Thirsty Thursday – All Football Edition

You didn’t think we’d forget what today is, right?  Yep, it’s that time of the week again as we bring you Thirsty Thursday – our weekly look at what’s being said, written, and put in video form about the Badgers.  This week with all that has been going on for Bret Bielema and Co. we are making this an all Football edition of the feature.  So, go to the fridge, grab your favorite refreshment and take a journey with us as it’s Thirsty Thursday folks!  

Up first is a statement released earlier today by former Senior associate athletic director John Chadima.  Without spoiling things, it’s nice to finally hear something from him, but at the same time we sit nearly 3 weeks out from his firing and we haven’t a clue what the heck went on in LA for the Rose Bowl that got him to resign, stating “I have resigned… so as not to bring disrepute to the University of Wisconsin.”  We’d like you to come clean as to what the heck it was and your apology would be much better received and much more believable to the public at large, you know, the people that paid your salary and such. 

But back to the staffing issues Bielema has, and from the department of good riddance, it was announced today that Special Teams coordinator and Safeties coach DeMontie Cross has left to take the role of Linebackers coach with Charlie Wiess’ staff at Kansas.  Now I know this may come as a total shock to your system as a Badgers fan and I’ll give you a moment to process his departure…

O.k., not really sad are you?  I don’t blame you one bit.  The guy presided over one of the worst Special Teams units in recent Wisconsin history, especially in terms of coverage units.  But, just in case, if you are the one fan out there that’s sad about him leaving, please, click on the Contact Us button at the top of the page as we’d love to sit down for a 1on1 interview with you.  I’m DEAD serious in that offer. 

ESPN writer Adam Rittenberg, who is one of the better beat writers on the staff at the “Worldwide Leader in Sports”, gave his two cents and I found the piece interesting from an outside the program perspective, but I think he’s dead wrong in his assumptions of what this means for the Badgers program going forward.  I’d love to hear your thoughts as well. 

Sticking on the coaching front, we media types had a chance to get in front of the newest hires Matt Canada and Zach Azzanni yesterday.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to get to Madison for this one, but Jeff Potrykus of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and others got a chance to do so.  I highly recommend the piece he wrote about Canada, it’s very informative and gives a good perspective to what Canada is about.  

As for Azzanni?  I’m going to let a video package from Adam Mertz over at the Wisconsin State Journal. I really love the guys intensity and the fact that he knows how to pronounce Jared Abbrederis’ name is a great plus, but dude, come on, learn how to pronounce WISCONSIN correctly, it’s not WEST-consin.  Give him a few weeks in the state capital and I’m sure the players that are from the state will make sure he knows how to pronounce it correctly.  

Guess what’s coming up for all you football fanatics out there?  No, not Championship weekend, duh, National Signing Day.  A day I personally think is worthy of a cough, cough, wink, wink, I’m sick notice to the boss at the office, but I digress.  One of the two biggest unknowns of the 2012 recruiting class, Jordan Diamond, will take his last visit before to Wisconsin literally days before signing day, on 1/27 to be exact.  He was also moved to #94 on the final ESPNU150 list.  

Now I don’t know if you can read everything into an official visit date, but you only get 5 of them and Wisconsin getting the final impression could be a very good sign for a guy who really hasn’t given much in terms of tipping his hat one way or the other.  Let’s hope things go well because adding him to the offensive line class of 2012 would be massive and perhaps the best one Wisconsin has put together in history. 

Well, we’ve reached the bottom of our glass here folks, so I hope you’ve enjoyed this football only edition of Thirsty Thursday.  Don’t forget as the weekend approaches to get yourself over to the MadTown Badgers Store and help support this site and the charities we give to as well!  You know you wanna sport that MadTown Badgers logo as Bucky makes a run to the NCAA tournament.  Enjoy your night and remember “When you MadTown Badgers… You’ve Said it ALL!”