Lucas: This Bud 's for you, Bucky

Badgers' new QB recruit gets high marks

Mike Lucas  —  5/28/2008 9:10 am

When college football recruiting analyst Tom Lemming first began tracking high school prospects, the country was moving toward an energy crisis that would send gas prices soaring over $1 per gallon. Lemming was traveling from school to school in a trusty but worn Chevette that was missing an air conditioner and a radio, which had been stolen. Those were the good old days.

"You know what you don't see anymore? Telephone booths," said Lemming, pondering the distance that he has traveled since 1978, when he took the initial steps to becoming a nationally recognized recruiting voice. "I'd drive into a town, stop at a phone booth, call the local high school coach, arrange a meeting, and we'd sit down together and watch his player on 16-millimeter film."

That's a far cry from DVDs, $4 per gallon gas and today's recruiting landscape. Nobody hits the road like Lemming, either. In the next 11 days alone, he will drive more than 7,000 miles, connecting the dots between high schools and prospects in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas. At each stop, whether it's Phoenix or Las Vegas, he will interview players and prep coaches — like he does on each leg of his journey. Travel, on the whole, has been made easier with satellite radio, cell phones and rental cars.

"But gas is a factor today because it comes out of my own budget for the most part," Lemming said Saturday by cell while waiting for his luggage at Los Angeles International Airport. He does fly occasionally. In this case, he had just returned from the Hawaiian Islands, where he had evaluated some recruits, including elite linebacker Manti Te'o. The week before, Lemming had gathered about 40 California prospects in the Rose Bowl for an interview session and photo shoot.

This is what Lemming and others in his profession do: They track prep football players and project their college futures. Sometimes they get it right. Sometimes they don't. They're not alone in this hit-or-miss exercise, since coaches are also vulnerable to close calls and whiffs. Such is the inexact nature of their business — the business of recruiting. Thus, when someone like Lemming offers a glowing testimonial of an athlete, who has yet to begin his senior year of high school, some perspective is necessary. Lemming agrees.

Recently, the University of Wisconsin football program received a verbal commitment from quarterback Jon Budmayr, who picked the Badgers over Notre Dame, among other suitors. Budmayr will be a senior at Marian Central Catholic in Woodstock, Ill. By all accounts, Budmayr is no Matt Barkley, a USC commit and the consensus No. 1 quarterback in the 2009 recruiting class. Scout.com has Barkley in the top slot and Budmayr at No. 55 on its QB board. Nobody is disputing Barkley's credentials or upside. He's a 6-foot-3, 227-pound prototype from Santa Ana, Calif.

But when Lemming — who has almost completed his evaluations of this quarterback class — was asked specifically about Budmayr, he pointed out, "I've seen all the California kids, and I think Budmayr is one of the best in the country. He could play in any offense. Many of the California quarterbacks seem like they're in the cookie-cutter mold. Budmayr is a little bit different, but in a good way. He's got good feet and a quick release."

What kept Budmayr from getting more national recruiting traffic was his height, according to Lemming. He's a 6-footer, maybe 6-1. "But he plays much taller," Lemming contended. "His release points are good, and he has a great knowledge of the game. When you watch him on tape, you don't see his passes getting batted down. If he was three inches taller, he would be a five-star player. Right now, he's a four-star who will probably become a five-star in college. He has that extra something that you can't describe when it comes to quarterbacks."

At this stage in his development, Lemming feels that Budmayr has many of the same instincts of a Drew Brees, who also had to overcome the perception that he was too short when he came out of high school. Brees, a 6-footer, went on to become the Big Ten's all-time leading passer during his Purdue career (1997-2000). "The Badgers have had some bad luck with Chicago area quarterbacks," conceded Lemming, who's based out of Chicago. "But he (Budmayr) is a little bit different guy than what they've had in the past. They've got a real gem."

When Lemming first started his recruiting service, the Badgers had two Chicago area quarterbacks on their depth chart: John Josten (St. Viator), who started three games in 1978 as a true freshman before getting injured; and Mike Kalasmiki (Addison Trail), the MVP that season after starting seven of the final nine games. In 1980, the UW landed Mark Doran (Dolton, Ill.), a better kicker and baseball player than quarterback. Mike Howard was an exception, but the "Springfield Rifle" was from Springfield, Ill., not Chicago.

Tom Cerasani (Schaumburg) was a member of Barry Alvarez's first recruiting class in 1990 at Wisconsin. Between then and now, the Badgers have tapped into Dirk Stanger (a walk-on from Marian Central), Mark Zanders (Joliet), Scott Kavanagh (Naperville), Peter Lee (Loyola Academy), Matt Schabert (Elgin Larkin), Owen Daniels (Naperville Central), Sean Lewis (Richards), Marcus Randle El (Thornton) and Scott Tolzien (Fremd). Daniels was the most successful — as a tight end, not a quarterback — while Tolzien has shown some positive early signs of being a contributor.

Lemming is confident that when you say Budmayr, you've said it all — for erasing the stigma of the Chicago-bred quarterback at Wisconsin. "I love the kid," he concluded.

Mike Lucas  —  5/28/2008 9:10 am