That escalated quickly.
The Badgers, who were only receiving votes in the preseason Associated Press college football poll, jumped not only into the Top 25 but all the way up to No. 10 after their 16-14 win over LSU in Green Bay on Saturday. It was the best season debut for a team that had previously been unranked in the poll’s history and also the highest Wisconsin has been ranked since the end of the 2011 season.
By buckling down on defense and beating the then fifth-ranked Tigers in front of a capacity crowd in the Lambeau Field College Classic – that included Aaron Rodgers and guest Aly Raisman in attendance – the Badgers entered both the AP Top 25 and Amway Coaches’ polls on Tuesday. In the coaches’ rankings, Wisconsin leaped from No. 27 last week to No. 16.
Of the five Big Ten teams that appear in both polls, the Badgers are the third-highest ranked in the AP and the fifth in the coaches’ poll. Ohio State is fourth in both the AP and coaches’ polls; Michigan is fifth in the AP and sixth in the coaches; and Iowa is No. 16 in the AP and No. 10 for the coaches.
With the season-opening loss, LSU dropped to No. 21 and No. 22 in the AP and coaches’ polls, respectively.
The last time Wisconsin was in the AP Top 10, Russell Wilson had quarterbacked a Bret Bielema-led team (with current head coach Paul Chryst as the offensive coordinator) to an 11-3 record, a Big Ten championship and a Rose Bowl loss to Oregon.
Born in Milwaukee but a product of Shorewood High School (go ‘Hounds!) and Northwestern University (go ‘Cats!), Jimmy never knew the schoolboy bliss of cheering for a winning football, basketball or baseball team. So he ditched being a fan in order to cover sports professionally - occasionally objectively, always passionately. He's lived in Chicago, New York and Dallas, but now resides again in his beloved Brew City and is an ardent attacker of the notorious Milwaukee Inferiority Complex.
After interning at print publications like Birds and Blooms (official motto: "America's #1 backyard birding and gardening magazine!"), Sports Illustrated (unofficial motto: "Subscribe and save up to 90% off the cover price!") and The Dallas Morning News (a newspaper!), Jimmy worked for web outlets like CBSSports.com, where he was a Packers beat reporter, and FOX Sports Wisconsin, where he managed digital content. He's a proponent and frequent user of em dashes, parenthetical asides, descriptive appositives and, really, anything that makes his sentences longer and more needlessly complex.
Jimmy appreciates references to late '90s Brewers and Bucks players and is the curator of the unofficial John Jaha Hall of Fame. He also enjoys running, biking and soccer, but isn't too annoying about them. He writes about sports - both mainstream and unconventional - and non-sports, including history, music, food, art and even golf (just kidding!), and welcomes reader suggestions for off-the-beaten-path story ideas.
