Has been read twice.
Sorgi heroic in loss
Drew Hansen, Sports Editor
(MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.) — A week into his recovery from arthroscopic knee surgery, Jim Sorgi walked to the podium the Monday before he was to return to practice, vowing a change in his attitude when he returned to the field.
“I think you’re going to see a different player in me coming back, because maybe I was taking being the starting quarterback a little bit for granted,” Sorgi said. “I’m 22 years old; I’m playing a sport that got me a college education. There’s a lot of people that would like to be in my shoes right now. I’m going to take advantage of it. If anyone’s going to enjoy it, it might as well be me, because it’s my life. I’m just going to go out there and have fun and play football.”
Maybe it was the time for reflection his recuperation allowed him. Maybe it was being forced to sit out against Northwestern, watching his teammates get out-hustled and out-executed by a Wildcat team that had been billed as a team that shouldn’t have provided much of a problem. Whatever the reason, something struck a chord, and when Jim Sorgi trotted out onto the turf at the Metrodome Saturday, he certainly was a different quarterback.
Playing with a newfound resiliency, Sorgi recorded arguably the best performance of his career, completing 23 of 34 passes for a career-high 305 yards and four touchdowns. While the statistics are dazzling, the guts the senior captain showed hanging in the pocket as long as it took to find an open receiver left his teammates in near awe.
“It was unreal,” center Donovan Raiola said. “He stood in there. He knew that there’d be a guy that would be unblocked. He just stood in there waiting for someone to get open and he knew he was going to get hit … He’s a warrior. In the huddle he was always confident and we needed him to make plays. Up front, we kept telling ourselves we just need to give him time and he’ll find somebody.”
While his toughness shined through, Sorgi manned the type of offense the Badgers had hoped would have been on display all season. After falling behind 24-6 late in the second quarter, Wisconsin had no choice but to open up the passing game, and while Lee Evans has always been a favorite target for Sorgi, the quarterback found a way to spread the ball around and exploit holes in the Gopher coverage.
Distributing the ball to seven different receivers, six of whom had two catches or more, Sorgi showed exceptional patience in going through his reads and making the right decisions.
Two of Sorgi’s four touchdowns were recorded on receptions of over 25 yards to sophomore stand-up tight end Owen Daniels, who consistently found himself in a one-on-one mismatch with the Gophers’ middle linebacker that was duly exploited.
“He’s always been tough,” Daniels said of Sorgi. “You always see him more than anyone getting hit late, but it was great on his part coming back after surgery to be back for this game and he did take a lot of shots, and I respect him a lot for just staying in there and being tough all game long.”
And that fun that Sorgi was so intent on having didn’t fall by the wayside when the game was at its most competitive, nor did he give up on the fun after every hit he took.
“He got up, smiled, gave us a wink or something,” Raiola said of his quarterback. “He kept fighting for us.”
“I was having a blast out there,” Sorgi said. “It’s been a long time since I felt that good playing football. That’s the way I’m going to be the next couple weeks. I’m going to go out there and have fun and just do what I do. I think, for the first time in a long time, I did that today.”
In the end, however, the Badgers were unable to find the victory despite Sorgi’s heroics. In only the 10th 300-yard game from a quarterback in school history — the first since 1995 — Wisconsin’s offensive outpouring could not overcome the myriad of missed tackles that plagued the Badger defense the entire game.
“This is definitely one of his best efforts, but again it’s hard when you don’t win,” Lee Evans said of Sorgi’s performance.
It is unfortunate that a player who has helped guide the Badgers to so many victories, often coming off the bench, has not found the rewards of victory when he has been at his greatest. Sorgi out-played Drew Brees in the Badgers’ 24-30 overtime loss to Purdue in 2000. He hung with Joey Harrington in 2001, only to have the Badgers fall just shy of a come-from-behind victory, 28-31.
For Wisconsin, 2003 was to be the year of Sorgi, and again it is inopportune that he has been plagued by a knee injury and the incident that knocked him out of Wisconsin’s showdown with Ohio State. Simply, Sorgi hasn’t had the chances that he should have been awarded this season.
Nevertheless, Sorgi played the game of his career Saturday, and the Badgers will certainly miss his arm, competitive flare, and leadership when he is done wearing his uniform.
