Bad Badgers

A brighter day for the Badgers. 9/2/23 dwm

 1993 was the first time Barry Alvarez had a winning record as head coach of the University of Wisconsin football team.  

 It was his fourth year in charge of the program and he signaled the start of a new era of Badger football as Wisconsin won the Rose Bowl.

 30 years later, the Badgers may have had one of their worst games since Alvarez started turning the program around in a dreadful loss to the Northwestern Wildcats.

 The game was over by half-time with a 24-3 lead for Northwestern.  Wisconsin finally scored a touchdown with 11-seconds left, making the final 24 - 10.

It was a horrific afternoon for Wisconsin.  In the first half, Wisconsin couldn't get anything going, coming up short of a first down most of the times they had the ball.  They managed one field goal and kicked one wide-left.  Wisconsin's defense, which had played decent most of the year, couldn't stop a Wildcat team that took on the persona of a top-20 team.  They aren't - they had four wins (two in conference) coming into Camp Randall while Wisconsin was looking to get its sixth victory overall and fourth in the B1G.

New coach Luke Fickell took over for fired coach Paul Chryst with a lot of excitement and talking about the goal for the program being conference and national championships.  Ten games into the season, fans are wondering what in the world is happening with the Wisconsin Badgers.  The team doesn't look anything like the players we're accustomed to seeing on the field named for Coach Alvarez. 

Barry had a losing record his first three seasons but he took over a team considered to be a chronic loser.  Fickell is expected to elevate the team to the next level.

The cliche, "it's always the darkest before the dawn," seems appropriate because it could be that the process of turning over the roster with the 'right' players takes a couple of years.  On the other hand, there is a chance Badger fans might have to re-set their expectations for the guys on the gridiron.

Six wins is a big deal in college football because teams who reach six wins are practically guaranteed a spot in a post-season bowl game.  Wisconsin has the third longest active streak of bowl appearances with 21.  It happens to be the same number of their streak of winning seasons, Bucky Badger leads college football with 21 consecutive winning seasons.

Wisconsin's defense played better in the second half (I don't think they could have played worse) shutting down Northwestern on series after series.  The Badger offense moved the ball better but were turned away repeatedly by an increasingly confident Wildcat defense until Northwestern had reserves in the game when Wisconsin finally crossed the goal line. 

Two regular season games remain - at home against Nebraska and on the road Thanksgiving weekend in the fight for Paul Bunyan's Axe against Minnesota - win both games and extend both streaks; win one and they will likely be invited to a bowl game; lose both and the season ends earlier than it has in a long time.

This morning we have two more winnable games to play.  There are no expectations for this team but a large number of curious fans waiting to see which Wisconsin team will take the turf at Camp Randall next Saturday night.  On Wisconsin!