Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Brett Bielema: Public Enemy Number One in Bloomington

If there is one thing that Justin Timberlake has taught us, it's that what goes around comes around. This is especially true in Big Ten football, where class is a prerequisite to coach in one of the best football conferences in the country. Or, at least it used to be. I cannot recall a time last season, outside of a Notre Dame loss, that I was more enraged as I was last year when the University of Wisconsin traveled to Indiana University to play the Hoosiers. This game marked the return of Terry Hoeppner to the IU sidelines, missing the first few games recovering from brain surgery. Now Wisco head coach Brett Bielema was in the midst of his first year taking over for Barry Alvarez as the Badgers' head man, and he was looking to make a name for himself. And boy, did he ever. He proceeded to hang 52 points on the Hoosiers in the first three quarters, before deciding to be merciful and calling off the dogs in the fourth quarter.


52 were the third most points scored by any Big Ten team against another conference foe, with Ohio State scoring 54 against Northwestern (another classless move on the part of Jim Tressel-- but his time was coming) and 63 that Minnesota scored on the Hoosiers (Glen Mason would get his as well, his days had been numbered for a while). Now, one might say the 63 is more egregious than the 52, but you would be wrong. Minnesota was a crappy team last year, who only won their homecoming game by one point over North Dakota State, and had a notorious reputation of giving up huge leads (Texas Tech came back from a bowl-record 31 in last year's Insight Bowl). By stark comparison, Wisconsin was a fantastic team, that overmatched Indiana on both sides of the ball. Oh, and again, this was Hoeppner's first game back on the sidelines.

When the bus pulls out of Bloomington on October 27th and heading for Camp Randall, the IU players should be playing with a gigantic chip on thier shoulder. Their Head Coach will not have an opportunity to avenge the embarassment that took place a year ago, but that doesn't mean his players cannot. Sure, IU will be overmatched going into the contest, and not to mention that they have to go to Wisconsin, still the hardest place to play in the Big Ten. But what they do have on thier side is Big Ten karma. You expected me to say Coach Hep in the sky, and they will have him, but what will be stronger is the fact that you cannot get away with embarassing another Big Ten team without it coming back to you. Especially a guy like Bielema, who inherited a great program and will NEVER have a problem recruiting as long as Alvarez is the AD. He should have known better, and he will eventually get his.

I'm not going to go as far to say that IU will take down the Badgers, but what I will say is that even though a lot of experts think Wisco will win the Big Ten this year, I will contend that a classless move last year will keep them from becoming the class of the conference this year. Wisconsin fans can only hope that some of the class that passed with Coach Hep is available for their head coach to pick up at the Big Ten offices.

14 comments:

Ryan Martinez said...

I'm sorry, were the Badgers supposed to throw the game? The last time I checked, you're expected to play along with the team as best you can. Now, I'm also sorry about the loss of your coach, from what I've read he was a very good man and a very good coach but don't go blaming Bielema for the lopsided final. Blame Indiana for having a sub-par team and not being able to compete. If you want a better score, play better or join Big Sky. If you're really into finding someone to blame, I'll send Bloomington a bunch of mirrors for the locker room and you can figure it out from there.

Unknown said...

If I remember correctly UW put in their back up quarterback on the second series of the second half, hardly the tactic needed to run up the score. It's not up to the offense to keep the score down, it's the job of the defense.

Why no outrage against Minn. who scored 63 against you last season as well.

Was it classless of the Indiana Basketball team to have beaten North Dakota by 45, Indianapolis by
37, Lafayette by 25, IUPUI by 29 and Purdue by 27.

Also, if scoring 63 points is egregious, you must have been really upset when the University of Indiana ran up 63 against UW in 2001.

Quit your whining, sometimes bad teams lose bad games badly.

Unknown said...

By the way, I checked the game stats and UW passed just 23 times out of 69 plays and of that only 8 times in the entire second half. Six of those passes were in the third quarter mostly by the the second string quarterback. The third string quarterback played the entire fourth quarter and threw twice, once for an interception after a running play broke down and one incomplete pass.

UW also pulled their starting running back after the first series of the second half. Their second string running back played the balance of the second half. At that time they were only two deep at running back due to injuries.

It would appear to me that Bielema was trying to do everything he could do not to run up the score.

Unknown said...

Wow, where did this come from? Yes, I am sorry for the loss of
Coach Hoeppner, but blaming Bielema for beating a bad team is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in sports. He had his backups in by the middle of the 3rd quarter, and barely passed at all in the second half. What else was he supposed to do? Wouldn't it be up to Indiana to at least try to stop the bleeding by playing some competitive football? Not Wisconsin's fault they were playing a bad team. Does everyone blame USC when then they beat teams 70-0? No, they just say, "wow, they're good." Are you sure you're even qualified to be writing these sorts of articles? It sounds to me like you have no sports IQ whatsoever. Stop crying and write something worth while.

ckopech said...

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you guys all go to Marquette...

also, the worthwhile posts are all tagged: "Ghost of Carl Monday".

Unknown said...

http://www2.jsonline.com/badger/fb/oct01/uwgame100601.asp

Maybe IU should have thrown that game...

onuw said...

I guess this shows that Wisconsin Football gets the ultimate respect. Last year I was rooting for IU to beat Michigan in the upset of the year. I wanted nothing more than to see IU finally get back to competative football...especially given Coach Hep and how respectable he was. Ideas like this...that UW is public enemy #1 because its football team is better is asinine. Good coaches don't typically rely on revenge for motivation because it's hard to duplicate on a weekly basis. For the sake of IU's entire season, and not just one game, I hope your new coach is a better tactician than you are. In other news, ON WISCONSIN!

ckopech said...

you people are fucking retarded. we're not saying that UW sucks ass (though they do) we're saying that there's karma in the Big 10. There always has been. Didn't you dumb fucks learn to read, or was that not part of the entrance exam for the school?

Fuck, you people are dumb. Go to hell, learn to read, go to a school that will celebrate your new-found ability to read and then re-read your posts and you'll see how fucking dumb you all are.

Jesus.

Unknown said...

You're right Carl, I could only wish that I could write as elequently as you.

ckopech said...

many do, few succeed.

Unknown said...

I was being facetious you moron.

Anonymous said...

What the hell does facetious mean?

Eric said...

"you people are fucking retarded. we're not saying that UW sucks ass (though they do)"

-2006 UW: 5th (USA), 7th (AP)
2006 IU: NR
2007 UW: 4th (Athlon)
2007 IU: NR
Interesting how much Wisconsin 'sucks.' What sucks is that when one of the great faces of your university passes away, instead of celebrating his life, bloggers (thats a key word, bloggers are people that cant get a job as a real journalist) from your area would rather pick on a random school for shock value. Nice insult of the mentally handicapped in there as well. No one was offended there, surely.

"we're saying that there's karma in the Big 10. There always has been. Didn't you dumb fucks learn to read, or was that not part of the entrance exam for the school?"
-I dont know what college would have a section of their entrance exam committed to teaching students how to read, that didn't make any sense, but just to clear doubts we'll check out the academic rankings (via US News)
UW: 34th (7th among public schools)
IU: 70th (31st among public schools)
Interesting gap, not really in your favor. But riddle me this anyways, how is UW supposed to get bad karma from pulling their QB just after halftime and calling basic run plays?

ckopech said...

we don't go to IU. None of us. And obviously you and the rest of your buddies still don't know how to read because none of you have touched the original point of the article in the first place. So here it is, in caps and as monosyllabically as I can:

THERE. IS. KARMA. IN. THE. BIG. TEN.

Discuss that.

Also, if bloggers are just journalists that can't actually get jobs, then what does that make you, the guy who reads what we write? Ponder that, kiddo.