100 days out from Week 0 and ESPN is running their top storylines piece and I cannot help but think about where this program used to be. We used to be the team nobody wanted to play in November. The cold weather, the power running game, the defense that would hit you in the mouth for four quarters. Now I look at the recruiting rankings and see Oregon stacking five-stars like they are collecting baseball cards and I wonder what happened to us. This reminds me of the 1993 season when we went to the Rose Bowl for the first time under Barry Alvarez. We did not have the highest rated recruiting class. We did not have the biggest NIL budget. We had a bunch of kids from the Midwest who wanted to prove they could play with anybody and they did.
I keep hearing about how we have to adapt to the new model and how NIL is just the reality now and maybe that is true. But I watch what Colorado is doing with 43 transsfers and what Oklahoma State is doing with 50 new players and I think that is not building a program. That is renting a roster. Back in the Alvarez years we built something that lasted. We had offensive linemen who stayed four years and developed into NFL players. We had running backs who carried the ball 30 times a game and loved every minute of it. Now everything is about the quick fix and the portal and the next big name.
I read the ESPN piece and they are talking about Notre Dame sitting at number four in recruiting and Oregon with five five-stars and Georgia with their tight end and Texas with their quarterback and I just shake my head. Where is Wisconsin in that conversation? We used to be the program that did it the right way and now I feel like we are trying to chase a model that was never built for us. The SEC and Big Ten are dominating the rankings and we are sitting there trying to figure out how to keep our own kids from leaving.
You know what I miss? I miss when the Rose Bowl meant something because you earned it. I miss when the Big Ten was about playing Iowa and Minnesota and Ohio State and Michigan and you knew what you were getting every Saturday. Now we have USC and UCLA and Oregon and Washington in the conference and I am supposed to get excited about traveling to Los Angeles for a conference game. That is not the Big Ten I grew up watching.
I will be honest with you. I am worried about where we are headed. The spring portal window is gone now and everything happens in the winter and that might help with roster stability but it also means the teams with the biggest checkbooks are going to keep winning. Oregon proved that this offseason. They pulled a quarterback from Nebraska and they have a five-star haul that nobody can touch. Meanwhile we are sitting here in May hoping the kids we signed in December actually show up on campus.
Maybe I am just an old man yelling at clouds. But I remember when we did not need to be in every top ten recruiting class to win games. We just needed to be tougher than the other team.