Nothing But Iron: 80 yards and a Cloud of Rocket Fuel Exhaust September 30, 2007 by Steven R. Lagman, M.D., C.A.S.W. I want to get this out tonight so there is no time for a masterpiece. The Badgers are 5-0, a.k.a. 5(1-0). This is good. I remind us that this is good because some of our local sports writers can’t stop dwelling on UW’s inability to play a "complete game". I beg to differ. I have personally witnessed four of five games the Badgers played, and each was played for the entire 60 minutes. Complete, by most interpretations. If it is mistake-free football you seek, then go rent Madden 2007 and select the hapless setting for your opponent. I don’t mind seeing the Badgers win by three points. I don’t mind seeing them come from behind. I don’t mind seeing a lot of great plays, especially when the balance of greatness is slightly in our favor. To the argument that Michigan State’s great plays were a consequence of Wisconsin’s ineptitude I can only answer blah blah blah. I think that MSU is vastly improved. Because I hate Michigan State I don’t like that, but I do believe it. I predict that it will take a very good team to beat the Spartans again. MSU will continue to put up lots of yards and lots of points. These will not be the faltering Spartans of the past. State’s only downside is residual stupidity, pronounced lack of discipline, which reared its beautiful head in the fourth quarter. Perhaps discipline can be taught, but most likely it will be corrected by attrition and replacement. Let’s hope that Mark Dantonio finds a way to recruit no better than his predecessors. Remember these names: Ringer, Caulcrick, Thomas and Hoyer. Quarterback Hoyer and at least one of the others will play in the NFL. I hope Hoyer continues to have a great year so he will trade in his final year of college for wads of cash. Otherwise it won’t be fun facing him in East Lansing next year. Kyle Jefferson may look skinny, but how tough is this kid to get up after the nasty blow he took in the second quarter? That helmet-helmet hit was one of the most brutal I have seen. The refs screwed up by failing to call unnecessary roughness, but the assault did happen fast. I could have missed the call too. Typically I support the hitter, arguing that it is unreasonable to expect that a tackler can always avoid H2H contact in real time speed of the game, but in this case I think the intent was consistent with the result, and it should be punished accordingly. And someone should tell Nehamiah Warrick how lucky he is that he can still move his arms and legs. It’s not always the recipient of that kind of contact who gets hurt. Here’s an idea: Add suspected helmet-to-helmet contact to the list of video reviewables. I am glad Jefferson got his touchdown before leaving the game. Just seconds before he caught it I said, "How about Jefferson this time? He hasn’t caught a pass, and he’s too tall not to have caught a pass." Afterward I turned to Kelly expecting her to tell me what a genius I was, but it turns out she wasn’t listening so now you all have to take my word for it. How lame am I for expecting that you would believe me without a witness? I said a lot of good things about Tyler Donovan in the last issue, and today I add one more adjective: tough. It was hard to appreciate it from the stands, but I realized watching the TiVo replay how beat up he got. I am sure being a starting quarterback at a major college is glamourous, but I would not want to be Tyler today. No Confidence Man was in his usual seat just behind mine. He was just as negative as always. I forgot to tell you one of the most amusing comments he made at last week’s game against Iowa. After a Donovan pass fell short of his receiver he said, "That guy is the best player Iowa has got." This week he went ballistic when Donovan called time out. The ensuing play went for a touchdown. I turned to Kelly and said, not quite loudly enough for him to hear me, "Guess we wasted that time out." For a second week in a row I showed self-restraint enough not to punch this idiot. At this point I probably won’t ever punch him because Kelly and I have begun to enjoy the many opportunities to amuse ourselves by making fun of him. The beauty of a TiVo replay is that you can see the subtleties of the game. The work of fullback Chris Pressley is a good example. Proper credit was given to the O line, but not a word was said about Pressley or back-up fullback Bill Rentmeester. Whenever there was a huge hole in the line, and there were many such holes Saturday, you could usually see one of these guys leading the way. Pressley came to Wisconsin as a tailback, but moved to fullback when it became clear he wasn’t the second coming of Ron Dayne. Pressley had over 1600 yards and scored 22 touchdowns as a high school senior. Now he is a blocker. We should thank him for being a team guy. Illinois beat Penn State. This helps us in the conference race for two reasons: 1) It’s a loss for one team with a favorable schedule that has (had?) a chance to win the Big Ten, and 2) it reminds the Badgers that next week’s trip to Champaign will be no picnic, not that the Badgers probably needed a reminder after last year’s scare. Prediction: UW comes from behind to win by 3. The Badgers play a complete, but imperfect game. My friend Gene Miller asked not to know if the Packers won. He TiVo’d the game and wanted to watch it if pretend real time. I say that anyone who does that has to watch all the commercials too in order to get the full effect. Gene was not confident that he would make it through dinner without one of the ten people spilling the beans, and he was right. I told him it was worth watching anyway. My practice is to always learn the outcome as soon as possible. I am almost certain that the outcome of a game has never changed by virtue of my having discovered it. If it was a great game I will watch the replay anyway. If it was a terrible game, I might devote that three hours to something truly worthwhile, like sportswriting. Congratulations to Brett Favre on breaking Dan Marino’s TD pass record. I thought Marino’s taped speech was a nice tribute. I have to offer congratulations in my column because I lost Favre’s cell phone number. What fun it is to see him having fun again. I particularly enjoy how he spreads the ball around. Today he hit at least nine different receivers. Must be great to be one of his receivers, as long as you don’t mind a broken finger here and there. Don’t tell Packers punter Jon Ryan, a.k.a. the Saskatchewan Streak, that Green Bay has no rushing game. I say we get him some big-boy pads and put him in the four-man backfield rotation. Seeing a punter juke tacklers to keep the drive alive must have left Vikings faithful feeling a little queasy. What’s not to like about that? I would not say it was huge, but it was an important win for the now 4-0 Packers. For perspective I offer this pre-season quote: "I can see how the defense might be good, but I can’t imagine how the offense will score any points." I myself said that about six weeks ago. Guess my imagination needs a little work. The Vikings played better than I thought they would. Chicago will too. I look forward to being there. I imagine the Packers winning by 3 at the wire.  _______________ Nothing But Iron is an amateur sports column. ©2007 DrTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.