What has happened to Wisconsin? I can't figure them out. They beat us easily and I thought they were a lock for the Rose Bowl. Sparty beats them but on a dramatic play. Now a down OSU team does the same thing a week later. I can't believe these guys may be dropping out of the top 20 real soon. I can't decide if they were just overrated, if they have been snake-bitten two weeks in a row on the road with crazy last minute plays, if we have really improved since our game with them, or if our game plan against them was completely off, etc. I tend to think we have improved some and there is some validity that our game and our playcalling got away from us against them...but still I figured Wisconsin would be at the top of the Big 10 easily this year...now it seems there are multiple teams who have a shot..
I think you've got some pretty good answers there and they're all correct to a certain degree but this is what I've figured about UW after much pondering these last two weeks,
1.
We can't play on the road. This has always been true of UW and pretty much true across the Big Ten. Going by my tier theory of the conference (UW, MSU, NU maybe OSU in Tier One, and down from there) a team in the higher tier can play a lower tier team on the road and win but if they play another team from their tier on the road they're probably going to lose, so far that theory holds more or less true (OSU loses at NU, NU loses at UW, UW loses at MSU, OSU and so on...)
2.
We were overrated. I had this feeling early on but as a homer I shoved it into the deep dark cellar of my ego and pretended it wasn't there. Russell's good but he's no Superman. Outside of NU we played NOBODY. Our out of conference schedule is almost as bad a joke as our fourth quarter secondary. The sad thing is we may slowly creep up the rankings again with the toughest part of our year out of the way. We should win out and if we make it to the CG I'm afraid we may get embarrassed again. This happens with UW a fair amount if you look at our history, I hate to say it but most of those years we made runs we didn't really play anyone. Last year we had two road tests; at MSU (loss) and at an Iowa team (1pt win) that turned out to not be as good as everyone thought. Or look at 2006 when we went 12-1, we didn't draw OSU and our only road test was at Ann Arbor where we got thrashed.
So yea, sorry for the length but to reiterate; we don't play anyone and when we have to play "someone" on the road we lose. Ah the pain of being a UW fan. Maybe this will wear off in a few weeks and you'll get a different, more arrogant, answer out of me but for right now that's my estimation.
As far as comparing UW now to the UW team you all played in Madison I think part of it was a case of the Big Ten road jitters I was talking about. That happens to teams coming to Randall, say what you will about our fans but that house rocks at night and many teams get eaten up by the energy. Oh and sure we've been a bit snake bitten, you hit the nail on the head with that term...damn final two minutes of the fourth quarter losses!
Anyhow, On Wisconsin! Beat Minnesota and Iowa!
good luck to you guys too I guess :wasted
You know how we feel?
