Coming into the season, USC’s Matt Barkley was considered
the odds-on favorite to enter the next NFL draft as the most coveted quarterback. After
a poor performance in a loss to an Andrew Luck-less Stanford team, Barkley’s
stock has slipped, the way Oklahoma’s Landry Jones' stock slipped last season—enough to
convince Jones to stay in school one more year. On the other hand, the
eye-popping performance by West Virginia’s Geno Smith has eclipsed Barkley–similar
to the way Robert Griffin III came out of nowhere in mid-season last year to
win the Heisman Trophy over Luck. But at this point, it is hard to imagine a
more devastating loss of status than that of Wisconsin running back Montee
Ball. Like RG3, Ball didn’t come to the attention of Heisman voters until
rather late, but leading the nation in rushing yardage (1,923) and touchdowns
(39) was enough to make him a finalist in the Heisman sweepstakes last year. Ball
gladdened the hearts of many a Badger fan by announcing he was returning for
his senior season. Given the fact that running backs are treated like a dime a
dozen in the pass-happy NFL, Ball is now likely ruing that decision.
Balls’ numbers through five games:
Carries: 125
Yards: 450
Avg: 3.6
Longest run: 22
TDs: 6
One must bear in mind that Wisconsin never schedules
top-twenty non-conference opponents, against whom Ball would be expected to pad
his numbers. So what has happened? Ball has had a “tumultuous” off-season, to
be certain. During the annual off-campus Mifflin Street Block Party, Ball had
the misfortune of encountering a homeowner who did not like the idea of a black
man standing in his front lawn, and Ball received a citation from police for
trespassing. In July, Ball was “present” during a brawl between football
players and students, although he was cleared of involvement; but within a week
of that incident, Ball was assaulted in the early morning hours by a group of
thugs in what was suspected to be a “retaliatory” action. But most observers
doubt that these events have anything to do with Ball’s poor on-field
performance.
The “true” culprit, it seems, is the horrible offensive line
play, which has caught fans, team and coaches off-guard. One may have seen
this coming, since the Badgers have lost six top-shelf starting offensive
linemen the past two years: Gabe Carimi, John Moffitt and Bill Nagy from the
2010 Rose Bowl team, and Peter Konz, Kevin Zeitler and Josh Oglesby from the
2011 Rose Bowl team. For the past twenty years since the start of the Barry
Alvarez era, Wisconsin’s success has in large part been based on acquiring the
best talent (or biggest bodies) available on both side of the line, and that
has helped the team to five Rose Bowl appearances, the first three ending in
victories.
But it seems that for the time being, the well has run dry. Badger
head coach Bret Bielema fired the old/new offensive line coach Mike Markuson
two games into the season; Markuson had replaced Bob Bostad, who left Wisconsin
for the Tampa Bay Buccaneer offensive line coach job. Players complained about
a supposed lack of communication with Markuson, who had instituted a zone-blocking
scheme that his linemen apparently had trouble grasping. But the real reason
for the breakdown is that the Badgers—despite playing in back-to-back Rose
Bowls—have had mediocre draft classes the past four seasons; although Wisconsin
has a history of transforming two-star recruits into NFL prospects, this time
the Badgers have not developed top-shelf juniors or seniors on the offensive
line to immediately replace those it has lost.
Markuson was replaced with a young gun named Bart Miller,
but no immediate difference is apparent, judging from another tepid running attack
in a loss at Nebraska, after the Badgers squandered a 17-point lead in the third
quarter. In making the coaching change, the Badgers had hoped to revive “one of
the signature plays in its old-school ground game,” wrote Tom Oates of Madison’s
Wisconsin State Journal. “Instead of trying to find holes on running plays, the
Badgers would start making them again.” But as Jim Polzin of the Journal noted,
Ball frequently “had one or more Nebraska defenders in his face” before he even
received the hand-off.
At this point, it is too early to determine how Ball’s draft
status in 2013 will be impacted, but his poor start does not bode well. Despite
his Heisman finalist credentials, Mel Kiper Jr. only rated him the fifth best running
back in 2011, which seems to have prompted Ball to try to improve his draft
status by returning this year. But before the season even started, some draft
analysts, like the Bleacher Report’s Sigmund Bloom, were critical of Ball’s NFL
potential: “Ball tends to get swallowed up by defensive linemen when he meets
them in the backfield, he rarely drags tacklers or pushes them backwards, and
when he does, it is a case of will, not one of an outstanding power back.”
Bloom also questioned Ball’s “vision” in finding holes; as I recall, this was
also a criticism of Ron Dayne, who didn’t follow-up his Heisman Trophy career
with a successful NFL career.
Perhaps as in the case of Russell Wilson, observers have
been led astray by the Badgers’ offensive line prowess that in the past made average
talent seem “elite.” This year, without a powerful offensive line, the team that
only recruits “high character” (name your euphemism) players has been for the
time being exposed.
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