Since playing their 1st football game in 1889, the University of Wisconsin Badgers football system has seen its share of ups and downs. With an overall record of 614 wins and 465 losses, the ups have outweighed the downs, to be sure, but when the system has been down it has been for an extended time period of time. For example, soon after their 1901 season, Badger teams suffered by means of what could only be described like a 35 year period of utter mediocrity – with the one particular exception becoming the team’s 1912 undefeated season. An additional thirty year period of poor performances and mediocre results occurred immediately after the Badgers’ 1962 loss from the Rose Bowl. It would not be until Barry Alvarez arrived as the team’s head coach in 1990 that the program’s fortunes would begin to turn around.
Alvarez the man
Barry Alvarez had a strong pedigree in college football when he very first arrived at Wisconsin. Being a player in the 1960s, he was coached by the fantastic Bob Devaney. He later tried his hand as becoming a high school coach in both Nebraska and Iowa, until he was given an assistant coaching position at the University of Iowa under the legendary Hawkeye coach Hayden Fry. A brief tenure as an assistant in the University of Notre Dame completed the Alvarez journey on the Badgers’ front door. His arrival at the school in 1990 was to become the beginning with the Badger revival – though the primary three seasons of play gave little indication in the outstanding outcomes that would soon follow.
A slow begin
As often happens with new coaches, the early years on the Alvarez era had been something less than spectacular. In reality, the initial season’s campaign saw the Badgers lose all but just one of their eleven games. The next two seasons had been slightly better, with a five win, six loss record in each. Still, there had been already grumblings that the team was not progressing swiftly sufficient. That all began to change as the 1993 season started.
Success at last
The ’93 campaign saw an impressive Badger team charge through the Large Ten Conference by winning 10 of their 12 games, with 1 loss and one particular tie. It also saw them head for the Rose Bowl – where they had played and lost three times before in their history. Under Alvarez’ leadership, though, this Badger team not only played well but won the Rose Bowl and ended up becoming ranked number six inside the final AP poll of the season. The 1994 season was an 8 game season, and resulted in a postseason victory in the Hall of Fame Bowl. Over the next eleven seasons, the Badgers would suffer only two losing seasons, and would repeatedly receive invites to different bowl games. Most impressively, the plan returned towards Rose Bowl right after the 1998 and 1999 seasons, winning both. When he left the software immediately after the 2005, the most successful coach in the program’s history left behind one unassailable fact: Wisconsin football was back at last!
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