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Ball runs to 2nd straight big game
WEST LAFAYETTE – Talk about taking advantage of what is given to you.
After spending the first two months of the season seeing his playing time severely limited due to the emergence of freshman James White, third-string running back Montee Ball has never stopped working to help his team.
It paid off in a big way Saturday at Purdue.
Ball reemerged as an important part of the Wisconsin offense when White went down with an injury at Iowa, scoring the game-winning touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
His performance at Ross-Ade Stadium was even better.
“Montee knew pretty much all week it was going to be John and Montee,” head coach Bret Bielema said. “He was snapped in and just another example of great preparation by him.”
For the first time this season, Ball knew all week he would be the No. 2 option out of the backfield, a role he played well late in his freshman season.
When Saturday’s game rolled around, Ball simply went out and rushed for 127 yards on 21 carries and two big second-half touchdowns.
“I knew that the team was going to look for me to come in strong,” Ball said. “I wasn’t going to let them down.”
Early on, the Badgers went with a heavy dose of John Clay, with less than desirable results. When Clay got banged up during the course of the game, the load was all on Ball’s shoulders.
To say he responded well would be quite the understatement.
Ball finished the first half with just nine yards rushing on four carries, eight of which came on a single carry in the Badgers’ final drive of the second quarter. Over the final 25:32 of play, Ball ran for 118 yards on 17 carries, for an average of nearly seven yards per rush.
Midway through the third quarter, Ball helped the Badgers reel off a two-play, 51-yard, 38-second scoring drive. After a 20-yard pass to Nick Toon, Ball took the ball down the left sideline 31 yards for the score, diving for the pylon and giving UW some breathing room at 20-10.
“I just kept running behind the blocks, waiting for them to set up,” Ball said. “It was just there, so I just kind of leaped over them a little bit and reached the ball a little bit.”
Ball reeled off another run of 26 yards on the Badgers’ first drive of the fourth quarter before getting his second touchdown of the day when Wisconsin got the ball back for a second drive in the period.
Following Mike Taylor‘s impressive interception, Ball took the handoff twice, losing a yard on first down and finding a huge hole for his second touchdown of the day, this time from 15 yards out.
“He did a great job,” John Moffitt said of Ball. “The way he can step up, it’s so nice to have three backs that can do that. Running the football here is not easy, we put a lot of carries in your hands and it’s going to be tough, but Montee definitely stepped up.”
Ball found out just what it meant to be the Badgers’ every down back on the game’s final drive. Wisconsin ran 10 plays for 40 yards, eating up 5 minutes and 50 seconds off the clock.
Each of the 10 plays was a handoff to Ball.
“When you come here, the team’s going to put the load on your shoulders and you’ve got to be able to carry it,” Ball said. “That’s what I feel like I did. The O-line did a great job up front pushing them, and I just don’t want to let them down.”
Badgers ready for Ross-Ade
MADISON – As stadiums go, Ross-Ade Stadium is never going to be mistaken for one of the great, historic venues in college football. Even so, Purdue has won 254 games there all-time against just 149 losses, including the Boilermakers’ 3-1 home record this year.
In fact, just last year Purdue knocked off then-No. 7 Ohio State at home, 26-18, in a stunning upset. That win came on the heels of a five-game losing streak for the Boilermakers, who have lost each of their last two games, on the road, in blowout fashion.
Add the Badgers’ recent success, and Wisconsin looks to be headed into a classic trap game.
“We’re well aware of it,” quarterback Scott Tolzien said. “I think the main thing is that it’s just another Big Ten game. You just look at last year, they knocked off Ohio State.
“Every year there seems to be that game where someone gets nipped from behind. We need to approach this game like any other game. The second you take your foot off the gas pedal and start relaxing, that’s when you start to get some adversity.”
Unfortunately for the Badgers, they don’t have any past experience to lean on against Purdue. While they shutout the Boilermakers last year, 37-0, the last time Wisconsin traveled to Purdue was in 2006, when Bret Bielema was a first-year head coach and UW’s current fifth-year seniors were in their redshirt seasons.
Junior defensive end J.J. Watt will be making his second appearance at Ross-Ade, having played there once in his career at Central Michigan.
As such, they’ll need to rely on their experiences in other Big Ten stadiums, rather than recall past games as Ross-Ade.
“I think anybody can beat anybody,” said John Moffitt, who redshirted in 2006. “You have to respect teams and you have to especially respect teams at home. I think we’re doing that with our preparation and we need to continue to do that.”
Not only has the team not played in West Lafayette in four years, they’ve also not made a bus trip as long as the one scheduled for this weekend. A 271-mile drive, the drive from Camp Randall to Ross-Ade is said to take five hours and six minutes, according to Google Maps.
On a bus, that easily translates to at least a six-hour drive. And that’s assuming the buses make it through the Chicago area without significant delay.
“That’s something that I don’t like at all,” free safety Aaron Henry said. “I understand we’ve got to do it, but six hours man, I can’t sit in a classroom for 50 minutes, let alone on a bus for six hours.
“It’s something we’ve got to do, so I don’t really have a choice in that, and we’ve just got to roll with it. I’m not really a big fan of bussing for six hours, though. Hopefully, if we take care of business, we won’t be bussing back.”
Confined to seat on the bus for the length of nearly two football games, the Badgers will need to find some ways to occupy their time. Homework, music, movies and sleep are among the most popular time-wasters for bus trips.
Of course, they’re typically more like three to four hours, such as is the case with the trip to Iowa City.
“I’m going to probably be doing a ton of things,” Henry said. “Probably on the phone listening to music, going over some of my notes, writing up some of my interests on the blog that I have. There’s no telling what I could be doing, man.
“Once you focus on one thing, that thing is going to die out eventually. And me, I’m always trying to find what’s new. But hopefully sleep will be my biggest friend on that trip.”
Running back John Clay had a simple answer to what could make the bus trip better for him.
“Having my own seat,” Clay said with a laugh. “If I can sit in the back and have my own seat, I’ll just be thinking about the plays that are going to get called and thinking about making a big play every time I get a chance.”
Extra week, tackling key for ‘D’
MADISON – It was the icing on the cake of Wisconsin’s best defensive performance in more than a decade.
One of the defining moments of the Badgers’ 2009 season came in the most unlikely of circumstances, as Wisconsin led 37-0 over Purdue with just 6:44 remaining.
After turning the ball over on 3rd-and-3, the Badgers gave the Boilermakers the ball in excellent field position, needing just 39 yards to find the end zone for the first time. With backup quarterback Caleb TerBush at the helm, Purdue picked up 36 yards, giving them 2nd-and-Goal at the 3-yard line.
Three plays and a handful of impressive defensive efforts later, Wisconsin’s goal line stand was complete, sealing the Badgers’ first Big Ten shutout since 1999.
“We got after them,” said defensive end J.J. Watt, who broke up a fourth-down pass in the end zone. “We were flying around, we were having fun and we were just playing great technically-sound football.
“They put the starting defensive line back in for that goal line stand, and we were excited about that because we knew we wanted to preserve the shutout. That was a huge stand for our defense as a whole because it showed we could persevere through a tough drive and that was a big one for our team.”
Having suffered back-to-back tough losses to Ohio State and Iowa last year, the Badgers were hungry for a win, and they put together an impressively complete performance against the Boilermakers.
One key factor that may have helped was having an extra week to prepare for the spread offense of Purdue. After defeating the Buckeyes and Hawkeyes this year, the Badgers had an extra week once again, and hope to use it effectively against the Boilermakers.
“I think it helped scheme-wise, we got to know some of their plays better than we normally would,” linebacker Blake Sorensen said. “It just kind of gets us used to playing a spread team. We haven’t really played one since Arizona State, so the extra week with more practices, it definitely helps.”
After four nonconference games to begin the season, Wisconsin settled into the heart of its Big Ten schedule, facing four traditional offenses and three of the conference’s top teams. Over the final four games, the Badgers will see plenty of variations of the spread from four of the second-tier teams in the Big Ten.
While they’re a spread team, the Boilermakers utilize the run quite a bit from the spread look, creating another wrinkle to figure out as the Badgers prepare for Purdue. Last year, Wisconsin looked like it knew what was coming holding Purdue – the Big Ten’s fourth-leading offense in terms of yardage entering the contest – to only 141 total yards.
The Boilermakers gained just 60 yards on 29 rushing attempts while picking up 81 yards through the air on just nine completions. To have similar success, the Badgers will need to put together a strong team effort in terms of tackling this week, especially in the open field.
“Defensively we’ve got to tackle well, probably now more than ever because in spread offenses, they create one-on-one spacing, so that’s a big difference in this game,” head coach Bret Bielema said. “We haven’t had many missed tackles.
“But, again, now that this is a different type of offense, where there’s one-on-one tackling because of the spread formations, it’s going to be a unique challenge that we really haven’t seen to this point.”
Kerrigan next test for O-line
MADISON – In putting together a list of the top defensive linemen in the Big Ten, four names quickly come to mind: Cameron Heyward, Adrian Clayborn, Ryan Kerrigan and J.J. Watt.
Of those four, Wisconsin has faced two, Heyward and Clayborn, in their two biggest wins of the season over then-No. 1 Ohio State and at Iowa. Watt, of course, lines up at defensive end on a weekly basis for the Badgers, earning a number of national honors in recent weeks.
That leaves Kerrigan, the Purdue Boilermakers defensive end, and the third in a line of three straight high-profile defensive stars on the schedule for UW. While the other three may get more press, Kerrigan could very well be the best of the bunch.
“To this day, I think that Ryan Kerrigan, their defensive end, is probably one of the premier players in our league,” Wisconsin head coach Bret Bielema said. “I really thought last year he was at a whole other level. [He] plays extremely hard, extremely gifted.”
Through eight games this season, Kerrigan leads the Big Ten in several defensive categories, including sacks with 7.5 and tackles for loss with 18.5. Ranking fourth and second in those categories, respectively, is Watt with five sacks and 13.5 tackles for loss.
Kerrigan’s three forced fumbles also tie him with Michigan State’s Greg Jones for the most in the conference, with the Boilermakers having played one fewer game than MSU. With 49 tackles and a 6.1 tackles per game average, Kerrigan is 21st in the conference, while Watt ranks 47th.
“I probably went up against him once or twice, maybe,” said John Moffitt, referring to Kerrigan. “Obviously he’s very strong, and he’s got a little bit of speed to him, too. He’s not just a bull rush guy. He’s a good player, he plays hard and that’s evident when you watch him on film for sure.”
Against the Badgers, the top performer among Heyward, Clayborn and Kerrigan last season was Kerrigan, who had a game-high nine tackles, 2.5 for loss and 1.5 sacks.
In his last two games against UW, Clayborn has 11 tackles, three for loss, and two sacks. For Heyward, the last two battles against Wisconsin have yielded nine tackles, 2.5 for loss and one sack.
Having faced all three, how does Gabe Carimi assess their abilites?
“I’d say Heyward is more of a bull [rusher], Clayborn would be a speed and bull guy, and Kerrigan is a motor guy,” Carimi said. “He’ll keep driving his legs, moving around, ripping under and twisting his body. I think he gives unbelievable effort on film and that’s why I think he might be a better defensive end.”
Having come away with victories over the Buckeyes and Hawkeyes this season, while limiting Heyward and Clayborn along the way, the Badgers now turn their focus toward Kerrigan and the Boilermakers.
While they certainly respect Kerrigan and consider him among the conference’s elite, the Wisconsin offensive line has plenty of reason to believe they’ll come out on top when they head to West Lafayette, Ind., for Saturday’s contest.
“I know he’s a great defensive end, and I think he is the best in the conference,” Carimi said. “But I’m coming in there with a little bit of confidence and trying to pull out a solid performance against him.”nd, ripping under and twisting his body. I think he gives unbelievable effort on film and that’s why I think he might be a better defensive end.”
Having come away with victories over the Buckeyes and Hawkeyes this season, while limiting Heyward and Clayborn along the way, the Badgers now turn their focus toward Kerrigan and the Boilermakers.
While they certainly respect Kerrigan and consider him among the conference’s elite, the Wisconsin offensive line has plenty of reason to believe they’ll come out on top when they head to West Lafayette, Ind., for Saturday’s contest.
“I know he’s a great defensive end, and I think he is the best in the conference,” Carimi said. “But I’m coming in there with a little bit of confidence and trying to pull out a solid performance against him.”
Clay ready for Boilermakers
MADISON – It’s no secret that most Wisconsin fans would like to see running back John Clay play at less than his current weight. Sometimes, though, his 6-foot-1, 248-pound frame works to his advantage.
For instance, while it can be easy to find a speedy member of the scout team that will make guys miss, it’s a little tougher to replicate a guy of Clay’s size with the speed and running ability that he possesses.
A year ago, that translated into 24-carry, 123-yard, three-touchdown performance for Clay in the Badgers’ impressive 37-0 victory over Purdue. Just two weeks earlier, Purdue had limited Ohio State to just 66 yards on 28 carries as they knocked off the seventh-ranked Buckeyes.
“Just coming straight downhill,” Clay said of what worked for him against the Boilermakers. “They’re a spread team, so they’re used to seeing the spread in practice every day. Having our big guys up front and me coming downhill, I think it’s kind of hard for them to simulate that.”
Against two of the top defenses in the conference, Ohio State and Iowa, the Badgers’ No. 1 running back put up two of his most impressive performances of the season. Rushing a combined 45 times, Clay picked up 195 yards while reaching the end zone four times.
Having reestablished himself as the top option out of the backfield, and especially with James White coming back from injury, it would come as no surprise to see Clay get a significant majority of the carries Saturday in West Lafayette, Ind.
While White’s shifty, speedy style usually works as a good change of pace for Wisconsin, a heavy dose of the bigger, stronger Clay could be in the Badgers’ game plan this week.
Is Clay ready for a potentially increased workload this week?
“Yeah. You know, James is trying to come back from an injury, and I’m putting the bulk on my shoulders,” Clay said. “I got the rest I needed, so I’m looking forward to it.”
Clay missed some time during the Badgers’ 31-30 victory at Kinnick Stadium himself, which led to the opportunity for Montee Ball to stretch the ball across the goal line for the game-winning score in the fourth quarter.
Ten days removed from that physically and emotionally draining battle with the Hawkeyes, Clay said he’s ready to go against the Boilermakers. He did not, however, hesitate to acknowledge the importance of the bye week.
“It was some much needed time. Just getting my body back right and just giving us a chance to really get ready for Purdue,” Clay said. “I feel I’m about 100 percent. My ankles are good, that rest we had really helped a lot of people on the team that needed to rest to finish the season out strong.”
A Schelling For Your Thoughts 