Pardon the cliché, but what a difference a week makes. One week ago the biggest news in all of Madison was that in between the third and fourth quarters of a football game, the student section was deprived of “Jump Around.” The whole campus was up in arms because of a song — nothing more and nothing less. House of Pain hadn’t gotten that much attention since 1992.
As ridiculous as it may have been, the fact that “Jump Around” stirred up such a controversy meant one thing: that all was well with the University of Wisconsin football program. If the biggest news of the day, or week for many people, was entertainment during the game, then everything else must have been going alright. No one had been stabbed, no one was finding creative uses for cigars, no one was in jail (knock on wood) after a bar fight and most of all, no losses to sub-par opponents at home.
The slew of off-field incidents that plagued the Badgers last season was absent. Sure, Darius Jones had been suspended for a game, but a 2-0 start made that seem so isolated. And yes, the team did struggle to put away Akron, but the offense looked brilliant, and talk of two Heisman candidates was circulating in town. Yes, optimism was higher than ever in Madison.
Then came the rain, and with it came the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels. A team picked by many to finish in the bottom half of the Mountain West Conference gave the No. 14 Badgers a solid drumming, holding their offense without a touchdown in their own stadium. As sad as I found the student section cheering only for a song the week before, it was downright disgraceful that the team on the field left them no choice Saturday.
Unlike the dramatic win over Akron, there was no redeeming quality about the UNLV loss. The Badgers got pounded in every aspect of the game by a team that had just been taken to the woodshed by the Kansas Jayhawks. Are the Rebels a better team than they showed in that loss? Sure. But are they better than Wisconsin? Heck no.
This game was supposed to be a blowout, and it was, though unfortunately it was not the blowout that many expected. But should this really come as a surprise to anyone? After all, losing to inferior competition seems to have become a yearly tradition for the cardinal and white.
It started with a humbling loss in 1999 on the road to Cincinnati. Wisconsin was coming off consecutive blowouts of Murray State and Ball State, and with Michigan looming on the horizon, the Badgers got surprised by the Bearcats, 17-12.
One year later, the same Cincinnati team took a supposed national-championship contender to overtime at home before Wisconsin pulled it out. Granted, Wisconsin was without Michael Bennett, but a team as talented as those Badgers should have put the Bearcats out of their misery before halftime.
Wisconsin’s luck ran out the next weekend, as Northwestern got the best of the Badgers in overtime, ending all talk of national or Big Ten championships in Madison.
The following two years treated Badger fans to embarrassing loses against perennial conference doormat Indiana. The 2001 debacle is perhaps the only defeat in recent memory that can give Saturday a run for its money. Those four painful quarters saw Antwaan Randle-El and the Hoosiers put a 63-32 licking on Wisconsin.
Last year, UW saved its embarrassing loss for the road. They narrowly avoided a home loss to Northern Illinois, but blew a second-half lead in Bloomington, as Indiana outscored Wisconsin 15-0 in the fourth quarter.
So why did we all expect more from the 2003 edition of the Badgers? For whatever reason, this year’s team felt different. Maybe it was the excitement of the Alamo Bowl, the amazing talent at the skill positions, or perhaps I just thought they would eventually learn their lesson. Well, apparently they have not.
This week Wisconsin has a chance to redeem itself against North Carolina, another home game they are supposed to win. The 1999 team was able to rebound all the way to Pasadena. If the current Badgers have similar aspirations, they need to dominate the Tar Heels and not the headlines.