After the performance UW delivered against Michigan State on Saturday, a lot of the faces at the team’s weekly press conference Monday seemed a bit brighter than usual. Head coach Barry Alvarez was one of those faces, arriving early, making jokes, and even letting out a couple of smiles.
“I don’t know how you could have any more fun than watching how we operated this last Saturday,” Alvarez said in justification of his lightened mood. “The kids were having fun. They had a glow about them, and a confidence about how they carried themselves. I have enjoyed that.”
He continued to explain that the team’s offensive execution against the Spartans, in particular, had brought a smile to his generally stern face.
“I’ve just been able to sit back and enjoy our offense. It’s really fun watching them work when they’re hitting on all cylinders. It’s fun to watch Jim when he’s playing like he has, throwing the ball around with confidence, knowing where he’s going with the ball. I think it makes it easier for Brian and the offensive coaches to get a rhythm into the game.”
This weekend’s matchup against the Hawkeyes of Iowa at Camp Randall brings with it the prospect of an even more congenial Alvarez. The coach, who has turned the UW football program around since his hiring in 1990, will be going for win number 100 at Wisconsin. After winning only one game in his debut season, Alvarez has accumulated a 99-65-4 record up to this point.
“It would be a very meaningful milestone to me,” Alvarez said, though he admitted that he hadn’t thought about it too much. He explained that he would mostly be proud of the lasting power that the achievement would signify within a profession that he labeled, “a tenuous racket.”
“It’s a tough business. Most guys don’t stay in this business very long. While I’ve been here, I’ve seen four different coaches at some of the universities in this league.”
Winning the game at home might be a treat for Alvarez, but the Hawkeyes aren’t going to make it easy. Iowa’s defense has allowed only 172 points in their 11 games this season, good enough to make the unit the ninth best in the nation. They have been particularly stingy in allowing rushing yards, holding seven of their last nine opponents to under 75 yards on the ground.
“We will not get anything cheap,” Alvarez said. “Everything you get against Iowa, you have to earn. It’s just their scheme.”
He continued to describe the source of the Hawkeyes’ solid play. “They’ve got a very physical front. They never have anyone in the wrong gap. They never have anyone guessing. They’re not going to blitz much. They’re just going [to] make you beat them.”
Perhaps Iowa’s most impressive feat defensively this season is the victory they claimed over an unheralded Miami of Ohio team in their first game of the year. The Hawkeyes held the Miami Redhawks to three points in the game. The feat may have seemed uninspired at the time, but that same Redhawk team has gone on to win nine straight games, averaging 44 points per contest.
There have been chinks in Iowa’s armor all year, though. In the team’s three losses this season, they have fumbled the ball nine times and thrown three interceptions.
“Anyone will have trouble winning in this league if they turn the ball over,” Alvarez said. “That’s what cost them the Michigan State game.”
If the Badgers are able to pull off a victory, they will also end the season with a winning Big Ten record. Alvarez claims not to be too worried about that accomplishment, though.
“I’m worried about trying to prepare our team to play as well as we can, about trying to give us a chance to win this game,” he said. “I’m not worried about our record.”
