Laying it on the line
Wisconsin’s big men could be dominant
MADISON, Wis. – The combined tonnage of Wisconsin’s starting offensive line tips the scales at approximately the same weight as a subcompact hatchback, with roughly the same combined horsepower. Paul Chryst likes to tell his players the story of the Belgian pull horse, which alone can tow 8,000 pounds but when joined in tandem with another can manage 24,000 pounds — an apt metaphor for that frightful moment when two Wisconsin linemen block down on a running play and put an opposing defender into his unhappy place.
“You hear them, like a herd of cattle,” said Wisconsin athletics director Barry Alvarez, who during a recent interview with USA TODAY recounted a story: Attending practice during a visit to another program, the Badgers longtime head coach scoured the field before feeling the need to ask a bystander where he could find the team’s offensive line.
“When you come to Wisconsin you don’t have to ask where our line is,” he said. “When you look at that group, you know that’s an offensive line, now.”
Every program has its birthright — whether real or imagined — and Wisconsin’s is the factory of offensive linemen drawn from small population pockets in this state and its neighbors, “bigboned” kids of German and Scandinavian descent, per Alvarez, a polite euphemism for large and extra-large.
Scattered among the past three decades of Wisconsin football are the great running backs and standout wide receivers and tight ends, but those shining pieces of the puzzle have never provided the backbone to the Badgers’ success. That honor goes to the annual crop of relatively anonymous bulldozers who often toil in obscurity for years before rising into starting roles three, four, sometimes five seasons into their college careers.
This year’s line is no different: Wisconsin’s offensive line is vintage, which means trouble for the rest of the West division of the Big Ten Conference — if not for the entire Big Ten, or if not for the entire Football Bowl Subdivision.
“For the longest time, the narrative was that Wisconsin was going to have a great offensive line,” Chryst said. “Well, that doesn’t just happen. You’ve got to work at it. I do think we’re starting to get to the point where you can lean on them a little bit.”
Every single lineman returns from last year’s group, which was good enough to blaze a trail for running back Jonathan Taylor to set the freshman record for rushing yards in a season. While some positions might shift before the opener in September — senior Michael Deiter could move back to the interior from tackle, which would move sophomore Cole Van Lanen into the top spot at left tackle and turn junior Jon Dietzen into a key reserve — the Badgers will have a degree of continuity unmatched in college football.
Only three years ago, in Chryst’s first season, injuries and inexperience forced Wisconsin to quilt together a patchwork front, with predictable results. When teamed with a new system and a new approach, the Badgers’ youth created a “hard recipe for anyone,” Chryst said. Improvement has been steady since, ultimately culminating in an offensive line seemingly set up for 2018 and beyond.
“Paul inherited a mess on the offensive line,” Alvarez said. “We played guys who weren’t ready to play. They were injured all the time. We were mixing and matching, moving them all over. But we got through that year. And we’re back to where we were with depth on the offensive line.”
It almost wasn’t the case. At the end of last season, three starting linemen considering entering the NFL draft: Deiter, senior right guard Beau Benzschawel and junior right tackle David Edwards. The first to decide he’d return, Edwards took on the role of headhunter, chirping at Deiter and Benzschawel about the need to take care of some unfinished business — namely the Big Ten title that had eluded the Badgers’ grasps in each of the past two seasons.
“No doubt you feel good for this year’s team, that they’re back. They make us better,” Chryst said.
The line more than any single unit embodies the Badgers’ ethos, that chipon-our-shoulder mentality that lurks 1 inch below the surface and has propelled a series of low-star recruits into five New Year’s Six bowls in the past eight seasons. Each of the Badgers’ returning starters were three-star prospects; others arrived with no advance billing whatsoever, as walk-ons picked from schools far off the beaten path.
“I think the offensive line takes a lot of pride in trying to set the tone for the offense,” Edwards said. “We see ourselves and trying to lead the guys in the offensive line room, but also on the offense. And then the older guys leading the guys on the team.”
But don’t call it a pipeline — that title hews a little too closely to the term once used to describe the tried-and-true formula at Nebraska, the Badgers’ wouldbe rival and, fittingly enough, the place where Alvarez first cobbled together the blueprint behind molding this program into one of college football’s consistent brands. But there are similarities.
Wisconsin wants to annually break its line into three groups — starters, the second tier and the young redshirts — and then repeat the process with a new cast. Rarely, however, are the Badgers lucky enough to return the entire room. So there are a number of reasons why Wisconsin is viewed as a strong contender for the College Football Playoff, and each weigh over 300 pounds.
“They kind of set the foundation,” senior defensive tackle Olive Sagapolu said. “Off the field, they’re nice, soft, caring guys. On the field, they like to maul you, they like to scrap, they like to hit you.”