It's a tough day to be a Badger fan.
The football team lost in gut-wrenching fashion, as usual.
The basketball team lost starting point guard Josh Gasser for the season to a torn ACL.
Silver lining: At least we found out that Stave is way, way better than O'Brien.
UPDATE:
Broken collarbone for Stave, surgery needed—out for the season.
Here's your new silver lining, and I admit I'm really stretching here. As much as Stave improved and made plays, he didn't really have an impact on any of the Badger's wins since taking over as starter.
ReplyDeleteIn 4 wins against bad teams, at home against UTEP, Illinois, and Minnesota and on the road at Purdue, UW won because of a solid defense and running game. O'Brien should be able to do as much as Stave did in those wins.
In the 2 losses against quality teams at Nebraska, and MSU yesterday Stave looked good in the first half. He fell apart in the 2nd half against Nebraska, and got hurt before he had a chance in the 2nd half against MSU. Despite only putting up 7 points in the first half against MSU, Stave looked really good. It's really too bad he didn't get a 2nd half to show how far he had come and close out the win.
With the growth Stave had shown, would he have been able to lead UW to a win against a quality team? I think so, but I guess we won't know that until at least next year.
UW should know in 2 weeks, at Indiana if O'Brien is good enough to win against a bad team. Unfortunately UW then will have OSU, Penn State, the big ten Championship and a bowl game. Will the running game and defense be enough to carry UW against a quality opponent? It hasn't so far this year.
O'Brien will have 2 weeks to get ready. He will have an offensive line that is healthy and playing well in front of 2 good running backs. He will have a healthy Abbrederis to throw to. The defense has continued to get better. If UW sticks to the same game plan that they did with Stave ie less than 25 throws mostly out of play action, I think UW can win a couple more games.
I'm willing to concede that based on the current evidence in front of us Stave was the better quarterback to date. O'Brien will unfortunately get another shot to prove me right. I must say I am not as optimistic about O'Brien as I was at my first post, but I'm still hopeful he can be adequate.
Sorry this isn't much of a silver lining.
No, not much of a silver lining.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that the Badger's are better prepared to deal with a QB injury than they've been in years. Danny O'Brien has struggled, and he is clearly no savior, but he can play. He can get better.
But with Stave there was the hope that he could get A LOT better (and he was already better than O'Brien). So it was possible to imagine not just getting to the Big Ten Championship game, but winning it and then winning the Rose Bowl.
It's still likely that the Badgers will stumble their way to the Championship game. But their odds of winning it went way down. And, if they do, they may actually be the worst team ever to play in the Rose Bowl this time.