While there is rightful concern over the inconsistent play of the 4-0 Badgers football team, there are a few mitigating factors at work in Madison.
Saturday's 24-21 nail-biter over Northern Illinois was clearly a disappointment, but the Badgers earned the W nonetheless. And looking back over the last few years, Wisconsin nearly always has a scare in its non-conference or early conference slate -- and it doesn't always portend a bad season.
The most recent examples are from 2000. A highly touted Badger team was ranked in the Top 10, but that didn't stop them from nearly stumbling out of the gate in the opener against Western Michigan. They won 19-7, and much of the early-season cobwebs were attributed to the news of "ShoeGate," which broke just before game time and resulted in several key players being suspended.
But that wasn't the only misstep. Two weeks later -- after a narrow and thrilling home win against Oregon -- Cincinnati almost pulled another shocker (see below) against UW. It took a TD late in regulation and an Eddie Faulkner score in OT to pull out the 28-25 win.
The Badgers didn't cash in on their preseason promise that season, but they did manage to eventually win the Sun Bowl against UCLA, 21-20.
Of course, 1999 defined early-season horrors for UW. Coming off a Rose Bowl season, Barry Alvarez's team was 2-0 and a heavy favorite to beat those same Bearcats on the road in its third game. But Cincy absolutely stunned the Badgers, pulling off the 17-12 victory in Ohio. The element of surprise wasn't there the next year (in Madison, to boot), but the Bearcats nearly pulled off what would have been a highly embarrassing second upset before falling in OT.
Even though UW lost its Big 10 opener to Michigan the following week, the '99 Badgers won their final eight games, including a second consecutive Rose Bowl.
In 1998, it was an early conference game that almost cost Wisconsin. The perennially undermanned Indiana Hoosiers extended UW to the limit before falling in Bloomington, 24-20. The win moved UW to 5-0; they would win four more before falling to Michigan, but went to and won the Rose Bowl that season anyway.
One more? How about the Boise State Broncos in 1997? Mike Samuel and UW had to fight to squeeze out a 28-24 victory, again in Madison. They eventually played in the Outback Bowl in January 1998, though they were beaten badly by Georgia once they arrived.
Back in 2002, the Badgers have been pushed to the limit by underdogs twice: Saturday against NIU, and in the season-opener against Fresno State (a 23-21 win). The NIU game is hard to explain away (though the Huskies pushed eventual Big 10 champion Illinois to the wire in Champaign last year), but Fresno State nearly knocked off Oregon in Eugene last week before falling, 28-24. So at least the team's aren't utter cupcakes.
The other factor at play in Madison is that Alvarez and his staff aren't concerned about national rankings. Sure, the wins are nice, and it's not a bad thing to be ranked No. 17 in the USA Today/ESPN poll despite the Saturday's sleepwalk. But non-conference games for UW actually are used to prepare for conference play, not to burnish credentials toward a national title in January.
As of today, UW is still undefeated. Don't get me wrong -- the rankings and 4-0 mark are nice. And the Badgers seem to have some very real problems at the moment, not the least of which is a mystifyingly unproductive running game. But for Wisconsin, these games don't truly mean anything until October 5. {INSERT_RELATED}
FOOTBALL NOTES
The UW defense was basically manhandled by a smaller NIU team Saturday, but unlike last year, the unit came up with key turnovers when it needed to. NIU turned the ball over four times, giving the Badgers a total of 14 takeaways on the year.
Michigan State got throttled by Cal and Michigan looked shaky in losing to a decent Notre Dame team, but the Big 10 stood tall in Columbus and State College Saturday. OSU's second-half surge over Washington State and Penn State's dismantling of Nebraska restored some conference pride. Note: the Buckeyes and Nittany Lions comprise two-thirds of UW's first three conference games in October.
Green Bay has surrendered 69 points in its opening two games, but let's not pin Sunday's loss entirely on the defense. Two offensive fumbles essentially gave the Saints 14 points, and other than his long gash on the final drive, Deuce McAllister was held in check for most of the day.
The Packers lost Sunday because of the same reasons they always lose in domes: Brett Favre doesn't play well inside and the team usually can't hang onto the ball.
In fact, without Darren Sharper's interception and long return just before halftime, it could have been an even bigger blowout. The defense needs to start making some third-down stops, but it's not as far removed from competing at a high level as it may seem.
Detroit got trounced for a second straight week Sunday, this time by Rodney Peete (seriously) and Carolina. The win improves the Panthers to 2-0 (again, seriously). Funny, but that doesn't necessarily make me think that this Sunday's Ford Field debut is going to be a cakewalk for the Green & Gold.
Sports shots columnist Tim Gutowski was born in a hospital in West Allis and his sporting heart never really left. He grew up in a tiny town 30 miles west of the city named Genesee and was in attendance at County Stadium the day the Brewers clinched the 1981 second-half AL East crown. I bet you can't say that.
Though Tim moved away from Wisconsin (to Iowa and eventually the suburbs of Chicago) as a 10-year-old, he eventually found his way back to Milwaukee. He remembers fondly the pre-Web days of listenting to static-filled Brewers games on AM 620 and crying after repeated Bears' victories over the Packers.
