ESPN drops that Big Ten preview and I see Oregon and Ohio State at the top again and it just makes me think about what Barry Alvarez did with a bunch of overlooked kids from the Midwest. We were never supposed to be the flashy program. We were the program that took a 2-star fullback from some Wisconsin farm town and turned him into a punishing blocker that would wear down a defense by the fourth quarter. Now the whole league is about who has the most five-stars and the biggest NIL war chest and I just wonder what happened to developing a kid over four years.
I remember watching the 1993 team go into the Rose Bowl and nobody gave us a chance against UCLA. We just lined up and ran the ball down their throats for 60 minutes. That was Wisconsin football. That was our identity. Now I look at the roster and I see kids coming and going through the portal every winter like they are changing clothes. The spring transfer window got eliminated finally but the damage is already done. We lost the culture that made us special.
You cannot build a program on transfers and recruiting rankings alone. You need continuity. You need kids who want to be Badgers, not kids who are shopping for the best NIL deal. I miss the days when a kid from Wisconsin would comimt on the spot because his dad and granddad both wore the cardinal and white. That meant something. Now everything is transactional and I am not sure we will ever get that back.