Being a Wisconsin Badger fan, I made mention six weeks ago of
the fact that Montee Ball may be having nightmares about his decision to return
to school rather than entering the draft, following his Heisman Trophy finalist
season. His numbers have improved since the Nebraska game, however, averaging
154 yards per game—marred only by a 46-yard performance in a loss against a
subpar Michigan State team. Ball also needs just two touchdowns in the next
four games (including the Big Ten title game and bowl game) to break the NCAA
Division I record for touchdowns scored. However, after much angst about the
poor play of the usually rock-solid offensive line, the season is still a work in
progress; despite an average of 456 rushing yards against Purdue, Minnesota and
Indiana, the Badgers have only mustered 120 yards a game against their other
opponents, including a miserly 35 against Oregon State and 37 against Michigan
State.
Now, you might say hold on a minute, somewhere in there you
just said that Wisconsin will play for a third straight Big Ten championship.
How can this be when Ohio State is unbeaten, and if the Badgers lose to Ohio
State and Penn State—both distinct
possibilities—they will be the third team in their own division. And it doesn’t
really help that the other three teams in the Leaders division—Indiana, Purdue
and Illinois—have only three conference wins between them, and it just illuminates
how lopsided the division is between Ohio State and everyone else, now and in
the future. It might help the Badgers’ credibility if they beat Ohio State next
week, but that still doesn’t answer the question of why the Badgers have
clinched a place in the Big Ten title game when there is an even better chance
that they will finish with a mediocre 4-4 conference record. The answer, of
course is that not one, but both of their principle rivals are on
suspension—Ohio State for the illegal sale of team memorabilia by a few
players, and of course the Penn State scandal.
If Wisconsin can somehow achieve some momentum by winning
their final two games against the aforementioned teams, I like their chances of
playing in their third straight Rose Bowl, though not necessarily their chances
of winning it. Wisconsin will face either Nebraska—who they beat handily last
season and blew a 17-point lead on the road this season—and a Michigan team that
if you contain the quarterback, you pretty much contain the whole team. Beyond
that, if Oregon plays for the national championship, at the moment it appears
that Notre Dame has the inside track as the top non-automatic qualifier to play
in the Rose Bowl. They have already beaten Michigan and Michigan State, but
Notre Dame has won “ugly,” and if Wisconsin somehow makes it that far, if they bring the team that pounded Purdue and Indiana for 1,031 yards rushing I
can see coach Bret Bielema finally getting out from under the shadow of Barry Alvarez
and winning his first Rose Bowl—maybe his last best chance for years to come, since
Urban Meyer already appears to have turned Ohio State back into that perennial
bully on the block.
Still, it must be noted that for those who only knew of the
post-Lombardi Green Bay Packers, who were mired in a two-decade funk, it is
almost surreal to speak of a team that is a solid bet to make the playoffs every
year now. And so it is for the Badgers. After losing in what is considered the greatest Rose Bowl game ever
in 1963 (after falling behind USC 42-14 early in the fourth quarter, Badger quarterback
Ron Vander Kellen proceeded to shred the Trojan defense, stopped short only by
the clock). After that it was all downhill; in 1967-68, the Badgers were
0-19-1, and save for a brief stretch in the early 1980s, Wisconsin was
predictably awful to bad. In 1981, Wisconsin shocked fans by upsetting both perennial favorites Michigan (ranked
No. 1 at the time) and Ohio State in the same year, but blew their chance to go
to the Rose Bowl when they lost at home to Iowa, which went on to lose to
Washington, 28-0. In Alvarez’s first season as coach in 1990, he put a meat
cleaver to the roster, leading to a 1-10 record, but three years later
Wisconsin won it its first Rose Bowl, against UCLA.
Despite a reputation as team with beef on both sides of the
line, the teams under Alvarez and Bielema broke the stereotype of Big Ten teams
being slow and cumbersome, “shocking” SEC teams like Auburn and Arkansas in the
2006 and 2007 Capital One bowls with their speed at the skill positions. The
team has had only two losing seasons in the past 20, finishing in the top 25 eleven
times—a remarkable record considering the fact that this was the program that then
ESPN “analyst” Craig James (whose son got current WSU coach Mike Leach fired at
TTU) called the “worst team ever to play in the Rose Bowl” before it beat
national championship contender UCLA in the 1999 game, and was a 10-point
underdog against Auburn in the 2006 bowl, which some analysts called the “best
team not in a big money bowl." That was before the Badgers completely dominated the Tigers,
out-gaining them 548 to 236.
After disappointing finishes the past two seasons, this year’s
team is being handed a ball they don’t deserve; perhaps it will give it the
incentive to prove they belong one more time.
No comments:
Post a Comment