Earn That Statue

There's a statue of Barry Alvarez outside Camp Randall Stadium. This strikes some people as premature, or gauche, or worse, for a couple of reasons: (1) Barry Alvarez is still alive, and we usually wait until people are dead to honor them in bronze; and (2) Barry Alvarez is not just still alive, but still working at the University of Wisconsin as its athletics director.

Still, most Badgers fans are fine with the statue because it cannot be denied that Barry Alvarez is a living legend. What he did as the football coach at Wisconsin is a miracle. He take a good-for-nothing, moribund non-program and turn it into a consistent winner that went to three Rose Bowls (and won them) in eight years. Then he transitioned into a role as the tsar—er, athletics director—and groomed his own successor (Bret Bielema). This is usually where the story takes a turn for the worse. As rare as it is for someone to create a powerhouse from scratch, it's even rarer for the powerhouse to survive that person's retirement. But Barry Alvarez did it. He built Wisconsin football as its coach, and as athletics director he left it in Bret Bielema's remarkably competent hands. Three more Rose Bowls ensued.

We know what happened next. Bret Bielema took the money and ran. Barry Alvarez hired Gary Anderson.

This is Barry's final test. If Gary Anderson succeeds at Wisconsin—and by "success" I mean that he wins at least one conference championship in his tenure—then Barry Alvarez will have done the unthinkable: He will have turned Wisconsin into a dynasty.

And if that happens, Barry Alvarez will, beyond any doubt, have earned that statue.

--Bart Torvik

The Worst Team Ever to Play in the Rose Bowl?

Noted idiot Craig James infamously labeled Wisconsin's 1998-99 squad "the worst team ever to play in the Rose Bowl." The common charge was that the Badgers were actually the third-best team in the Big Ten—behind co-champs Ohio State and Michigan—and got to play in the Rose Bowl only because of an obscure, stupid tie-breaking rule. Wisconsin and OSU did not play that year, and Wisconsin was awarded the Rose Bowl because Michigan and OSU had been to the Rose Bowl more recently.

Wisconsin was a 10-point underdog against UCLA in that 1999 Rose Bowl Game (which Mr. Chorlton and I attended). UCLA had gone a perfect 8-0 in the Pac-10 and was headed to the BCS national championship game until a season-ending, non-conference 49-45 loss to a weak Miami team (which itself was coming off a 66-13 loss to a mediocre, Donovan McNab led Syracuse squad). UCLA was led at QB by future Chicago Bears failure Cade McNown, and it could score. But it could not defend. It was soft, like a marshmallow.

Enter Ron Dayne. He absolutely destroyed the UCLA defense, running for ridiculously easy touchdowns of 7, 10, 22, and 54 yards. Jamar Fletcher made the play of the game, picking off an awful McNown throw and returning it 46 yards for a touchdown.

Alluding to Craig James's comment, after the game Barry Alvarez quipped, "Well, I know we're at least the second worst" team ever to play in the Rose Bowl.

In hindsight, the hyperbole about the Badgers being a bad team that year looks silly. They had a number of great players, including notably Dayne and Fletcher. Other than a close win on the road against Indiana, the Badgers handily destroyed all the bad teams they played. They had two nice wins against Purdue (led by Drew Brees, who went 55 for 83—both NCAA records) and Penn State. Their only loss was on the road to Michigan, which went on to clobber Arkansas in the Citrus Bowl. Ohio State won the Sugar Bowl handily. The Big Ten was actually good that year. And the Badgers went back and won Rose Bowl again the next year, negating conclusively any notion that the 1998 team was a fluke.

The 1998 team is relevant because the Badgers are against going to the Rose Bowl under a cloud of controversy. They got to the Big Ten Championship game with four conference losses, on what might be reasonably considered a technicality. It appears that they got the best possible draw in Nebraska, which has a terrible run defense. A few weeks ago I said here, after the OT loss to Michigan State and the news of Stave's season-ending injury:

It's still likely that the Badgers will stumble their way to the Championship game. But their odds of winning it went way down. And, if they do, they may actually be the worst team ever to play in the Rose Bowl this time.

By one objective measure, the Badgers clearly are the worst team ever to play in the Rose Bowl: they have five losses, more than any other team ever to play in the game. I haven't researched it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's never been a four-loss team in the Rose Bowl. [Update: three teams have played in the Rose Bowl with four losses: Washington (6-4) in 1964 (lost to Illinois); Washington (7-4) in 1978 (beat Michigan); and UCLA (6-4-1) in 1984 (beat Illinois). So the three worst teams to play in the Rose Bowl are actually 2-1 in the game.]

That said, a strong case can be made that this is the best five-loss team ever. Three of the five losses were in overtime, and the other two were by three points. Two of the overtime losses came in what were essentially exhibition games after Wisconsin had already clinched a spot in the Big Ten Championship game. Wisconsin had nothing to play for in those games, particularly not in the final game when they could no longer claim the meaningless divisional "championship." In the brutal, physical game of football, the slightest lack of commitment is nearly impossible to overcome. So in my book those losses carry an asterisk.

We know now that the Badgers were keeping some tricks up their sleeves. They were clearly saving Melvin Gordon for when he was really needed. They were resting Chris Borland, who is probably the best player on the team. With something big to play for, against a quality opponent, with everything on the line, the Badgers brought the house and won by forty points. 40.

Early lines have the Badgers as 6.5 point underdogs against Stanford. Stanford is a very good team that plays Big Ten football. They have the best run defense in the nation, and they shut down the high-flying Oregon Ducks.

But Stanford's resume is not overwhelming. They have two losses, one of which was in overtime to No. 1 Notre Dame. But the other loss was to Washington which has lost, ahem, five times this year. And two of their wins were in overtime (against Oregon (impressive) and Arizona (not so much)). They also had their Northern Iowa moment in the season opener, when they beat San Jose State by just a field goal. (San Jose State is decent, it turns out, but they lost to Utah State by 22.)

All told, Stanford is an impressive team, and they will probably beat the Badgers. But I will be surprised if it's by more than six points. And I won't be at all surprised if the Badgers again prove themselves to be at least the second-worst team ever to play in the Rose Bowl.

Winners only, please

Adam: thank you for letting me be a guest-poster on your esteemed blog. (Though I still think you should have called it "The General Opines.")

My main goal on this blog will be to point out your ridiculous mistakes in real time so that the whole world laughs at you. But since you haven't made any ridiculous mistakes yet (AFAIK), I'm going to have to come up with some original content for my first post. 

Andy Baggot has an interesting article about the "selection committee" that will pick the teams for the four-team playoff that begins in 2014. Baggot thought Badgers AD Barry Alvarez was interested in serving on the committee himself, but now thinks he may have developed cold feet after considering all the unreasonable rancor (a.k.a "the unholy shit-storm") that fans of left-out teams will unleash on members of that committee.

Finishing the season ranked number five in college football is going to be one of the most painful experiences in sports for a few years. But it won't last. What I like about this four-team playoff is that it is just a placeholder for an eight-team playoff and then (probably) a 16-team playoff. In life, only three things are certain: death, taxes, and expanding playoffs.

That said, we will have a four-team playoff for a while, and picking those four teams is going to be extremely controversial. Baggot proposes that the NCAA selection committee should start practicing by running through the scenarios from prior years to pick the top four for those seasons. That's a great idea, and maybe we could have some fun replaying previous years ourselves.

But I have another proposal for the four-team playoff: only conference champions and undefeated independents should be eligible. This takes care of a lot of the possible controversies. It also disposes with one of the objections to the playoff system, which is that it supposedly devalues the regular season. (This objection is nonsense, but widespread.) I recognize that this proposal is a little weird given that just last season the two-team playoff featured two teams from the same division, one of whom obviously was not a conference champion (or even a division champion). But I think we can agree that was an abomination.

Ultimately, a chance at a national title should not be a consolation prize for teams that can't win their own conference—at least not when only four teams are selected for the playoffs.