Coming out of University of Wisconsin preseason camp, redshirt freshman tackle Rob Havenstein was a big unknown in the mind of offensive line coach Bob Bostad.
Havenstein looked good enough in the spring to appear to be the leader to start at right tackle, before missing about two weeks of camp with an ankle injury.
“It’s unfortunate he missed all those reps, that’s all you can say about it,”
Bostad said. “I’m not into projecting and things like that. If you want an answer about camp, I’d say a big question mark.”
Still, if the Badgers need Havenstein to start against South Dakota on Saturday, Bostad can rest a little easier because he now has a good idea of what the Mount Airy, Md., product can do.
That’s because Bostad has pushed to make sure his backups got plenty of playing time in the first three games. While it has helped that the Badgers have won three blowouts, Bostad went into the season knowing he had to look for early chances to play backups Havenstein and sophomore center-guard Ryan Groy.
“We’ll see how valuable it is down the road,”
Bostad said. “That’s the whole plan, if a guy goes down. I think it’s huge. I go back to (the opener against) UNLV, saying we’re putting Ryan in there and, regardless of what’s going to happen, we’re going to get Robbie in there.”
That paid off when Groy was forced to start the second game against Oregon State at left guard for Travis Frederick. It could also pay off this week if Havenstein is needed.
Starting right tackle Josh Oglesby underwent a magnetic resonance imaging test on Monday after getting knocked out of the game against Northern Illinois in the third quarter on Saturday with a left knee injury.
While it didn’t look good at the time, UW coach Bret Bielema was hopeful Oglesby would not need surgery.
“All the preliminary indications have been very, very positive,”
Bielema said at his Monday press conference. “Josh was really upbeat after the game. From what the doctors could tell by their manual tests, everything seemed to be intact.”
