It seems that the popular reaction whenever a coach leaves town is, “Get that bum outta here. He was no good anyway.” For many people, it was no different when Wisconsin defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove left Madison for greener pastures in Lincoln, Neb. “UW’s defense stunk. He didn’t blitz enough.”

Those were the first things out of many Badger fans’ mouths when news broke that ‘Coz’ had taken his buddy Bill Callahan up on his offer to run the Husker defense.

I’m not going to sit here and claim I wholeheartedly disagree with all of Cosgrove’s critics. Maybe he did rely on a non-existent pass rush from his defensive line too much. Maybe he should have blitzed more. Maybe, just maybe, if he had gone to the 3-3-5 alignment against Purdue, the Badgers would have stopped Kyle Orton, won that game and avoided the skid that killed any chance of a Jan. 1 bowl game.

Or maybe Cosgrove was just following the defensive philosophy he has used, and used successfully for his entire career. He is, after all, a defensive coordinator who knows a thing or two about defenses. ‘Coz’ has been highly respected no matter where he has coached, from Illinois to Southeast Missouri State to Colorado State to Wisconsin, and now to Nebraska.

But whether I agreed with his strategies or not, I always respected the hell out of Kevin Cosgrove. He was a good guy, and always treated me and the other reporters at practice with equal respect. Unlike some other coaches, he didn’t have a chip on his shoulder, or thought he was above having to answer questions from mere journalists.

“Hey bud, how ya doing? I’m Kevin,” he would say in a quiet, yet intense voice before providing me with some money quotes, greatly helping any defensive story I happened to be writing.

One day after a spring football practice, I asked him if he changed his defensive strategy based on the current personnel.

“If I told you that, I’d have to kill you,” he replied with a slight grin, and to this day I am pretty sure that he was joking around with me.

But nice as he was after practice, I knew that the last thing any Wisconsin player wanted to do was to screw up and have to go back to the sideline and face ‘Coz.’ Sporting his patented crew cut and sunglasses look, I cannot imagine anyone wanted to mess with the UW defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach.

For all the slack he took from Wisconsin fans over what seemed to be his ‘bend but don’t break’ philosophy, Cosgrove’s presence on the Badger sideline will be missed. The Badgers and the Badger defense enjoyed a pretty good run under Cosgrove’s tutelage.

Cosgrove’s biggest impact may not have been on the sidelines, however.

His presence on the recruiting trail may be missed as much, if not more than, his presence on the sidelines. The guy has a proven track record for bringing in impact players. At Illinois, it was Cosgrove who signed future No. 1 NFL draft pick Jeff George and Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year Darrick Brownlow.

He’s done his fair share of recruiting in Madison, too, bringing in the likes of Aaron Gibson and Pete Monty, not to mention working the St. Louis pipeline and landing Terrell and Jamar Fletcher, Wendell Bryant and others. Anyone who has even the most remote interest in the Wisconsin football program knows how vital the St. Louis area has been to the team’s success (or, at least, what should have been success).

In college football, recruiting is just as important, if not more important, than coaching on Saturdays. Until the rules of football are altered, it is still the players who make the plays and determine the outcome of the game. Coaches can only put players in a position to win; they cannot win the game for them.

Whoever is brought in or promoted to replace Cosgrove will have his work cut out for him in trying to duplicate that sort of success.

Now he heads to bigger and better things in Nebraska, and anyone who views the departure as a betrayal is frankly a moron. The Huskers are a nationally renowned program, the sort of program Wisconsin would like to be sans the exploits of Lawrence Phillips, Christian Peter and other reputable young men who have worn the ‘N’ on their helmets, an “N’ that they would tell you stands for ‘Nowledge’ (I have to credit that one to Professor Mayer of the Political Science department; be sure to take one of his courses sometime in your college careers, freshmen).

But in all seriousness, this is a big stepping stone for someone who aspires to be a head coach one day. Not only that, but Cosgrove has the opportunity to coach alongside his close friend Callahan, something the two had wanted to do since they were college roommates.

Agree with his philosophy or not — I sure didn’t at times — Cosgrove got the job done for the most part here in Madison. Badger fans might just discover that his successor might not do the same.