Welcome. I plan on using this platform to publish all the random Badger Football stuff that is interesting to me each particular week, and end with a brief exploration into some Badger football related topic. I imagine they’ll be more whimsical during the off-season and perhaps more topical during the regular season. I’m tired of DMing or emailing friends some elaborately insane Badger Football nonsense and getting nothing in response. So here we are.

Ideally I think this would work best as an email newsletter. If this is something you’d be interested in you can sign up here: https://tinyletter.com/akschaaf. My current plan is to publish once a week on Friday morning. Feedback is welcome.

With that said, we’re off….

Actual News: Do preseason media predictions count as actual news? The media predicts Wisconsin to finish 3rd in the B10 West. Seems about right.

Paul Chryst Speaks!

• No major injuries of returning guys coming into camp. Garret Rand mentioned as being a full go
• Freshman Logan Brown, Dean Engram and James Williams are however, injured
• Logan Bruss will start fall camp at Tackle

Outside of the QB position, feels like Garret Rand is the most important question to be answered by the time the regular season rolls around. If he’s healthy it completely changes the projection on the line. You can imagine a situation with Rand, Loudermilk and Williams holding down the first team with Henningsen, Pfaff and one or more of the RS Freshman working their way in on the 2nd team. If Rand isn’t able to be a contributor, you’re pushing guys into larger roles than they perhaps can handle, hurting depth at a position that doesn’t have much, and running into a lot of the same problems they had last year.

Not a whole lot of surprise on Bruss. The team has a lot of guys who project to be on the inside – Lyles, Biadiasz, Erdmann, Moorman, Seltzner and less depth on the outside – CVL, Beach, maybe Furtney?

Logan Brown’s injury could make playing time a challenge for him as a True Freshman, but still a lot of time to go.

Recruiting: 2020 PWO accepted from Jack Van Dyke, a 6’5″ kicker from Neenah. Kohls has him as a top 20 punter and kicker for the 2020 class.

The Badgers lose all of their kickers after 2019 (Hintze, Lotti, Allen), and while they don’t have any scholarship kickers in the pipeline, Blake Wilcox (#5 rated Kicker, #4 punter) will arrive on campus this fall as a walk-on in line to receive a scholarship in 2020, or sooner. Early thoughts are Van Dyke starts a Punter, but he could factor into either spot when arrives.

Social: Some behind the scenes video of a photo shoot. Recommend clicking if watching some players act excited about red lights and wearing the uniform for cameras is something that interests you. Looks like no uniform change or anything along those lines. Send all video feedback to Rich.

A few players went to a Madison Forward game. There were photos of this. Its clear we need someone to step up with an interesting hobby like Tawain Deal and the fishing last year. Still beats the every other week article about the OL eating at Red Robin. 

Message Boards:
Buckyville: Obelisk going away is a hot topic, as well as arguing with Minnesota fans about…something I guess.
247: Badgers offered a white WR and someone called him “Luke Swan 2.0” No need to investigate further

Former Badger Update*: Rob Wheelwright had a TD in an arena league game.

*Inspired by Dave Heller

Media Update

• Jaypo: DMV stories. There’s also an article on how the team is responding after a disappointing 2018. Not a whole lot of news value in it.
• Temple: Hasn’t caused a player to leave the program in over 2 weeks. Progress. He also had a good mailbag. Couple notable things were projecting Caesar Williams and Hicks at CB (thought Wildgoose might sneak in there) and Bradrick Shaw/Christian Bell as surprise guys to keep an eye on. Love the optimism from someone close to the program on Shaw’s injury. I’m a little skeptical on Bell, he had every opportunity in the world last year and never looked the part. Here’s hoping he really does surprise.
• Flood: Peak AAU summer basketball content
• Heilprin: sports radio is weird
• Lucas: Usual stream of PR stuff. One thing notable in the Chris Orr article was mentioning that Leo Chenal was in the 2 deep over Currens. Not shocking, but first confirmation I’ve seen on it.

Other

• Bill Connelly previewed the Big Ten West. I won’t quote anything here because the whole thing is worth reading. He understands Wisconsin football more than most local writers do.
• This Nebraska writer claims Nebraska has a better QB than Wisconsin (duh) and also better athletes (prepare the pitchforks).
• Nothing notable on the Lucas countdown. He had a bit about Red Zone efficiency numbers that almost baited me into replying because that stat tells you nothing, but being the adult that I am, held off. One of the numbers this week was the total yards Alec Ingold had against New Mexico. Feel like he’s losing his fastball.
• I follow Billy Lewis who is listed as a Recruiting Coordinator and he hadn’t posted since July 4th until unleashing this which confused me and I refuse to research further
• The other UW recruiting coaches bros have been mostly silent on Twitter after being pretty active in June. Wonder if they were told to cool it. Wonder why I’m thinking about this. Send help.
• Family Fun Day set for July 31st. I have a 5 month old, which is too young to take to these type of things, but it means I’m only a couple years away from bringing him and coming back to the internet with all sorts of creepy observations about the players. I’d be lying if I said part of me wasn’t looking forward to it.
• Was at Camp Randall last week and saw the grass practice field was cut and painted. There’s your inside info for the week.

Did Paul Chryst Throw the Rose Bowl?

For this to make sense we need to believe the following assumptions

• Paul Chryst, the man that believes a Naked Bootleg is an exotic play, cares about style points over winning
• Texas, who has years of background on Paul Chryst, would not have been impressed with 300 yards rushing. They needed to see some passing in this one particular game in order to offer him the job
• The Badgers calling play action actually gave TCU an advantage.

So let’s go with that. Did Chryst actually call a different game?

Not really. The Badgers had 28 first down plays, and ran on 20 of them. The passing on the first downs wasn’t overly effective, just 2-6 for 46 yards and two sacks, but they only passed on 29% of plays. Even for Wisconsin, there needs to be some variety on first down calls. Pre-Rose Bowl they averaged 8 first down passes a game, this game was a normal distribution.

Its also important to note how freaking good they were at passing on first down in the 2010 season. Tolzien averaged 9.5 yards per attempt on 1st down throws and it was an important part of the Badgers success that year. Chryst wanting the Texas job or not, its obviously something any defense should be thinking about.

Even if Patterson “knew” the Badgers were going to run play action on first dow, how would that have helped? 20/28 plays TCU would have been expecting the wrong play.

Verdict: Coaches are like sales people, they believe every positive result was because of something they did and every negative result was out of their control. I believe that Patterson believes that his great insight into Paul Chryst led TCU to victory, but it probably didn’t. But hey, to the victors go the spoils and all that. When you win the Rose Bowl, you set the narrative, just ask Barry Alvarez.

Will have random updates here.