Imagine that you have just begun your fourth hour of chanting and gyrating in the student section-you're as wet as you are drunk-and you are watching a player wearing the No. 2 that you could swear (from where your standing) looks suspiciously like LaDainian Tomlinson. You would expect that same player to get the ball when the game is on the line. Especially a game that would end an eleven-year, seven game drought against Michigan, catapult the Badgers into a Big Ten title race, and earn UW their first Top 25 ranking of the season.
With under a minute to play, the Badgers had first and goal at the 4-yard line as a result of a 48-yard drive-39 of which had been provided by junior Brian Calhoun. He had 214 yards in all, and the final four downs were supposed to be nothing more than a chance for Calhoun to cap off what had already been a memorable individual-and team-effort.
After Wisconsin threw incomplete passes on first and second down, everyone figured that with one timeout and two downs left, putting the ball in the hands of their most productive offensive player was the only thing left for the Badgers to do. Everyone except for wide receivers coach Henry Mason.
Coach Mason suggested a quarterback draw and nobody on the sideline objected. The play was signaled into the huddle and before anyone had time to process what they had just seen, junior quarterback John Stocco had crossed the goal line and UW had 22 points on the board.
\Our offensive line was really controlling Michigan up front so we wanted to find a way to run the ball,"" Mason said. ""They were playing a very basic coverage with a four-man rush-we had five on four-and it just felt like John could find a little crease to slide in and score. Fortunately, it worked for us.""
The play call was a culmination of film study throughout the week and a theme that developed as the game progressed; when Calhoun-surely the biggest threat on offense-leaves the backfield, the middle of the defense scatters. Mason recognized that if Calhoun cleared out and blocked the linebacker just about everyone in the secondary would expect a pass just long enough for Stocco to score.
Perhaps it should not even be called a ""QB draw"" when there is a play called ""QB sneak"" in the playbook. Although a ""sneak"" is reserved for plays on the goal line, Stocco-who may not elude, outrun, or break many tackles-could save himself some bodily harm by trying to sneak more often (we all remember Bowling Green). The sneakiness was all in the play call because nobody expected it-not even his teammates.
""We went out there with the mindset that we were going to make it work no matter what,"" senior center Donovan Raiola said. ""We heard the play, and at first it was like, 'whoa' because we didn't expect that coming but it was just a great play call.""
UW has never been-and may never be-the kind of school that can recruit the Michael Vicks or Scott Frosts of the world. But then again, this program succeeds without them. So people should get used to John Stocco; he is here to stay and it's because of plays like that. He may not be the prototypical quarterback for a draw, but that's almost certainly why it worked.
You could almost picture a tight end pulling, Calhoun taking the hand-off outside the tackle and dancing his way through the Goliaths, disappearing for a split-second before re-surfacing in the end zone. Instead, he never got to do his David impression; it was his entire team-knocking off 14th-ranked Michigan-that brandished the slingshot.
All because Coach Mason saw an opening, and John Stocco took it. The rest is Badger history.
