With 12,050 fans on hand to witness the annual Wisconsin football spring game, it was the Badgers’ defense that stole the show Saturday afternoon at Camp Randall.
At least, what was left of it.
“We’re basically missing six starters on the defensive side that didn’t play a snap today,” head coach Gary Andersen said. “It was a tremendous day for those young kids to get in and compete at a high level.”
With defensive play calling in a 61-47 win for the Cardinal (defense) over the White (offense) that Andersen called “very vanilla” – Andersen didn’t want to show anything schematically advanced because the scrimmage was televised on the Big Ten Network – the new 3-4 base defensive structure looked strong despite having thin ranks on the active roster.
Of those starters missing, not a single linebacker predicted to start at the beginning of spring played Saturday. One outside linebacker has gone the way of the dodo – as ongoing foot injuries have forced redshirt senior David Gilbert to forgo his senior season with the Badgers.
Two others, last year’s starting outside linebacker Ethan Armstrong and defensive end turned outside linebacker Brendan Kelly, are sitting out the spring, recovering from offseason surgeries. Another former defensive end-turned-linebacker, redshirt senior Tyler Dippel, has also been absent this spring with a shoulder injury.
And Chris Borland, well, when you’re a 2012 All-Big Ten selection and three-year starter, there’s little left to prove, as Andersen held the inside linebacker out of the scrimmage as a precaution.
Playing the role of spectator Saturday, Borland was impressed with what he saw from his thinned-out positional group.
“I thought they played well,” Borland said of his fellow linebackers. “We were a little short-handed in the middle. We just had three guys for a group of four spots. Coach was being smart resting guys, but we should have many more come fall.”
Redshirt senior safety and 2012 All-Big Ten Honorable Mention Dezmen Southward, who, like Borland, sat out the scrimmage as a precaution, was also impressed with the linebackers’ performance.
“We hope to have [every player] back at 100 percent,” Southward said. “But if we don’t, one thing we learned [from the scrimmage] is we have guys who can step up and can play the game at a high level.”
One of the young players who made his mark in the absence of Borland and others was redshirt freshman linebacker Vince Biegel. The once highly touted prep recruit out of Wisconsin Rapids recorded four tackles and two sacks while terrorizing off the edge consistently on the pass rush.
“Vince, really the last two practices, I sat down and evaluated Wednesday’s practice and he jumped out at me and he did again today,” Andersen said. “He made a couple big plays, came around the edge and he looks like he’s playing with more confidence and he’s kind of letting it rip a little bit.”
Biegel, who was forced to take medical redshirt last fall after aggravating a broken left foot he sustained in the spring of 2012, looked as good as originally advertised Saturday, showing perhaps the best combination of speed and strength of any player on the field during the scrimmage.
Standing at 6-foot-3 and weighing in at 230 pounds, he’s an exciting prospect for a Wisconsin defense that has lacked a consistent sack threat the past two seasons. The Badgers haven’t produced a player with double-digit sacks since O’Brien Schofield (12) did it in 2009. And they still haven’t had a consistent playmaker on the edge since J.J. Watt in 2010 (21 TFLs).
“Vince had a good day, he can really rush the passer and that’s going to be big for us to have depth at the outside linebacker spot and I think he’ll be able to provide that,” Borland said.
Biegel wasn’t the only linebacker to benefit from the extra reps. Recently moved from defensive back to linebacker, sophomore Joe Schobert also made a handful of solid plays, co-leading the Cardinal team with seven tackles along with redshirt junior inside linebacker Marcus Trotter.
Both made several nice plays, including a screen-read by Trotter where the linebacker read the offensive line’s release, located running back Melvin Gordon and drilled the redshirt sophomore behind the line of scrimmage to break up the catch.
Other linebackers like redshirt senior Connor O’Neil, senior Nick Hill, redshirt junior Sherard Cadogan (a former fullback), sophomore Jesse Hayes and redshirt freshman Jake Rademacher all received a considerable workload for the Badgers during the game.
Although the starters at linebacker will in all likelihood look radically different than the product showcased during Saturday’s scrimmage, there’s no doubt that when fully healthy, Wisconsin has considerable depth at the position across the board.
“That whole group of young linebackers has had so many reps. You cannot put a price tag on repetitions in spring and we’ve kept the other guys healthy,” Andersen said. “It’s going to be a good group of inside and outside linebackers.”
