UW football: Oglesby eager to play, face 'massive' expectations
The whole routine felt strange. For each of the University of Wisconsin football team's seven home games last season, Josh Oglesby would arrive at Camp Randall Stadium several hours early and put on pads that weren't going to be hitting anything and a uniform that wasn't going to get dirty.
"It was one of the hardest things ever," said Oglesby, a highly touted offensive tackle from St. Francis who redshirted as a freshman in 2007. "Being a guy who has played every down his whole career, and now you're watching other guys play every down, that was tough."
Oglesby agreed with the decision to redshirt, especially since he wasn't fully recovered from a knee injury he sustained in high school. But that didn't make it any easier to sit, watch and wait during his first season with the Badgers.
"I've never put pads on not to play," Oglesby said. "It was tough, but I took it for what it was and I made the most of the experience. Now, I'm ready to contribute."
That's good, because the men who decide how much Oglesby will see the field as a redshirt freshman in 2008 are anxious for him to prove that he's ready.
"I think he's one that you would circle and say, there's someone that needs to have a great spring," UW offensive coordinator Paul Chryst said. "He'll get a lot of work. That's the great thing about spring ball is for guys like him."
UW offensive line coach Bob Bostad took it one step further by issuing a challenge to Oglesby, who is currently listed behind returning starter Eric Vanden Heuvel at right tackle.
"I told him before we started, 'If you don't start, you should be extremely upset with yourself,' " Bostad said. "And I'm certainly not going to give it to him. He's going to have to earn every bit of it."
And right now, according to Bostad, Oglesby has a long way to go.
"If he wants to play," Bostad said, "he's going to have to take a massive step."
Massive is a good word to use with Oglesby. At 6-foot-7, 338 pounds, Oglesby is massive. And he came to UW with massive expectations after being labeled one of the top prep tackles in the 2007 high school class by most recruiting analysts despite missing most of his senior season at St. Francis with a knee injury.
The thing is, nobody's expectations are more massive than his own.
"Just from my recruiting and everything, I was put on such a pedestal that I feel that I have to go above and beyond everyone's expectations because that's the type of person I am," he said. "It's going to make me that much better.
"I still feel like the expectations are there. It's not a bad thing. I look it at as a good thing. It gives me something to reach for, to prove to people that I am what they thought I was."
That hunger to succeed is one of the things UW coach Bret Bielema likes most about Oglesby.
"He's been told for a long time he's a good football player and he wants to live up to that," Bielema said. "He's very hard on himself when he has failures."
Bielema said he's anxious to see how Oglesby responds today when the Badgers put on pads for the first time this spring.
"I think the big thing with Josh is to play tougher, to really get an understanding of what Big Ten football is all about," Bielema said of Oglesby, who spent last season on the scout team. "He's got as much ability as anybody we have, but that doesn't necessarily get you where you want to be. It's how you go about your business."
As Chryst put it, the time is now for Oglesby and some of UW's other young players to "make that jump and kind of enter into the big boys' world."
Oglesby says he's ready to take that step. He's tired of waiting his turn. He doesn't want to get all dressed up for a party he's not invited to again next season.
"They brought me in here for a reason," Oglesby said. "They don't want me to just sit around and be huge on the sidelines."
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