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Friday, December 13, 2002
Bellotti's Ducks ready for anything
Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. -- Oregon coach Mike Bellotti knows Wisconsin
is going to bring its best against the Ducks on Saturday.
He just doesn't know just who the Badgers' best will be.
|  | | Mike Bellotti and the Ducks ride an 8-game winning streak into Madison. |
The NCAA dispensed myriad suspensions to No. 6 Wisconsin, but head coach Barry Alvarez can pick and choose which players fulfill their discipline over the next three weeks.
That's left Bellotti with the difficult task of trying to figure
out how to prepare for the Badgers without knowing if players like
Jamar Fletcher, Nick Davis and Wendell Bryant will even step onto
the field.
"Going into it, you always have to assume you're going to play
against their best and people are going to play their best against
you," Bellotti said.
The NCAA handed out one- and three-game suspensions to 26
Badgers players last week for receiving unadvertised discounts at a
shoe store. But it also gave coach Barry Alvarez the first four
games of the season to hand out the suspensions, meaning players
like Fletcher can play against the Ducks, then finish out their
discipline against Cincinnati next week and then Northwestern on
Sept. 23.
Alvarez said the players already know who will play Saturday.
But he doesn't have to tell the NCAA until Friday, and he won't
announce the suspensions to anyone else until just before kickoff.
"You have to focus on Oregon because that's the next game
you're playing," Alvarez said. "We know who's going to play. We
know now what we want to do.
"We got that other stuff out of the way and thank goodness we
had an extra couple of days to deal with it."
Regardless of the suspensions, the Badgers need a better
performance from their offensive line after a sloppy 19-7 win over
Western Michigan last week just hours after the suspensions were
announced.
The Badgers managed just 156 yards rushing, while giving up five
sacks. Last year, they averaged 275.4 yards on the ground and
allowed just 21 sacks.
"Those young offensive tackles saw something they hadn't seen
before and weren't experienced enough to adjust. We have to get a
lot better in that area," Alvarez said.
Part of the problem was due to the suspension of starting left
tackle Ben Johnson, forcing Josh Jakubowski into action. Now,
Johnson could be back, but Jakubowski will have to begin serving
his three-game suspension this weekend, leaving the Badgers without
some depth on the offensive line.
Quarterback Brooks Bollinger said that doesn't matter, and now
that the initial shock of the suspensions is over, players will
treat it no differently than they would when someone goes down with
an injury.
"That's over and done with in my mind, and I'm not thinking
about it at all," Bollinger said. "We understand what we need to
do. That's go out and win football games. It doesn't matter if we
have a first stringer on the field or an eighth stringer on the
field. He needs to learn his role and to make plays and step up and
fill in for his team."
The Badgers will also face a much tougher defense than the one
they saw against Western Michigan.
The Ducks gave up minus-3 yards rushing and 106 yards passing to
Nevada in their season-opening 36-7 win last week.
And they know regardless of who the Badgers play, they're going
to be coming at them on the ground.
"We know they're going to try and run it up and down our
throats," Oregon linebacker Matt Smith said. "That's the Big Ten
style. That's Wisconsin style. So we're going to be ready for a
physical game."
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