COUNTERPUNCH

Wisconsin’s huge offensive line, three-headed rushing attack and All-American tight end make it easy to overlook Badgers quarterback Scott Tolzien.

But Wisconsin players and coaches don’t.

Tolzien, a fifth-year senior, won the team’s offensive most-valuable-player award after leading the Badgers to an 11-1 record, a share of the Big Ten Conference title and their first Rose Bowl berth since 2000.

It’s not as if Tolzien has flown under the radar -- he leads the nation in completion percentage and won the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award as the nation’s top senior quarterback -- but he ascended unassumingly.

“I’ve been fortunate all through high school and college to have great coaches that put together winning schemes and a lot of talent around me,” Tolzien said. “ That’s something that gets overlooked.”

Not really.

Numerous Wisconsin players won national and Big Ten postseason awards.

Offensive linemen Gabe Carimi and John Moffitt and tight end Lance Kendricks were voted to All-American teams. Carimi won the Outland Trophy and running back James White was the Big Ten freshman of the year.

Tolzien, a two-year starter, was second-team all-conference. And the Unitas award does not take into account juniors such as Auburn’s Cam Newton and Boise State’s Kellen Moore or sophomores such as Stanford’s Andrew Luck and Oregon’s Darron Thomas.

Still, Carimi said Tolzien “got our MVP for good reason.”

The 6-foot-3, 205-pound Tolzien went from a player who did not get into a game until his third season with the Badgers to a leader who won the starting job in the fall of 2009 with a consistent if unspectacular two-week stretch during training camp.

Tolzien, who has completed 74% of his passes this season, will need to be at his efficient best Saturday when Wisconsin plays an unbeaten Texas Christian team that is on the verge of finishing with college football’s top-ranked defense for the third consecutive season.

Much of the success of the Horned Frogs is predicated on confusing quarterbacks at the line of scrimmage with their 4-2-5 scheme.

Tolzien, who has passed for 2,300 yards and 16 touchdowns, offers Texas Christian perhaps its toughest challenge of the season.

“He does a great job pre-snap of deciding ‘What are we going to do? Which play are we going to run?’ ” Texas Christian defensive coordinator Dick Bumpas said. “He puts them in the best possible play, and if it’s a pass he does a great job delivering it.”

Or, as Moffitt said, “He’s not the flashiest guy. He just does exactly what we need him to do.”

gary.klein@latimes.com

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