Stave not the answer for Badgers

During a post last year ripping on Bret Bielema, I laid out the regression of the quarterback position for the Badgers Football team since Bielema took over the program. During this post I mentioned that I gave Joel Stave an incomplete grade and mentioned "There is hope, but I want to see how he plays next year.". That hope was lost during the 41-10 victory over Purdue.

People who read this post will say that Wisconsin won with Stave why are we ripping about Stave this week? Because it was the defense and the running game that won on Saturday. Stave proved once again that he is not going to get any better accuracy wise. I have seen pass after pass in the four games this season that has been off the mark, but still caught or just plain inaccurate and incomplete.

The final straw for me was on the deep pass to Abbrederis when he was open by 15 yards and Stave was not only short on the pass but off to the right. When you have a guy that wide open, all you have to do is just lay it in there, in this case you can underthrow a little bit, but to be that far off, that is it for me. It is time to replace Stave with Phillips or Houston, anything different is just a waste of time for the Badgers. Each snap with Stave under center is a wasted time for someone else with potential to get valuable game experience.

I had been concerned for the past two weeks about the accuracy of Stave, but by the four game and with minimal wind, we should should be hitting our receivers in stride or hitting the home run passes. The problem really presented itself the previous week during the Arizona State, a slightly better team, when he went on long stretches without completing a pass. This problem will be further exasperated in the coming weeks when we play better opponents. Teams like Ohio State will try to stop the run first and make Stave make his throws which Stave will be incapable of doing.

My proposed solution? Bring in Bart Houston, if you are just handing off the ball, Houston should be more than capable of doing that, plus he brings a running quarterback element that Stave does not posses. Plus if Houston can throw the ball accurately, we could have a dangerous offense for years to come.

I'm a person is is proactive instead of reactive, I personally do not wait until something happens to change something because you are hurting the team. It is time to replace Stave with someone else before it too late for him or the receiver he is going to get killed across the middle.

Get rid of Stave!