I miss? Sitting in the Camp Randall student section back in 1990 when the place shook because 80,000 people were stomping their feet, not because some DJ pumped in artificial noise through the speakers. We did not need a jumbotron telling us when to get loud. We knew. Barry Alvarez had us believing we could run through a brick wall and we did it on pure hate for whoever was in the other color jersey.
Now I see these ESPN top 100 newcomer lists and half those kids have never even been inside a stadium like ours on a November afternoon. They are picking schools based on which uniform looks best on a video game cover. The old concrete, the smell of brats and beer, the way the metal bleachers would vibrate during Jump Around. That is real tradition. Not NIL dollars and transer portal commitments.
I will be curious to see how many of these highly touted newcomers actually last a full season in the Big Ten when the weather turns and the hitting gets real.