Various Unimportant Badgers Now Unimportant Ex-Badgers

Ah, March, that time of year when various people you've never heard of pop up on your radar screen solely to inform you they no longer exist as entities that you had little chance of knowing even existed in the first place. Case in point:

Junior linebacker Elijah Hodge, the younger brother of former Green Bay Packers linebacker Abdul Hodge, will not return to the University of Wisconsin football team in the fall. ... Junior wide receiver Xavier Harris, who missed last season after back surgery, also won't be back. Backup quarterback James Stallons, a redshirt freshman who didn't see any action last season, plans to transfer.

Hodge was a starting linebacker as a sophomore, but suffered through an injury-riddled junior year and was asked to move to fullback; instead he said "I'll take a degree, thanks" and decided against returning for a fifth year. So your net impact on the 2009 Wisconsin football season is ... zero.

At least these departures seem on the up and up, unlike several others we've had so far this year.

And now for the real purpose of this post: reminding you, the reader, that Hodge was the last offender/victim in the Great Wisconsin Evil Moped Plague of the mid-aughts. With his passing goes that dark time in Cheese State history. Or something.