Sports: Football

Weekend off gives starters much-needed rest

Bielema happy for mental break from 2-game losing streak

As the Wisconsin football team prepares for its game against Purdue Saturday, head coach Bret Bielema said the team is excited to be back on the field and ready to play football again after the bye week.

Despite dropping the past two games, Bielema is happy with the team’s success over the course of the season, underscoring they are playing the 11th toughest schedule in the nation this year and there are seven teams in the top 25 with two or more losses and the combined record of the teams they have lost against is 14-2.

“You’re so disappointed in the back-to-back losses that you forget that you are a 5-2 team,” Bielema said. “Sometimes it’s good to be away from people who want to talk about the two losses rather than what you’ve done over the cumulative season.”

In practice last week, the Badgers gave more reps to the second and third string players, giving the starters a break during the team’s week off.

“One of the major goals we wanted to accomplish last week was to get a guy like Kraig Appleton, Montee Ball, Curt Phillips … guys like that who have been right there on the verge (of some more action),” Bielema said.

Despite giving many of the starters some much-needed rest, the coaching staff ran everybody in the secondary aside from Chris Maragos, at “full go.”

“I guess the point that we try to take as coaches was if anybody had dropped in the past two weeks, I don’t care what phase of the game it was, but quarterback obviously the point of attention, but to look at why they struggled,” Bielema said. “(We must) be very critical of what happened and why it happened. You know as coaches, if we change that or make it better, that’s what we need to do.”

In terms of scheming for Purdue, Bielema noted the defense will have to pay particular attention to quarterback Aaron Valentin’s ability to find running lanes and make plays with his feet in the Boilermakers’ spread offense.

Bielema mentioned the importance of the rest of the season as a whole, but paid particular attention to the Purdue game as a game the team must win to get back on track.

As usual, UW’s mindset is 1-0.

“What we have been able to do well is work through our schedule and do what we need to do which means Purdue needs to be our focus,” Bielema said. “In the reality of it, there is a four-game Big Ten schedule and the bigger picture is going to have a huge effect on us as a team … but there is nothing more important than Purdue and our preparation for them.”

Bielema acknowledged the versatile athletes on Purdue’s defense, Jason Werner and Ryan Kerrigan, comparing defensive end Kerrigan to the Badgers’ O’Brien Schofield as a player that must be accounted for at all times, and that both have the ability to be explosive in coming off the edge.

Purdue’s tendency to repeat successful plays in successive series’ while most teams are hesitant to repeat such plays since their coaches believe the defense will be ready for them was another key point in Bielema’s game plan.

As he has done repeatedly this year, Bielema emphasized it is a new year and last season is a thing of the past that he will not dwell on, but rather learn from.

“We’re in 2009, I have talked enough about 2008,” Bielema said.

Bielema also dismissed the fear of distraction that may accompany the excitement associated with a Halloween game.

“I’m sure they know it is Halloween. … I think our guys — just the way this group is — they’re going to focus in on Saturday and be ready to roll out there,” Bielema said. “Anytime we play a game in Camp Randall it is special, no matter if it’s Homecoming, Halloween, night game, day game; it doesn’t matter, our guys just kind of take the task at hand.”

Bielema drew attention to performances of offensive linemen John Moffitt and Gabe Carimi as players who were playing below their capabilities this season. According to Bielema, Moffitt struggled with his lack of focus on the field. Carimi has had trouble because of his difficulty to recover from injury.

“I always said I want to make your guys’ job as easy as possible, but to me, a player should be interviewed because of what he’s done on the field,” Bielema said.