White Suburban Punk

Wisconsin put together an impressive, punishing, dominating performance in the Champs Sports Bowl to beat Miami, 20-14.  Supposed 2010 Heisman Trophy candidate Jacory Harris, despite his “star” haircut, actually looked scared most of the game, and was completely outplayed by Wisconsin quarterback Scott Tolzien.  Both QBs were under pressure most of the night, but Tolzien was cool and calm, consistently stepping up, delivering the ball, and taking the hit, while the only thing consistent about Harris was panic.  Wisconsin really doesn’t do anything fancy in the passing game, but it looked like their receivers got open fairly easily, despite Miami’s alleged EXPLOSIVE SPEED, which was apparently negated by temperatures below 50 degrees.  After all, everyone knows it’s impossible to run when it’s in the 40s.  The classic look on TV was the Miami players huddled on the sidelines in front of heaters while the Badgers wore short sleeves.  And that was really the essence of the game — the Badgers were far tougher than the Hurricanes.

Miami had quite a few gadget plays, especially in the first half, which seems to indicate that Randy Shannon knew his team couldn’t win straight up.  ESPN made a big deal that John Clay averaged just 67 yards per game against ranked teams Ohio State and Iowa, but he finished with 22 rushes for 121 yards and two scores.  Miami proved that they don’t belong with the Big Ten’s ranked teams.  Unfortunately, Clay doesn’t always play like that.  He kind of seems to have Laurence Maroney syndrome in big games, far too tentative.  But he was fierce and punishing from the very first carry last night.  Just a sophomore, he insists he’s coming back next season.  If he learns the lesson from last night, there’s your 2010 Heisman candidate.

On offense, Wisconsin loses only tight end Garrett Graham to graduation.  He really didn’t have a great game.  I saw a couple of key blocks he missed, and he had the inexcusable fumble in the end zone when the Badgers were about to ice the game.  The other tight end, Lance Kendricks, was huge, catching seven passes for 128 yards, and he had several key blocks to spring Clay.  On defense, Wisconsin loses DE O’Brien Schofield, both starting defensive tackles, and safety Chris Maragos.  The defensive line recruiting has supposedly been strong the last couple of years, and the secondary is still pretty deep.  JJ Watt returns at the other DE.  Maybe Todd Blackledge can learn the names a little better next year.  He kept calling Kendricks Kendrick, and JJ Watt JJ Watts.

More numbers: Miami came in to the game 27th in the nation in scoring and 36th in total yards, averaging 412.5 yards per game.  They finished with 249 yards, and 79 of those were against the prevent defense on their 4th quarter TD drive.  Jacory Harris was 16-29 for 188 yards and was sacked five times.  Tolzien was 19-26 for 260.  Miami had 61 rushing yards.  Time of possession was 39:15 for Wisconsin, 20:45 for Miami.  Brad Nortman had three punts inside the 10 yard line for Wisconsin.

So Wisconsin returned to the scene of the crime (last year’s loss to Florida State on the same field, 42-13), and avenged it in a big way against a highly overrated (#15!) Miami team.  The weak ACC is now 1-3 in this year’s bowls, the Big Ten 1-0.

Photos from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Tags: Badgers, College Football, Wisconsin Badgers

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 12:24 pm and is filed under College Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.