NASHVILLE — The country-music melodies echoing from the saloons on Nashville?s 2nd Avenue may have been the perfect place for the Wisconsin Badgers to drown their sorrows from a disparaging, disheartening, and disappointing season.

Lee Evans was unable to lead the team to the Promised Land, and Jim Sorgi was unable to leave behind the collegiate legacy he desired. The team he aspired to lead to greatness lost four of its last five regular-season games, and after a valiant Music City Bowl comeback, the senior quarterback watched the final plays from the visitors? locker room.

This may have been the most fitting end for a UW football season that was once filled with so much promise. Appearing as a Big Ten contender after a quick 3-0 conference start, the team was epitomized by its inability to make the big play when it mattered most as the season quickly became filled with post-game quotations about missed opportunities.

?This just exemplifies our season right here,? All-American Jim Leonhard said after the Music City Bowl loss. ?So close, so many times, let a big play here, a mistake there. You know that?s where we are right now.?

A bowl experience that failed to produce much music to the team?s ears instead provided Wisconsin with a single game film that can be viewed as a microcosm of its season.

The Badgers came out flat in the first quarter against Auburn, much in the same manner their season debuted. Exactly six months earlier UW needed 14 unanswered fourth-quarter points to defeat West Virginia for the first victory of the year. After 15 minutes of play, the Badgers could not claim victory or defeat against their Southeastern Conference foes, but the slow start would come back to hurt them.

UW managed to get on the scoreboard first with a Mike Allen field goal, reminiscent of the team?s decent yet mildly disappointing start to the season. In 2003 the Badgers did manage to twice climb into the nation?s top 15, the first of which came before their first loss of the year.

On a cold, rainy day in mid-September, UW lost by a score of 23-5 in front of a sold-out Camp Randall crowd in the first game of the year they had no excuses for losing. Who could have known that at halftime on the last day in 2003, the Music City Bowl would be the last?

At the start of the second half, the Badgers advanced the ball to midfield, setting up a second-down-and-nine play call that could have turned the game in their favor. With Jim Sorgi in the shotgun formation, the quarterback sat in the pocket as wide-out Brandon Williams got wide open down the left side of the field. Sorgi?s pass, however, sailed over Williams? fingertips, and lost once more was the opportunity that UW was unable to capitalize on all season long.

?We got to find a way to make plays and get over that hump,? junior center Donovan Raiola said. ?Make plays and find a way to win games.?

Even after Sorgi failed to give his team the lead, the Badger quarterback counted on an old friend to make the game?s biggest catch. Just as he had done 12 times during the regular season, Lee Evans was on the receiving end of a Badger touchdown in spectacular fashion. Evans had once more brought respectability back to the 2003 Badger squad, and with the score tied, UW had the chance to end the year with a win.

In a catch reminiscent in magnitude of the touchdown catch he made to beat Ohio State, it was the outstretched hands of Evans that brought joy back to the Wisconsin faithful. The joy in Nashville, however, would be short-lived in this game, just as it was following the team?s second ascension into the top 15.

The following week, the Badgers lost on a field goal with three seconds left to Purdue before a national audience, and the week after that, they lost before a few thousand Northwestern fans. The news didn?t get better for the team as it traveled to Minnesota and lost on the game?s final play, arriving home afterward without Paul Bunyan?s Axe.

In fact, after UW?s victory over Ohio State, Evans would once more provide the only remaining bright spot for Wisconsin in the regular season. Amid four losses in the final five games, UW fans were allowed to smile in the week following a Nov. 14 thrashing of Michigan State. Evans broke a bevy of Wisconsin records that weekend with his five-touchdown, 258-yard performance.

And so it was in the fourth quarter of the Music City Bowl. With the score tied at 14, a sprinting Lee Evans was camped out under a Sorgi pass near the Auburn 15-yard line. Badger fans rose to their feet to see how he could make them smile once more, but a deflected ball instead found its way into the hands of Auburn defensive back Will Herring.

?Earlier in the season, games were coming down to one play and one score. A couple of them were field goals, and it could have been a game like that, and I guess ultimately we didn?t seize the moment when it came to us,? UW junior Darrin Charles said. ?We had the momentum tied at 14 apiece, and we just kind of lost it from there.?

Auburn would capitalize on the turnover and take a 21-14 lead, but Wisconsin had one last chance to win with three and a half minutes left. On the second play of the drive, Sorgi was leveled, fumbled and watched his team lose without being on the field to help.

As Sorgi passed through the tunnel before sophomore John Stocco took the field for UW?s final possession, the quarterback was visibly shaken up and his left arm lay in an air cast. This may have been the most fitting tribute to a year that can forever be looked at as a ?what if? season. What if Sorgi had avoided injury?

What if UW beat Northwestern and Iowa? What if it had made that one play down the stretch against Purdue and Minnesota? What if Wisconsin was playing for the roses?

?We had several games like the Minnesota game. We had the same thing happen where we had a chance on third and long and [they] made a reception and went down and kicked a field goal and beat us,? head coach Barry Alvarez said after the game. ?You have a chance in the Iowa game where you got throws inside the five-yard line to win the game. When you put yourself in those positions, whether it be a defensive stop or an offensive possession where you have to score, that?s the difference between winning and losing.?

The Badgers never managed to learn from their mistakes in 2003, and so the season became summed up in their final showing. They started the Music City Bowl with zero points in the first quarter, and as in the beginning of the season, pundits wondered if they were overrated.

Then there was the flash of light provided by Lee Evans, just as he had done against Ohio State. The score was tied, and Wisconsin fans were overly excited.

They should have known these Badgers would let them down … again. The game ended in fitting fashion with the offense unable to make a play, the defense unable to make a stop and the team?s quarterback being carted off the field.

?There?s lots of missed opportunities on the season. I mean, this game just shows how our season went — you know all the ups and downs that we had,? Jim Leonhard said. ?We got a lot of guys coming back and all we can do is get better, and you just vow to each other that this is never going to happen again.?