Varsity - The Official Digital Magazine of Wisconsin Athletics

Varsity - October 25, 2012

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Play of backfield duo has a familiar feel BEHIND THE DESK BARRY ALVAREZ • UW DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS I sat with Jimmy Leonhard dur- ing the Minnesota game, and it was good to spend a little time with him. Jimmy is getting healthy and he'll start getting more and more playing time in Denver. They'll learn that they can trust him. He'll get everybody lined up on defense and he will always be where he's supposed to be — he'll always be close to the ball. He had an interception last week. I could have asked anybody in the suite to pick out the NFL player, or the former NFL player, and Jimmy would have been the last guy they'd pick because of his size. To play as many years as he has — I believe this is his eighth season — is just amazing. It shows that you don't have to be some big, burly guy to play in the NFL. What you have to be is what Jimmy is. You have to be smart and tough and athletic. He's very athletic. That's the reason he played for us and why he's playing in the NFL now. You can't overlook that ath- leticism. He has great eye-hand coordina- tion and good ball skills and antici- pation. He understands the game and he's willing to put the neces- sary time into making himself and the team better. It was kind of funny when we came out with our "Barge'' forma- tion — I call it the "Fat Cat'' with the seven offensive linemen — I turned to Jimmy and said, "How do you adjust to that?'' He gave me the signal for a time- out. 16 » VARSITY OCTOBER 25, 2012 I thought it was pretty interest- ing to watch the reaction on de- fense. All of a sudden, the DBs have got gap responsibilities; however you want to adjust, and you can't get too crazy, most people wouldn't know how to line up. That formation is going to create problems moving forward because there are some different plays that we can run out of it besides what we showed against Minnesota. From now on, every defensive coach is going to have to spend some practice time on it. And that's going to take time away from what they're running on 98 percent of the snaps. James White ran the Wildcat in high school, and he handles the ball well. Overall, I like the way that we're using James and Montee Ball. Both are good team players; they're always very complimentary of each other and it seems like it's a very healthy situation. On our first Rose Bowl team, we had Brent Moss and Terrell Fletch- er, and I loved the way that they competed. When one had a big run, the other wanted to have a big run. Both had very different styles, and Fletch was really a good change-up. The contrast between Moss and Fletcher was more pro- nounced than the contrast between Ball and White. Brent had to sit one year before he could play, so he probably had a little further to go. He was tough, and a natural runner. But as far as the total package, Fletch came in ready to play. Our '93 team moved the chains. Darrell Bevell had a lot of options and our offense stayed on the field a long time. When you do that, you've got to use two backs. Moss and Fletcher each knew that they had a good player behind them who wanted to play and who- ever got hot was going to stay in the game longer. That kept them both hungry. I can see it working the same way with Montee and James.

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