To answer the most pressing issue without the use of crass language: Yes, the Badgers are absolutely up the creek without Lee Evans.
Can’t blame Barry Alvarez for playing the consummate spin doctor after the train wreck on Saturday afternoon. It would be nice to see Evans suited up and chipper as ever when Fresno State comes into Camp Randall Aug. 28. It would also be nice to have the Badgers beat Michigan, but we know that’s not going to happen either.
What happened Saturday was nothing less than catastrophic; Wisconsin lost the outright and undisputed best player in all of college football. Going into the fall, there is no other player that has produced and executed with greater burgeoning talent than Evans — not Miami’s Ken Dorsey, not Roy Williams of Texas and definitely not Washington’s Reggie Williams or Michigan State’s Charles Rogers. None of them compares to Evans. With an offense that’s geared to run the option and lacking a second wideout at flanker, Evans was nothing less than unstoppable last year, even when the opposition was well aware the ball was coming his way.
The only other instance in recent memory that can even stand eye-to-eye with Evans’ is when Kenyon Martin broke his leg before the 2000 NCAA Tournament and Cincinnati was an alligator without teeth. Martin, like Evans, was the difference-maker and the one and only player that really struck fear into other teams.
About the only silver lining that came from the Spring Game is the fact that Evans is the benefactor of an insurance policy from injury, which he signed up for when he decided to take the high road and come back to Madison for his senior year. About the only pain greater than feeling the inner ligaments of your knee being violently severed is the knowledge that you could be letting the ink dry on a lucrative NFL contract.
It is remiss to say that Evans will not see the field next year. The All-American wide receiver has the character and work ethic that coaches would bargain their souls to have on their team. With the marvels of modern medicine, shots of morphine and a jackpot of unmitigated luck, Evans could play an integral part next year.
But will he be able to have the same on-the-field, tide-turning impact as your average, run-of-the-mill consensus first-team All-American? Barring miracles, it’s about as likely as Eminem becoming a card-carrying member of N.O.W.
Much like Chris Chambers, his former teammate both in high school and college, Evans’s true timetable for full recovery is realistically around Halloween rather than Labor Day. In 2000, Chambers was hampered by a stress fracture in his foot and had to miss the first four games of the season. Chambers played in the next eight games that season, but only thrived in the last four.
The immediate future of both Evans and the Badgers is tenuous at best. For the former, the option of a medical redshirt is an alternative, but highly unlikely. The rest of the team will have to line up with Darrin Charles, Travaan Hayes and Jonathon Orr, a trio of well-endowed wideouts with talent and unfathomable upsides. The problem is, all three have yet to even get grass stains on their game day uniforms.
Come August, the structure of Wisconsin’s offense must change, and without the services of Evans, the change in philosophy will certainly please those who enjoy Wisconsin’s signature core competency of caveman offense: run the football.
Although Alvarez will have “play defense and run the ball,” as is inscribed on his coaching epitaph, it was evident even to the blind that this offense was going to throw the ball to set up the run. With an agile offensive line and a running back that is more a water bug than a battering ram, the table was set for a vertical game that would have made Al Davis crack a stained and gapped grin.
While the intuitive inclination is that the weight of the Badgers will fall on the narrow yet capable shoulders of Anthony Davis, the onus of Wisconsin’s success is dependent on, gulp, the Badger defense.
Yes, that defense. The one that reminded many of the Don Morton era, yet still had three players drafted into the NFL. The defense that was deaf when it came to sound tackling. The defense that has no Jamar Fletcher to make plays, no Tom Burke to pressure the quarterback, and nobody resembling Donnell Thompson to organize the mess into a cohesive unit.
Without divine intervention, the 2002 version of the Wisconsin defense looks to be much more of the same WAC style of defense played last season. Take Evans out of the equation to at least give the offense a chance to compete in a track meet against offenses as sophisticated as Illinois and Arizona, and the thought of another bowl-less season is not all that unforeseeable.
