Be honest. Looking at the Badger football roster before the season started, how many games did you think they could win? Seven? Eight?
Whatever your answer is, it's easy to look at Saturday's loss in Ann Arbor as a disappointment. Sure, John Stocco completed less than half of his passes. Sure, Wisconsin didn't have a wide receiver with more than 27 yards. Sure, Wisconsin's only rusher with positive yardage, P.J. Hill, had less than 60 on the ground. With that said, what went on in the Big House Saturday should make Badger fans optimistic.
There are three people on this current roster, excluding the injured Marcus Randle El, that caught passes last season. Jarvis Minton caught a pass for 16 yards last season, Paul Hubbard hauled one in for four and Jamil Walker's lone reception gained exactly zero yards. That's three catches for 20 yards. That means those that caught 196 catches for 2929 yards have graduated and/or gone on to bigger and better things.
Considering the two tight ends shifted over from the defensive side of the ball this season, and the starting running back had never taken a college handoff before, Stocco has little to work with. Simply put, playing the blame game is purely unwarranted.
Instead, let's play the accolade game, and give credit where it's due.
Throughout the first three weeks of the Badger season, it was unclear how good the team's defense unit actually was. In week one, the Badgers allowed Bowling Green's backup quarterback Freddie Barnes to rush for 165 yards and two touchdowns. But in subsequent weeks against very weak teams, the Badger defense stepped up, allowing less than 400 yards combined over the next two contests.
With the bulk of the nonconference schedule out of the way, what could be expected of the Badger D for the remainder of the season was unclear. That being said, what we saw Saturday was a display of Wisconsin defense at its finest. There were hard hits, pressure and picks.
Mark Zalewski, Jonathan Casillas, Allen Langford and company played like men on a mission. Holding Michigan—a team that ran all over BCS contender Notre Dame the week before, to 10 points in one half—is an achievement in its own right. In the first half it seemed like every big third down for Michigan was stopped short because of the great tackling on Mike Hart or the lack of open receivers for Chad Henne.
The unit did give up 17 points in the second half, but when your punt returner can't haul in a kick and your offense only puts together two drives longer than three plays in the entire half, your defense isn't going to get much time to rest.
""The key to the game was field position,"" safety Joe Stellmacher said following the game. ""Every time the defense took the field, it felt like we were in our own territory.""
In fact, going from the Bowling Green game all the way to the first quarter in Ann Arbor, the Badger defense allowed zero points in 10 straight quarters, with Western Illinois' lone score coming on an interception return.
Now look at the schedule. The only games that make UW fans grimace are a long shot at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City and a game the week before against the Nittany Lions at Camp Randall. The season just doesn't look so bad anymore.
Last year, UW won 10 games with a defense that couldn't stop anyone, save UNC and the pee-wee team from Temple, until Jan. 2 in Orlando. Maybe if the struggling offense gets its act together, even just a little bit, the Badgers can sneak up on the rest of the country yet again.
It's gonna be ugly, but I'll take it.
Sam is a senior majoring in political science and can be reached at sepepper@wisc.edu.