There hasn't been this much excitement in Madison, Wis., since -- pick a year -- they were dragging protesters out of the capitol.
Or since -- pick a year -- the football team was in Pasadena.
I mean, have mercy, a Stanford/Cal law grad like Rod Gilmore was putting "Wisconsin" and "national championship contender" in the same sentence Monday on ESPN.
But being the stoic, arctic-tempered football realists who value substance months before the first snowplow creates a lane at Camp Randall, let's take our usual measured look at all this Russell Wilson hoo-ha.
It's true, Wilson is the fast, readymade quarterback who typically never gives a run-first school like UW a sniff. Against the great U-Dub tradition of managing the position, Wilson potentially changes everything by being the kind of playmaking QB that most of the other big boys bring to the BCS dance as a matter of course.
Then again, he's not quite 6 feet tall. He might not weigh 200 pounds. And he quarterbacked at N.C. State, which plays in a league that tolerates football as a fall diversion for the short-pants set.
Yes, those were some awfully impressive numbers Wilson put up against the Dukes and the Wake Forests and the whatnots. But playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference is not like playing in the Southeastern Conference . . . or even the Big Ten.
Yet give Wilson this: He seems like the type of personality who will fit in very quickly at Wisconsin. "Blessed to be a Badger," said Wilson, who has completed his undergraduate work.
Give him this, too: He turned down Auburn, a place where maybe a guy could make more in a game than a whole season of scuffling around at second base with the Asheville Tourists.
So where's the downside?
If we've learned anything about Bret Bielema in five years, ol' Coach B-squared is all about charging full speed ahead. He's aggressively proactive. He's not afraid to take a chance. He lives on that risk-reward balance beam.
And if he hits on this one, the payoff could be Roses . . . or better.
"This is an unusual situation, especially for a program that prides itself on developing players throughout their careers, as we do here at Wisconsin," Bielema said.
Yeah, yeah, Wisconsin is big on turning walk-ons and nobodies into Saturday afternoon sensations. It's a noble tradition. But it's not like they're about to say no to a guy able to bypass the Football 101 lab.
We know the Badgers are loaded offensively. Even after losing an Outland Trophy winner and another starter to the NFL, they have one of the better offensive lines in college football. Their backfield is so stacked that a pretty good No. 3 tailback, seeing no playing time for himself, just took off for Pittsburgh.
All they need is a quarterback. Isn't this why the resident offensive genius, Paul Chryst, turned down Texas to hang around Madison? To finally get his hands on the first quarterback to show up at Wisconsin in a long, long, long time with pre-mixed skills?
If Chryst could coach up John Stocco, Tyler Donovan, Dustin Sherer and Scott Tolzien, what could he finally do with a guy like Wilson who brings a big arm and mobility to a place that typically attracts big-time quarterbacks like tin-pot dictators collect Nobel Peace Prizes?
The mind shuts down at the possibilities. But before we start making Nebraska a 21-point dog on Oct. 1, it's time for a perspective check.
Remember Allan Evridge? As a fairly well-known transfer from Kansas State, he was supposed to be the answer in 2008, when, just as now, U-Dub had no quarterback on the horizon. Evridge kind of made it through Akron, Marshall and Fresno State before being benched the rest of the year for Sherer.
Of course, Wilson is far more gifted than Evridge. But that doesn't mean he will beat out Jon Budmayr this summer without showing up.
The job should be Wilson's, but he's got some obstacles. There's the system, albeit similar to the one he ran in Raleigh, and the very short amount of time to establish himself as a leader in a locker room where a few strong personalities already reside.
Again, where is the downside? If Wilson is a bust, it's a four-month trial. It's not like he could jump to the Badgers' non-existent baseball team.
But if he's got anything at all with that line and that backfield, it wouldn't hurt to begin sneaking peaks at cheap flights to Los Angeles . . . or maybe New Orleans.
Or since -- pick a year -- the football team was in Pasadena.
I mean, have mercy, a Stanford/Cal law grad like Rod Gilmore was putting "Wisconsin" and "national championship contender" in the same sentence Monday on ESPN.
But being the stoic, arctic-tempered football realists who value substance months before the first snowplow creates a lane at Camp Randall, let's take our usual measured look at all this Russell Wilson hoo-ha.
It's true, Wilson is the fast, readymade quarterback who typically never gives a run-first school like UW a sniff. Against the great U-Dub tradition of managing the position, Wilson potentially changes everything by being the kind of playmaking QB that most of the other big boys bring to the BCS dance as a matter of course.
Then again, he's not quite 6 feet tall. He might not weigh 200 pounds. And he quarterbacked at N.C. State, which plays in a league that tolerates football as a fall diversion for the short-pants set.
Yes, those were some awfully impressive numbers Wilson put up against the Dukes and the Wake Forests and the whatnots. But playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference is not like playing in the Southeastern Conference . . . or even the Big Ten.
Yet give Wilson this: He seems like the type of personality who will fit in very quickly at Wisconsin. "Blessed to be a Badger," said Wilson, who has completed his undergraduate work.
Give him this, too: He turned down Auburn, a place where maybe a guy could make more in a game than a whole season of scuffling around at second base with the Asheville Tourists.
So where's the downside?
If we've learned anything about Bret Bielema in five years, ol' Coach B-squared is all about charging full speed ahead. He's aggressively proactive. He's not afraid to take a chance. He lives on that risk-reward balance beam.
And if he hits on this one, the payoff could be Roses . . . or better.
Yeah, yeah, Wisconsin is big on turning walk-ons and nobodies into Saturday afternoon sensations. It's a noble tradition. But it's not like they're about to say no to a guy able to bypass the Football 101 lab.
We know the Badgers are loaded offensively. Even after losing an Outland Trophy winner and another starter to the NFL, they have one of the better offensive lines in college football. Their backfield is so stacked that a pretty good No. 3 tailback, seeing no playing time for himself, just took off for Pittsburgh.
All they need is a quarterback. Isn't this why the resident offensive genius, Paul Chryst, turned down Texas to hang around Madison? To finally get his hands on the first quarterback to show up at Wisconsin in a long, long, long time with pre-mixed skills?
If Chryst could coach up John Stocco, Tyler Donovan, Dustin Sherer and Scott Tolzien, what could he finally do with a guy like Wilson who brings a big arm and mobility to a place that typically attracts big-time quarterbacks like tin-pot dictators collect Nobel Peace Prizes?
The mind shuts down at the possibilities. But before we start making Nebraska a 21-point dog on Oct. 1, it's time for a perspective check.
Remember Allan Evridge? As a fairly well-known transfer from Kansas State, he was supposed to be the answer in 2008, when, just as now, U-Dub had no quarterback on the horizon. Evridge kind of made it through Akron, Marshall and Fresno State before being benched the rest of the year for Sherer.
Of course, Wilson is far more gifted than Evridge. But that doesn't mean he will beat out Jon Budmayr this summer without showing up.
The job should be Wilson's, but he's got some obstacles. There's the system, albeit similar to the one he ran in Raleigh, and the very short amount of time to establish himself as a leader in a locker room where a few strong personalities already reside.
Again, where is the downside? If Wilson is a bust, it's a four-month trial. It's not like he could jump to the Badgers' non-existent baseball team.
But if he's got anything at all with that line and that backfield, it wouldn't hurt to begin sneaking peaks at cheap flights to Los Angeles . . . or maybe New Orleans.
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