit of uncertainty due to injury for the Badgers. Hill has been slightly nicked up, and with Lance Smith off the team, backups John Clay and Zach Brown look to play a more prominent role. Unfortunately for the Badgers, Clay also has had some injury issues so far this fall. If Hill is less than 100%, Michigan may be able to stop Wisconsin by focusing on the run game, and forcing Allan Evridge to get it done through the air.

Even if Travis Beckum still isn’t 100%, however, Garrett Graham is also a darn good option from the tight end position. If Beckum is 100%, Wisconsin should be able to do some really good things in the passing game by going to the TEs. The wideouts don’t pose a huge threat on their own, but with a strong running game and two skilled tight ends to take the defense’s focus off the perimeter, there may be a couple plays available to the Badgers.

Defensively, the Badgers have run hot and cold. Until the Fresno State game, they were on a run of starting games slowly, so if Michigan wins the toss, it might be a good idea to take the ball to start out. The secondary is the major point of weakness for Wisconsin, though they have performed somewhat admirably so far (albeit against Fresno State and a pair of tomato cans). With the potential return of Aaron Henry, they could see another step forward in that respect.

The Badgers are doing a good job against the run, but they’ve faced even-less-prolific offenses in that respect. Michigan is also running a different scheme than any of the Badgers’ opponents so far, and they might be able to expose some weaknesses with the zone-read game. Like many traditional power-run teams, the Badgers have a problem with spread offenses, so the Wolverines may be able to exploit that.

Offensively, Michigan should be able to have some success. If they manage to execute like they did against Notre Dame, minus the egregious mistakes (i.e. several thousand fumbles, Nick Sheridan), they should be able to move the ball.

Predictions
Michigan gets its highest scoring output of the year (currently 23 points against Utah)
The defense helps out in that respect, coming away with a turnover that gives Michigan the ball somewhere inside the red zone (or scoring one themselves).
Wisconsin wins, 34-24

Posted under Analysis

For this week, we talked to Derek Zetlin, the football beat writer and sports content editor for the Badger Herald. If you want to know what Mr. Zetlin looks like, I’ve got you covered. Topics ranged from the fleetness of Evridge to the fatness of Hill. Many thanks to Mr. Zetlin for his time and insights. I hope you guys enjoy the preview:

 

 Previewing the Wisconsin Badgers [15:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Posted under Blogcast

Added:
AZ OL Taylor Lewan. Both premium sites have front-page headlines indicating he’s been offered. He’s a teammate of DE Commit Craig Roh.
FL CB Jarvis Byrd. Michigan is showing interest in the Pahokee-an (Pahokeeite?).

New Information:
VA DE Will Hill. Enjoys a Tennessee visit, still plans to visit Michigan before deciding.
SC DE Chris Bonds. The perpetually-injured one now says he’s probably not going to visit Michigan.
FL LB Commit Brandin Hawthorne. He’s still taking other visits. I wonder if the Michigan coaches might discourage that at his official visit this weekend.
FL LB Mike Marry. Michigan is in what appears to be a Top 7 for him. How about a little video?:

MI S Thomas Gordon. Back to deciding this weekend (info in header, the answer is almost always “yes”).
FL CB Mywan Jackson. North Carolina now leads (info in header).

Official Visits this Week:
TX QB Commit Shavodrick Beaver (though that is apparently not the case)
FL LB Soft Commit Brandin Hawthorne
MD RB Tavon Austin
SC OL Quinton Washington

Analysis:
Chris Bonds might be a casualty of 2 DE commits. Michigan’s continued pursuit of o-linemen definitely indicates that they see Anthony LaLota staying on the DL. Michigan definitely still seems to want another CB (in addition to another LB), as their increased interest in Jarvis Byrd seems to indicate. That would fill a need and keep a pipeline open.

Etc.:
MSU picks up a TE transfer. This probably hurts them with Dion Sims. I personally think he wants to go to OSU if he picks football, but the Buckeyes’ class might fill up before he gets a chance to commit there.

Posted under Recruiting

Hosted at Boiled Sports

1) We’re all car guys here at BS. So your task is to assign your own program a vehicle. Is Purdue an all-terrain vehicle like a Jeep or a Hummer? Something befitting a brawny Boilermaker? Is Ohio State a slow, conversion van being passed by Corvettes with USC markings? Is IU a John Deere tractor with a hillbilly riding on it? Get creative and let us know both what your school is if it’s a car as well as assigning a vehicle to as many of the other Big Ten schools as you like. (I’d require you to do them all but I know attention spans are short and counting to 11 is hard.)

Offensively, Michigan is a car that’s pretty badass, but needs a lot of fixing up in terms of replacement parts. It’s kind of new and progressive, but all the pieces aren’t put together quite right yet. Take the hot new sports car of your choice, introduce a state of disrepair, and Ta-Da! Michigan.

2) In Week 1 in the NFL, the New England Patriots learned how precious things can be when Tom Brady had his knee blown out by a former Boilermaker. Let’s say your team wins out from here to the end and is in a BCS bowl game with a chance to do the school and conference proud – what ONE player on your squad would you most likely cry about having his knee blown out in the first quarter? That is, who is truly indispensable?

Stevie Brown, obviously. In all seriousness though, this is a particularly tough question. Nobody on the offense is that indispensible, because Michigan is either feast-or-famine at every spot. At running back, Sam McGuffie is probably the offense’s most exciting and best player, but if he went down, there are other guys behind him. Steven Threet wasn’t even good enough to beat out Nick Sheridan for a starting position at the beginning of the year, so maybe the dropoff isn’t as precipitous as fans have perceived it through three games. There is virtually nobody on the offensive line, with injuries, defections, and the like. Even when one of Michigan’s best linemen, Mark Ortmann, went down, the backups filled in capably. I guess, since the quarterback position is so central to the offense, and Nick Sheridan has looked kinda crappy in his playing time, I’ll have to go with Steven Threet here.

On defense, Michigan has pretty good depth everywhere, but not good top-end talent in the back 5 (linebackers and safeties). If a defensive lineman went down, I think the backup to step in wouldn’t be a major downgrade. Michigan is already playing with a huge linebacker rotation, so if one went down, they wouldn’t be hurting to badly (though Obi Ezeh would be the most painful loss). At safety, Michigan already has a rotation of a couple guys as well, so one injury among the 3-4 co-starters means very little. I guess that leaves Morgan Trent and Donovan Warren as the most important cogs on defense, since the backups are freshmen of varying degrees (although Troy Woolfolk is technically a sophomore, he has garnered very little playing time thus far in his career). If either of the two went down, it would probably be open season for the opposing teams’ quarterbacks.

3) Purdue plays Notre Dame this week and, well, we detest Notre Dame like probably no other program. Let’s say I have the power to force you (maybe you lost a bet to me) to wear another Big Ten school’s colors to an away game for that team. That is, you’re wearing OSU colors to a game being played at Michigan, or something like that. And I’m talking, dorky, head-to-toe… goofy-ass sweatshirts and flat-brimmed, ridiculous-looking hats. If you have to choose, which program would you be able to stomach wearing? (Remember, you’re going to an away game, so people won’t like you and accept you and you’ll be taking this abuse for a school you’re not even affiliated with.) And by the same token, what program could you absolutely not EVER stomach wearing, under any circumstances?

I’m such a huge fan of college gear that I could conceivably pull this off with almost any Big Ten school (RIP my PSU sweatshirt), at least in terms of actually wearing the gear. I guess any of the lower-tier-ish programs would be fine, since the home fans would be more patronizing or pitying than anything. Therefore: I would be totally OK with wearing Northwestern gear anywhere. Schools whose gear that I really wouldn’t want to wear to an away game are those like Ohio State and Penn State, since their fans are generally assholes to visitors, and the favor would likely be returned to me.

4) I like big butts and I can not lie. Share your embarrassing guilty pleasure music selection that you know other people might laugh at. Bonus points if you can send a YouTube video of an awful music video with it. Many/most of us grew up and/or went to college in the ‘80s and ‘90s so I know you’ve all got some Nelson After The Rain on the iPod.

This song is something of a guilty pleasure, but gets major points here for having an awesome video:

Posted under Analysis

After Saturday night’s offense-only thriller between Fresno State and Toledo, Michigan fans were understandably worried about facing the Rockets in a few weeks in the Big House. In The Glass Bowl, Toledo took a BCS Buster to the wire, before finally falling in two overtimes. This means that the Rockets are legit, right?

Let’s take a look at the logic.
Wisconsin is a good team
Fresno State played a good game against Wisconsin (in Fresno)
Toledo played a good game against Fresno State (in Toledo)
Toledo is a good team.

Of course, early in the season, we don’t know a whole lot about many teams, and the Badgers, Bulldogs, and Rockets are not exceptions. Is there a chance that out assumptions may be just a little bit off?

Maybe the Badgers really aren’t very good. Sure, it’s not the most likely case, but there’s a possibility. Maybe the Bulldogs aren’t very good, either. And for that matter, the Rockets would be at the end of that food chain.

Resumes? Resumes.
Toledo is 1-2, having been blown out by Arizona (a team in the middle of a BCS conference, not unlike what Michigan expects to be this year), paid it forward to Eastern Michigan (you might not recognize that name without its standard prefix: perennially awful), and had the close loss to Fresno State.

Fresno is 2-1, with a 17-point win over Rutgers, which looks less like the Rutgers of the last 3 years than that of the previous 136. Their other win is over Toledo, in a close (to the tune of a missed-2-pointer-in-overtime) road game. The loss comes at home to Wisconsin, in a game that should probably have been less close than the 3-point margin would indicate, given a ridiculously horrid call that went against Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is 3-0, with wins over Akron, Marshall, and Fresno State. Assuming Fresno State is worthy of its ESPN-anointed BCS Buster status, the other two games should be of slightly more relevance. The Badgers let Akron get within 17-10 before saying “o ya were da badgers” and blowing out the Zips. They also let Marshall build up a 14-0 lead before saying “o ya were da badgers” and blowing out the Herd. The slow start didn’t happen in Wisconsin’s only road game thus far, as they took a 10-0 lead into halftime and Fresno made it a game in the third quarter.

Yahoo’s Dr. Saturday nee Matt Hinton of SMQ, even said that Fresno’s defense is pretty bad. Wisconsin put up 13 points on said defense. So, unless Arizona is way, way better than expected, maybe none of these teams are that impressive at all. Of course coming off the bye week, the Badgers should be focused and prepared to take on Michigan, but hey, why not try to be a bit of an optimist going into a game that it appears Michigan really doesn’t expect to win?

Posted under Analysis

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Southern Cal	—
2	Oklahoma	—
3	Florida	—
4	Georgia	—
5	Texas	—
6	LSU	—
7	Penn State	—
8	Missouri	—
9	Wisconsin	—
10	Ohio State	—
11	Brigham Young	3
12	South Florida	1
13	Oklahoma State	1
14	Auburn	1
15	Texas Tech	2
16	Utah	—
17	Alabama	3
18	Kansas	1
19	Wake Forest	2
20	Miami (Florida)	4
21	Fresno State	2
22	Illinois	3
23	Vanderbilt	3
24	Boise State	2
25	Clemson	1

Changes: Nothing.

Reasoning: I still don’t think OSU should be much lower than 10th. Sure, they got housed by USC, but point out more than 5-6 teams that probably wouldn’t, and I’ll give you $100. Of course, USC is bound to slip up against an inferior opponent, but that’s the ropes, I guess. The reason ECU dropped out isn’t because they lost one game, it’s because they lost one game to a team that had previously been among the most pathetic in all the BCS conferences. Other than that, there were no gripes about my rankings.

Posted under BlogPoll

As some of you may know, Zoltan Mesko is a student in the business school. Also, some of you may be aware that our economy, as Sarah Palin would say, “has some things that need a little fixin’.” One reporter asked Prof. Mesko to explain the recent conversion of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. I’ll let the Mesko take it from here:

Here’s the NYTimes take on it, for what it’s worth. I wonder what’s in Mesko’s portfolio…

Posted under Video

The 2009 recruiting class looks more and more every day like it is pretty much wrapped up, except for perhaps a couple more prospects that may end up in maize and blue.

The 2010 Varsity Blue recruiting board does exist, and I’ve been keeping up with it to some degree. My original plan was to have a grand unveiling either the day after Signing Day 2009, or whenever Michigan gets its first commit for the class of 2010.

My question for you is: would you like me to wait that long, or release the board into the wild sometime sooner? I still wouldn’t likely give weekly recruiting updates, but they’d certainly come at some interval.

As of now, the 2010 recruiting primer is the largest source of 2010 material I’ve published (Genuinely Sarcastic has a 2010 board of their own going). Would you like more, or should I hold off a little longer on the creepiness of stalking high school juniors?

Posted under Recruiting

Ed. Note: The premium sites are now reporting otherwise on Gordon’s decision, fyi.

The Board has got it all, man.

• Remember: Cass Tech S/QB Thomas Gordon announces his decision this weekend. Here’s a little Cass Tech fluff, too.
• IN LB Commit Jordan Barnes unofficially visited Purdue last weekend. Not sure if you should read anything into that, so take it FWIW.
• Major (5 page) Tate Forcier fluff from the AANews. Obligatory “omfg he should mma w/ mike b.”
• Michigan is going hard after Georgia commit LB Mike Gilliard. They probably won’t land him, but it’s a good sign they’re after at least 1 more LB.
• I’ll give a few 2010 tidbits here and there as the season progresses (more about the 2010 board tomorrow). A top instate player will have a hard time going against Green and White when it comes to his recruitment.

Posted under Recruiting

In honor of this weekend’s Maize Out game against the Wisconsin Badgers, Varsity Blue shall be known as “Varsity Maize” for this entire week. You may have noticed our RAD NEW BANNER at the top of your screen.

We here at Varsity Maize encourage everyone who is attending Saturday’s game against the Badgers to wear maize clothing, and be loud in support of the Michigan Wolverines in their Big Ten kickoff.

Posted under Analysis, Blog News