Saw Greg Sankey running his mouth again about the SEC being the best "by far" and I just laughed. Three straight national titles for the Big Ten. Four straight head to head wins in the playoff. And this guy is still talking like it's 2012. Reminds me of when we went into the Rose Bowl against those Pac-10 teams that swore they were faster than us and then Ron Dayne ran for 200 yards and they figured out real quick what Big Ten football actally means.
But you know what really grinds my gears about all this conference chest thumping? We're sitting here in a dead period with nobody talking about the actual football. The spring meetings buzz is all about playoff expansion and TV money and who's got the biggest NIL war chest. Not a single word about the fundamentals. About building a program the right way.
I think back to 1993 when Barry Alvarez took us to our first Rose Bowl. He didn't have 43 transfers showing up in the spring. He didn't have some revenue sharing model to talk about. He had a bunch of Wisconsin kids who wanted to prove they belonged. He had walk-ons from small towns who would run through a wall for each other. That's how you build something that lasts. Not this nonsense.
We got a trip to South Bend this fall and you can bet the national media isn't giving us a shot. Fine by me. Let them keep talking about the SEC and their "by far" nonsense. We'll show up in that old stadium with a line of scrimmage mentality and see who's still talking when it's over. That's the Wisconsin way. Always has been.