SPORTS
New-look color scheme comes up rosy
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Also by Ben Voelkel:
- Rocky trip Outback for UW (January 1, 2008)
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- Spring Game a chance for players to shine (April 19, 2002)
- Standring takes any, all measures to get on field (October 18, 2007)
- Give me some faith in the Camp (August 29, 2003)
- 5 keys to Badger victory (September 20, 2002)
by Ben Voelkel
Monday, September 3, 2007
With a new quarterback and left tackle on offense, and four new starters on defense, fans at Camp Randall Stadium knew they would be getting a new-look team this season.
Little did they know that look would also include a new uniform for home games.
Straying from their typical red-top and white-pants home uniform, the Badgers took the field wearing all red. The idea to change the home uniforms came from head coach Bret Bielema, who did so to impress on his team the need to create a new identity and not rest on past achievements.
"I told my team this, 'You've got to make your own identity; you have to establish who you are,'" Bielema said. "I try to have a lot of thinking going on in my head about how our team handles certain things, and they're a confident group. They are very, very sure of themselves. We have quite a few guys who are playmakers, and when they walk in the room, they walk in with a little swagger. So I said, 'Here's your swagger now, I'm going to put you in these, this is going to be your identity, now tell me what you're going to do.'"
The players’ response was overwhelmingly positive when they were first told of the decision on Thursday, Bielema said, and a decisive win to start the season didn't do anything to change that attitude.
"It's good, I think it's a good changeup, a good thing for the fans," quarterback Tyler Donovan said. "We played well in them today, so we'll see what happens."
Bielema did say that the new-look uniforms will be a constant at home throughout the season, and that the team will wear all-white uniforms on the road, as they did last year.
Graham to the rescue
With starting tight end Andy Crooks out of the season-opening game with a hamstring injury, Garrett Graham was called upon in a greater capacity than usual Saturday.
Graham, a redshirt sophomore who saw action in only three games in 2006, looked good during fall camp and carried over that play to the first game of the season. With the score tied 14-14 with six minutes left in the second quarter, Graham caught a Donovan pass over the middle for a touchdown.
The completion was not only Graham's first career touchdown, but also his first career catch. "It's great, I can't really describe it," Graham said. "I couldn't have planned it any better way."
Graham didn't fail to grasp the significance of the catch.
"About a couple seconds after, the adrenaline started pumping," he said. "It was great."
Graham's game emphasized one of Bielema's mantras, that backups should always be ready to be the next man in the game in case of an injury.
"Classic example of the 'next man in,'" Bielema said. "Garrett Graham … is a tremendous football player. He came in today, and we didn't have much of a letdown there."
Upset city
While Division I-A college football is unique in its lack of a playoff, proponents of college football's current bowl system argue the entire season is one, long playoff.
Teams need to win every week in order to have a realistic chance at playing for a national championship, and one loss along the way can spell doom. As the hours before Wisconsin's opening game ticked down, word of a potentially historic upset spread like wildfire through the tailgates surrounding Camp Randall, concession lines inside the stadium and the press box: Preseason Big Ten favorite Michigan, the No. 5 team in the nation, was losing to Division I-AA Appalachian State.
Eventually Michigan drove down the field and set itself up for a last-second field goal attempt for a comeback win, but their title hopes were blocked when the kick was knocked down by the Mountaineer field goal defense. Against that backdrop, Donovan said the Badgers felt relieved to have survived their opening contest.
"You can't take anything for granted in this league, especially a good team like we played," Donovan said. "It's always good to get the first one out of the way and keep growing as an offense."
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