Badgers Schedule to Easy

For those who think the badgers schedule is to easy please see the quote from Coach B down below.

Brian (Lucas) pointed out, everybody wants to talk strength of schedule. Everybody wants, Coach B doesn’t play these teams … Well, we have the, we have by the NCAA, and I love that Web site, because it computes your strength of schedule as it’s real. It computes what teams have played, what their records are, and it moves forward, and I’ve been watching it all season. And now today we’re 14th in the country, and we have the toughest schedule in the Big Ten conference to date, and that, to me, says something about what we’ve been able to accomplish and hopefully move forward.

I think it is interesting that we are currently 14th. I realize as we play Michigan and Northwestern this number will probably go down, but still not to shabby.

Badgers and Packers

So the college and pro football seasons have been going on now for a few weeks. Here are my observations of the Badgers and Packers.

Badger Observations.

Going into their 5th game of the season they are 4 - 0. Their next game is at the new stadium in Minnesota. The two teams play each other for Paul Bunyan's Axe. The Badgers have won the last five meetings.

First the offense. The Badgers have found consistent play from the QB position. This is the biggest surprise for me. Tolzien has been able to deliver the ball to his tightends and receivers on time and in places where only they will catch the ball. John Clay seems to be coming around and rebounded nicely after the terrible game from two weeks ago. The O-line has been getting better every week but still has a lot of room for improvement.

On defense I think they have more depth at every position except safety than they did a year ago. The d-line is getting healthy and got good pressure against M. State. The linbackers are fast and seem to be making plays. The Badgers are currently rotating four guys at corner. I think eventually the staff will need to stick with the two best.

Special teams is where I think the Badgers have improved the most since last season. Already they have blocked a punt, scored a touchdown, and caused a fumble. There has only been a few break downs on coverage but nothing major. The return game still needs work but kickoff return has been better.

Now for the Packers

I think if Aaron Rodgers stays healthy all season he is one of the toughest guys in the league. As of now the O-Line has not been able to block on pass downs. Rodgers has been hit and hit hard. He has been forced to scramble. This has caused a disruption in timing and making the offense sputter. Still the packers are 2 - 1 and heading for a Monday night match up with the Minnesota Vikings.

On defense the Packers have been turning the ball over a lot. That is good. They are still soft against the run though. they have been able to generate pocket pressure and forced other qb's into bad throws. With B.J. Raji getting healthier he should help the depth at the D-Line.

I still think the Packers can be a 10 -6 team if they can tighten up on the offensive and defensive lines. If I was Ted Thompson I would be sending someone to Sun Prairie to work out Mark Tauscher. If he his knee is healthy he could add leadership and ability to the o-line.

Wow

All I can say is wow!!!

MNF cont

So Jimmy Kimmel will not be allowed on MNF anymore. The sad thing is that I thought is appearance was the best part of the broadcast on Monday. He did comment on some touchy subjects but it was funny. Just because tom Brady looks really good throwing the ball right now does not mean that someone can not make fun of the fact that he has impregnated his two model girlfriends. His comments about Joe Theismann although low, are probably accurate. Above I was saying how the broadcast crew were to blame for the crappy MNF product, but now i think it is Jay Rothman who is ruining what was once the greatest sports show on television.

Monday Night Football

Am I the only one who has a hard time listening to the announcers on Monday Night Football? The crew of Tirico, Jaworski and Kornheiser has to be one of the worst.

Don't get me wrong I think Mike Titico does a really good job. His play by play call of the game is the only saving grace of the entire broadcast. The problems come any time Kornheiser opens his mouth. His commentary is usually pointless and it seems his only responsibility is to act like a fan and ask questions to Ron Jaworski.

I used to rip on Madden and Michaels, but they were way better than this crew. Monday Night Football is supposed to be the best the NFL has to offer any given week, shouldn't we expect the same from the Network that broadcasts the game?

Odds and Ends

Note 1
So you might have noticed that at the end of my last couple posts there was an inserted footnote of the music I was listening to when I posted the blog update. Well I use Foxy Tunes plugin for Firefox, and the latest update give the user the ability to attach that info in emails or blog posts or what not. I really don't use it in my email, however I thought it would be interesting to track what music I was listening to over time. Like five years from now when I am reading an old blog post and see I was listening to the Foo Fighters.

Note 2
I recently bought NCAA 2008 for the XBox360. I haven't really put much time into the game yet, however here are my initial thoughts.

One, there are too many turnovers in the game. I have noticed that there are like 4+ fumbles a game and 4+ interceptions per game. This might not seem like a lot but I play 5 minute quarters, and you might only get 10 possessions a game. Plus on top of that sometimes the game cheats since the computer AI is poor. What do I mean by cheat, well the cool thing in the game is that you can view replay in super slow motion and watch when the football passes through the body of my defender and into a the arms of a wide reciever.

Two, I am upset the EA still hasn't added the create a school back to the game. It was present on the last XBox release but failed to make the cut in the two 360 releases after. It was one of my favorite parts of the game. When I play dynasty, i like being able to create a weaker school, join a small conference, build it up to a conference power, then jump up the chains of conferences and win at every level. It made the game fun. Anyone can take over the reins of a powerhous and lead them to glory.

Three, the graphics are awesome.

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Now playing: Foo Fighters - My Hero
via FoxyTunes .
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Now playing: Rihanna - Unfaithful
via FoxyTunes
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Now playing: Barenaked Ladies - Brian Wilson
via FoxyTunes

Badgers Dis-Respected

So the final rankings came out for the NCAA Football season. In the AP poll the UW Badger dropped to 7th. I don't understand how this is possible. The Badgers, who finished the season 12-1, won their bowl game against a very good Arkansas team who played in the SEC championship game. Some will argue, that USC and LSU played tougher schedules, so there extra loss should not place them below the Badgers, but by using that same logic, the one loss Badgers played a much tougher schedule than undefeated Boise State.

So I guess I have two questions for the audience, one why is Wisconsin so dis-respected. I don't think I have ever seen a team win a January bowl game and drop in ranking. All year it has been like this. Other examples would be every time sports commentators talked about one loss teams that could play for the National Championship every one loss team was talked about except Wisconsin. The fact that we were unranked at the beginning of the year is another example of this disrespect. Here is a Badger team the beat a super good Auburn team the year before in a January bowl game, yet is unranked at the start of the season when that Auburn team is in the top 10. People argued that Wisconsin lost to many players, but when you look at the roster they would have notice they returned virtually everyone on defense and half the starters on offense.

The other question I want to ask is, when will the NCAA go to a playoff system. I realize how much money could be lost, but in fairness to the players, and fans we need a playoff system. I am tired of all the controversy surrounding the BCS, and I have now come to realize if left in hand of voters, it may be impossible for my Badgers to play in a championship. They would not only need to go undefeated, but they would need to end the war in Iraq and find Bin Laden.

All I can hope for now is that the men's basketball team keeps winning, starting tonight with Ohio State, and makes it to the final four. At least they can control their own destiny and wont be screwed at the end of the year by voters.

Football fun

First I would like to send my regards to the Bo Schembechler family. He was a brilliant coach. Even though he owned my Badgers, I have always respected him.

Next, on to this weekend. My UW Badgers won and finished the regular season 11-1. The game Saturday was a bit sloppy but as Lou Holtz says "You only need to be the best team in the stadium." It looks like the UW Badgers will be invited to play in the Capital One Bowl in Orlando Florida. Again this assumes that Ohio State, and Michigan will be selected to BCS games.

Also, this weekend was perhaps the game of the year. Second ranked Michigan played at first ranked Ohio State. I wasn't really sure who I wanted to win, but I was cheering of Michigan. I wanted to see the team Bo built win one for him. I thought the game would be close, and it was Ohio State won by three points. What surprised me was the number of points scored. Ohio State and Michigan had two of the best defenses in college football, yet they scored a combined 81 points and over 900 yards of total offense. the game was very exciting and you could tell these truly are the best two teams in the nation.

Well that is my quick wrap up of my weekend. As you can see I really didn't do to much.

Weekend

Friday night I went out to a bar called Papa's social Club. They were having a Halloween party. There were a lot of great costumes. My favorite was the head bartender dressing up like one of the waitresses. He wore this short black skirt, and a referee top. On his head he sported a red wig.

Saturday my Dad, and buddy Paul went to the Wisconsin Badger game. They were facing Illinois who by record is not very good. The Badgers ended up winning the game by a score of 30-24. They had an 18 point comeback.

During the game I think I might have caught a cold. Today my head is full and I feel a lot of pressure on my temples.

Saturday night was my cousins 40th surprise birthday party. There were about 50 people at his house to celebrate. I got to see a lot of my family. He got some pretty crazy gifts. His friends were giving him a tough time even though a lot of them are the same age.