McIntosh leaving for the Big Ten office is just another symptom of the disease. We used to have athletic directors who were Badgers for life, like Pat Richter. That man built the foundation for everything good that happened here, from the Rose Bowl teams to the Kohl Center. Now it's just another stepping stone job for administrators playing conference politics.
It makes you apppreciate the coaches who were true program men even more. Barry Alvarez didn't build this thing to leave for a commissioner's office. He bled red and white. He took over a dead program and turned it into a powerhouse by developing three-star kids into All-Americans, not by chasing fifty transfers in a portal window. You knew what Wisconsin football was with Barry. You knew what it was with Bo Ryan on the hardwood. It was tough, it was disciplined, and it was ours.
Now we're just another franchise in a bloated league, and even our AD is jumping ship to go manage the mess he helped create with realignment. The soul of this place is being carved out and sold for TV dollars, and guys like McIntosh are the brokers. We'll be playing UCLA and Rutgers every year while the ghosts of old Big Ten rivalries shake their heads. The whole thing feels corporate and empty, just like this new version of the sport.