Kudos to the Big 10 for moving the Michigan at Nebraska game to October. That game was one of the highest rated ESPN cable games of the season. It looks like they are setting that game up for a Primetime TV matchup. The no November nIght game rules would've made that virtually impossible. But the October move will likely make that game a 7 pm kick.
Wisconsin loses virtually every player of merit next year. I bet NU roles them in primetime on Oct 6th. That will make that matchup at Ohio State the following week pretty nasty. IMO, both teams will be undefeated and the game will earn a lot of hype. It may be too early to make a prediction, but I don't see us beating Braxton Miller in Columbus at night next season.
That couldn't be further from the truth, maybe to an NU fan that only knows three players...Toon Wilson and Ball.
Help me out Badger.... serious question, because I have read many of your posts and am glad you have stuck around HB... and I trust that you are the type of fan that loves their team, but also isn't afraid to tell it like it is.... In your opinion, how will Wisconsin be next year? The obvious 3 that you mentioned are big losses, but do they lose any other "major contributors" ? I think you will be pretty good. Isn't the OL fairly young?
Well I'll start out by saying that there's no telling what Ball will do. He hasn't given word either way, its a fair assumption he'll declare since backs like Calhoun and Clay before him did but there's still a good bit of speculation flying around. My guess is he's gone so I'll work with that.
With Ball gone we still have Sophomore James White, who has nearly 700 yards and 6 TD's on mop up duty this year but compare that to his
freshman year when he racked up
+1000 yards and 14 TD's...I'm not worried about RB at all.
Behind Toon we have Abbrederis who's only 50 yards or so behind Nick and has 6 TD's on the season. Compared to Toon's sophomore year Abbrederis could turn out having a better career at UW. He's a very good WR...reminds me a lot of Luke Swan.
TE Jacob Pederson, another Sophomore stands to benefit with Toon gone as well. TE has always been one of the more important positions on our Offense (see 2nd team All American Travis Beckum)...kid already averages
11 yards a catch and has
8 TD's on the season.
The O-Line is stacked as usual and looks to be on par with those in the past. We lose a
6-7 330lb Ogelsby and replace him with a
6-8 345lb Havenstein and lose a
6-4 315lb Zeitler to a
6-7 325lb Burge. We should be fine.
With Wilson gone we return to our normal style of play with an efficient and smart (though less than flashy) game managing QB and will probably start Budmayr who by then will have had 3 years to learn the system. Though we could start Phillips who would be a Senior, he was speedy in HS but has had injury problems. Joe Brennan's had a few snaps too but I still think Budmayr, the safe pick, wins the battle pretty easily.
The Badgers 7th ranked defense will lose a 3-4 contributors and it could hurt but I have (possibly) misplaced faith in Ash and Partridge to figure it out. It seems every year we loose guys and somehow come back with a pretty adept squad on that set of the ball, maybe Barry helps out at times, I dunno. I thought we were screwed when Watt declared last year and Doeren bailed for Jerry Kill's old job but everything turned out just fine.
We do lose a veteran kicker but we'll replace him with a Junior from Omaha.
I think we'll be 4-0 heading into Lincoln and another 10 win season is definitely possible. Our toughest road games are @ PSU and @ NU. We draw MSU and OSU at Randall.
So I'll wrap up by saying that though there are some legitimate concerns for UW after this year I'm not to scared. We weren't supposed to do much this year with Clay, Watt and Tolzien gone. Everyone picked PSU and OSU ahead of us and while picking up Russell was nice its important to remember that '12 and '13 were supposed to be our comeback years so watch out.