Rose Bowl: Wisconsin Badgers vs. Oregon Ducks

[Bernman]

That list would have to be microscopic at the D1 level and littered with speculation about their success at the D3 level.

That is partially true because of what I talked about in regards to the lack of competition and non-UW scouts in the area. It's Wisconsin, or a level where it's going to be tough to project how they would have fared at UW. To know, you have to rely on them making the NFL, which is obviously less likely because the NFL scouts too are going to take what you do at a small college with a grain of salt, and you're much less apt to get noticed (one thing Ted Thompson takes advantage of). Then of course there is a gap between positive Badger contributor and NFL player. Still you have current NFL players from Wisconsin who didn't go to Madison but obviously would have been positive contributors there, like:

QB Tony Romo, Eastern Illinois
LB Nick Roach, Northwestern
LB Nick Bellore, Central Michigan
FS Nick Polk, Indiana
DE Austen Lane, Murray State
OT Rich Seubert, Western Illinois
OT Doug Free, Northern Illinois
TE Colin Cochart, SDSU
OT Jose Valdez, Arkansas
QB Chris Greisen, Northwest Missouri State
WR Kole Heckendorf, NDSU

Watt and Maragos they made evaluation mistakes on coming out of high school, lost a couple years of development/play on because of transfer rules and position switches, and got lucky they made the switch after showing something in college. Although who'd have been able to tell they'd be the high-level defensive players they were as backup receivers at their previous schools.

There are as many NFL players or more so from the state who didn't go to Wisconsin than did. That's in spite of the much greater visibility and opportunity on average at UW. Not saying they are doing poorly relative to average mining these guys, but obviously there is a lot of room for improvement still.

Brock Jensen, QB of the D1AA Championship game (hasn't been played yet) squad North Dakota State, is from Wisconsin. Wouldn't mind seeing what he could do with the Badgers. NDSU has had a high success rate in recent years when recruiting Wisconsin (like the Badgers), but who knows how they'd translate. The UW staff controls what you can prove or not for the most part, so that's always going to be a built-in defense against criticism.

Nick Greisen, Erik Mahlik, and Matt Unertl were a few more walk-ons which came to mind. Some we are fortunate can still pay tuition and meet academic standards without being scholarship athletes, others we aren't (Ben Ericksen starting safety and returner at Illinois State couldn't afford the UW tuition, for one example). I followed recruiting closely for years, talked to plenty of kids who were prospects from the state, I know the dynamics here.

There are a lot of prejudices involved in talent evaluation. UW are often looking for the Floridian and Texas "athlete" who operates in space (CB/S/WR) especially, and their success rate STINKS with those players. Wisconsin's D, with a bunch of Wisconsin DB's and LB's, and more northerners, didn't seem to have much problem w/ Arkansas' speed in '06, or Auburn's in '05. Iowa's defense typically doesn't either because they know who they are. They aren't quite as good of a program as Wisconsin because of recruiting circumstance, not because we are doing anything better than them. We're not. Their coaching is better.

[trwi7]

Erik Mahlik

My relative but I don't know which capacity.

/random bragging that really means nothing that nobody cares about

[El Duderino]

That list would have to be microscopic at the D1 level and littered with speculation about their success at the D3 level.

There are a lot of prejudices involved in talent evaluation. UW are often looking for the Floridian and Texas "athlete" who operates in space (CB/S/WR) especially, and their success rate STINKS with those players. Wisconsin's D, with a bunch of Wisconsin DB's and LB's, and more northerners, didn't seem to have much problem w/ Arkansas' speed in '06, or Auburn's in '05. Iowa's defense typically doesn't either because they know who they are. They aren't quite as good of a program as Wisconsin because of recruiting circumstance, not because we are doing anything better than them. We're not. Their coaching is better.

What do you base this on?

The state of Wisconsin isn't some huge hotbed of high school talent compared to Iowa that it explains away why the last 6-7 years or so that the Badgers overall, including Bielema have quite significantly out-performed the Hawkeyes under Ferentz.

Granted, as a game day coach, no question i'd rather have Ferentz than Bielema, but certainly not the bottom line results. Bret simply has been doing a better overall job at everything involved with a football program from recruiting players to filling out a coaching staff that then have to coach those kids up into productive players.

In college athletics for the most part, the head coaches are more powerful and responsible for bottom line results than any pro sports GM with full authority. College coaches not only coach on game day, they have to personally recruit. They hire the staff which has to both help recruit players and coach up a revolving door of those kids. Bielema and his staff since he got the job have clearly out-produced Ferentz and the staff he's put together.

It's not as if the Badgers under Bret have been putting together consistent top 10-15 recruiting classes compared to vastly inferior Iowa classes because Wisconsin high school football is so great. What Bielema and his staff has done quite well is fairly similar to often what Alvarez did, just without Rose Bowl wins. Do a better than average job at a mix of identifying underrated recruits and recruits that fit their system, then coaching those kids up well so that more often than not, the classes out-perform their rankings compared to other Big Ten schools with better or fairly similar class rankings.

[Kerb Hohl]

I played against Roach a handful of times and never really expected what happened. As I recall, he was a solid, bigger WR in a spread offense and I barely even remember him playing LB, though I could be mistaken, maybe he was really good, we normally hung 50+ on them, though.

Also played Polk, don't know what to think, I recall him jumping a few feet above corners to grab the ball. He was good but who knows why the Badgers didn't like him.

In those same games with Polk, DeAndre Levy was man amongst boys, and they snatched that. I recall having one hell of a time trying to block/tackle him and he ran down some RBs that had gotten past the secondary a few times.

Anyways, I don't think they can shoot 100%, and they should be better at evaluation than my fuzzy recollection of being on the field, but sometimes these guys really just come out of nowhere.

[PkrsBcksGphsMqt]

Sounds like Ball has made a decision about coming back to school or entering the draft.

TomMulhernWSJ Tom Mulhern
I'm hearing @M_Ball28 press conference being set up for today. No official announcement yet from UW about it. #Badgers

[RiotPunch]

I'll be surprised if Ball comes back. Most mocks have him as a late 1st / early 2nd round pick, and with the injury uncertainty of being a running back the mart choice would be to take the leap.

[Bernman]

What do you base this on?

The state of Wisconsin isn't some huge hotbed of high school talent compared to Iowa that it explains away why the last 6-7 years or so that the Badgers overall, including Bielema have quite significantly out-performed the Hawkeyes under Ferentz.

Granted, as a game day coach, no question i'd rather have Ferentz than Bielema, but certainly not the bottom line results. Bret simply has been doing a better overall job at everything involved with a football program from recruiting players to filling out a coaching staff that then have to coach those kids up into productive players.

In college athletics for the most part, the head coaches are more powerful and responsible for bottom line results than any pro sports GM with full authority. College coaches not only coach on game day, they have to personally recruit. They hire the staff which has to both help recruit players and coach up a revolving door of those kids. Bielema and his staff since he got the job have clearly out-produced Ferentz and the staff he's put together.

It's not as if the Badgers under Bret have been putting together consistent top 10-15 recruiting classes compared to vastly inferior Iowa classes because Wisconsin high school football is so great. What Bielema and his staff has done quite well is fairly similar to often what Alvarez did, just without Rose Bowl wins. Do a better than average job at a mix of identifying underrated recruits and recruits that fit their system, then coaching those kids up well so that more often than not, the classes out-perform their rankings compared to other Big Ten schools with better or fairly similar class rankings.

Wisconsin has nearly twice the population as Iowa and 4 times as many African Americans. Your perception that it isn't a hotbed in comparison to Iowa is based on the lack of other programs in the state to identify talent for themselves and other programs on the outside, which is another major advantage for Wisconsin, as we've talked about ad nauseum already.

Wisconsin's recruiting dynamics are more like Nebraska's, who also doesn't have another D1 program, which non-coincidentally has created the 2nd best walk-on program in the country (to Wisconsin's) for them. Only, unlike Nebraska, Wisconsin have more than 3 times their population, and over 4 times as many African Americans. In spite of that fact, Nebraska has won multiple national championships since Wisconsin turned the program around under Alvarez, and have ranked 6th best in the polls to our 13th. The expectations aren't too high now, they were too low under the incompetent coaches previous to Alvarez. Alvarez laid the blueprint and built some of the tradition that Nebraska has (which he probably figured out how to do playing and coaching at Nebraska), and yes, Bielema should be expected to build more off that.

I don't have much doubt Ferentz would be exceeding his achievements here because of inheriting a better program, his relative intelligence for game management, and the way he doesn't try to be anything he's not on defense, which regardless of overall team success, have been better than Wisconsin's during Bielema's reign.

Wisconsin focused on in state and northern recruiting for the 2011 class though and you'll probably see them enjoy 1-2 Rose Bowl trips as upperclassmen also. If they employed that strategy more regularly the heights would be higher and more consistent.