Badger Bits: Weathering The Storm

The sky is grey in Brooklyn, and the wind gusting up to 35 miles per hour is already rattling my window pane. It's cold and quiet, and outside, the sidewalk is empty except for one little old lady in a blue bonnet. When the world ends, little old ladies in Brooklyn will still be on their way somewhere.

The news ran two different stories last night. The first showed the same footage of folks stocking up on canned goods and boarding up windows that you've seen so often, you wonder whether any of it is even live anymore, and not just B-roll stored away for the inevitable Natural Disaster X story of the year. The second was a throw-to live to a reporter in Coney Island talking with residents who are remaining steadfast in their homes despite living in a mandatory evacuation zone. Elizabeth Jones, a 25-year resident, believes the media is selling us on a bogey man.

You have probably caught on to the literary device dangling above your head on a threadbare rope. There is a potential disaster looming two weeks from now in Bloomington against a team that has been bad, but not that bad this season. Wisconsin will be starting a quarterback who won't look as good as Joel Stave did through exactly one half of football this past weekend, but who will have to be better than Danny O'Brien was for the Badgers to have a chance.

There are a million potential points along the Stave-O'Brien spectrum, and wherever QB X lands (yeah, I'm giving Curt Phillips a shot) will mean everything for the game and the season. Until then, you can fret in your basement or stand defiantly at the edge of the ocean and dare the lapping waves to never reach your socks and a once-hyped transfer to figure out how to get the ball to his first read.

If you need anything in the mean time, I have a gallon of water in a milk jug and will be on the internet until it quits.

Monday's Links

The Journal Sentinel makes the case for Curt Phillips to get a starting shot.

The State Journal on Danny O'Brien's struggles Saturday.

Struggles in the running game provides little help to a struggling O'Brien.

Post-game notes lead with Jacob Pedersen's dropped pass in overtime.

The ESPN blog knocks Wisconsin down a peg in its latest bowl projections.

Following the loss, Wisconsin's game against Indiana in two weeks looms much larger.

Badgers Roundtable is back to pick through the wreckage on offense, and hum a few bars of praise for the defense.

Obligatory Dave Heller statistical minutiae.

Wrapping up: The week in Twitter will hopefully cheer you up.