Some thoughts now that I'm sitting at my computer and working on recovering:
“It’s honestly the worst feeling in the world,” UW senior cornerback Caesar Williams said. “It just feels like a disgrace to the program for us to lose the Axe.”
-What probably helped rankle him is that the Gophers won by giving the Badgers a big dose of their own medicine. Both Gopher lines bullied the starch out of their counterparts in white jerseys. I know some were saying that Allen was banged up and/or got hurt, but even if he was at full strength, he had nowhere to go. 47 yards on 17 carries isn't gonna get it done.
-The Gopher defense, which was putrid last year and a giant question mark early in the season, looked like world-beaters out there. Joe Rossi deserves a raise and a promotion to AHC.
-In years that the RBs were somehow kept (relatively) at bay, Gopher secondaries had a nasty habit of making Tijuana insurance salesmen look like the second coming of Peyton Manning. Not so with Mertz. He only had two halfway decent throws after the sun went down. Some of that was the Gopher front 7 making his life miserable, but totally airmailing half of your throws on critical down isn't on the D. Chryst better be working the portal hard for the Badgers' QB of the future, cause Mertz ain't it.
-Paul Chryst needs to take a hard look at his program. That Wisconsin team looked listless and uninterested in the second half. The fact that the punt team was even queued up to go down 10 with 6 to go is a massive screwup that he needs to deal with pronto. Now that King Barry is on his yacht in Fort Myers instead of in his Keller Hall office calling the shots, we'll see how he handles adversity.
-We decided to not go down on the field, but it didn't damper any of our enthusiasm. Eighteen years is a long time to go between seeing Axe wins in person.
-To the loudmouthed jackass Badger fans 10 rows behind us that left with 8 minutes to go: I hope you all got speeding tickets.
