What did perennial Cleveland Browns Pro Bowl offensive tackle and proud Wisconsin alum Joe Thomas do when he saw Wisconsin running back Melvin Gordon run for what was then an NCAA-record 408 yards in three quarters, as Gordon did last month vs. Nebraska?
"I swelled up with pride," Thomas said.
Thomas puffs his chest out, too, when talking about Gordon and the Wisconsin running game taking on Ohio State Saturday in the Big Ten Championship Game in Indianapolis.
"I'll take the Badgers by 50," Thomas joked.
At least he might have been joking.
There's much uncertainty heading into the game as No. 6 Ohio State replaces injured quarterback J.T. Barrett with the completely unproven Cardale Jones, but what's going to happen when Wisconsin has the ball leaves little to the imagination. Gordon is going to get the ball, early and often, and he's going to run behind an offensive line built and bred for springing runners free.
It's been going on for a long time at Wisconsin.
"I have a lot of pride in the running back tradition and the offensive line tradition there," Thomas said. "What (Gordon) did to get that record was tremendous. I take pride because it's a byproduct of the system and the great players who have been playing there and playing that way for a long time. He did it against a top-quality team, too, and that's impressive.
"I know some people there and they say (Gordon) a tremendous person, too, and easy to root for. It gets me excited when good people have success like that."
After rushing for 151 yards last week against Minnesota, Gordon pushed his season total to 2,260 yards, breaking the Big Ten and school record for most rushing yards in a season. Gordon leads the nation in all-purpose yards per game (200.9), rushing yards per game (188.3) and rushing touchdowns (26).
Stopping Gordon -- or at least reasonably slowing him -- is obviously priority No. 1 for Ohio State's defense. In addition to calling a potential Heisman Trophy winner this week, Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said Gordon "has sprinter's speed and he's got very good pad level when he runs."
Anchoring the line that clears the way for Gordon is tackle Rob Havenstein, who's listed at 6'8, 330 and is already committed to the Senior Bowl in January as part of his path to playing in the NFL.
"They have a great tradition going right now and in college football when you're recruiting, that's a selling point," Thomas said. "You can always recruit good running backs to Wisconsin because they know they're going to get a lot of carries and probably get a chance to play in the NFL."
Same goes for the linemen. While six Wisconsin running backs have been drafted since 2000, three in the first two rounds, 15 Fifteen offensive linemen have been drafted in that time. Thomas is one of five first-rounders.
"That's college football," Thomas said, "because you can sell (recruits) on something that started in the 1990s and hopefully will continue into the future."
Gordon's average of 8.04 yards per carry for his career is the best in Big Ten history and third-best in NCAA history. He's averaging exactly 8 yards per carry this season, has been over 100 yards in 10 straight games and 21 games over his career, and five times this season he's put up over 200 yards.
Wisconsin sophomore tailback Corey Clement has 830 yards this season, too, and their 3,090 combined yards is the most ever by a Div. I tandem. Twice in the last four years Nebraska has had two backs go over 1,000 yards in the same season.
Five of the top 10 seasons ever posted by a Big Ten running back have been posted by Wisconsin running backs, all in the last 18 years. Gordon is still chasing the 33 rushing touchdowns Monte Ball had in 2011 but last week passed Ron Dayne's 2,109 yards to set the single-season mark.
"The names change but the plan doesn't -- they're a hard-nosed football team," Browns safety and Ohio State alum Donte Whitner said of Wisconsin. "It's an impressive tradition. Those backs are usually big and they get some crazy number like seven yards a carry. The linemen are usually up for the Outland Trophy. My guys have to be up for the challenge."
The Outland Trophy honors college football's most outstanding interior lineman. Thomas won the Outland Trophy in 2006; Gabe Carimi won it in 2010.
Dayne won the Heisman Trophy -- and the Doak Walker, Maxwell and Walter Camp awards -- in 1999. Montee Ball finished fourth in the Heisman voting in 2011, and Gordon is a lock to be a finalist this year.
Whitner said that, by Saturday, he'll have bets on Saturday's game with Thomas and fellow Browns safety Jim Leonhard, another Wisconsin alum. And he figures he'll know early who's going to be collecting.
"That offensive line is built to run the ball," Whitner said. "The backs are built to run and keep running. I'm sure everybody on Ohio State's defense knows what's coming."
