Sparty @ Badgers

[PkrsBcksGphsMqt]

Thought this was kind of interesting.

Rittenberg/Bennett ‏@ESPN_BigTen
Bielema said the doctors actually had to break Stave's clavicle during his birth to deliver him safely. He also broke it in 4th grade.

[Bernman]

Bielema certainly has aspects about him as a coach which are very frustrating, but the bottom line matters most and the program has simply won a lot of games during his tenure, including a trip to back to back Rose Bowls.

Look at a guy like Ferentz at Iowa. He regularly gets talked up as this great coach, yet he's only 27-25 in the Big Ten since Bielema took over who is 36-17.

For as great as Alvarez was, people shouldn't forget that he also had his share of stinker seasons after he turned around the program. From 1994-2005, he finished 5th through 8th in the Big Ten seven times.

So while Bielema can drive me crazy sometimes, he didn't take over at Michigan or Ohio St. when Alvarez retired. Had Barry made a bad hire instead of Bielema, the program easily could have regressed, look at what happened at schools like say Tennessee, UCLA, Kansas St., Michigan, Miami, Notre Dame, etc after winning coaches left their programs and most of those schools had way more tradition than Wisconsin.

I think most Badgers' fans mirror that same perspective that it's frustrating as hell how Bielema and his teams collapse in close game, we're going to vent when it happens, and hope the trend magically turns around, but even if not still deal with it because overall he's an above average coach.

I disagree though that Wisconsin's circumstances should be compared to Iowa's to in part measure Bielema as a coach. We've discussed this before I think, but Wisconsin's recruiting situation is superior to theirs. They have almost half our population, another major football team in state, and a D1AA to identify recruits for programs outside to steal and eat away at the quality of their walk-ons. Wisconsin is a lone ranger in a state twice the size. It's just a much more advantageous recruiting situation. Look at their crappy QB from Iowa. Did you watch him in the Northwestern game this past week? He stinks. Even in such a run heavy state we produced a much superior QB like Stave. We missed out on Nelson who is looking pretty good to the Goofs right now as PBGM alluded to. I thought Donovan was underrated. And going back a little ways we could have procured Tony Homo. Look how much better Costigan was than Matthias on the line. Watt was an upgrade from Cadogan. This team got a lot better when they started relying more on in-state players. Their last 6 major bowl caliber squads over a 19-year span each had half or more of their starters come from in-state. Iowa can't lean on that many Iowans and have big success. I'm inclined to believe Ferentz would fare better with this program than Bielema, but that's just conjecture based on what he's done w/ much less at Iowa and making better decisions in game. They are both above average coaches, so I don't see any point in changing things for either program.

Bielema thought O'Brien was a good QB. It caught me off guard at how bad he is. His lack of feel in the pocket is staggering.

That highlights how weak the argument is when blind team supporters say coaches see them in practice so they would know who is the better option. DOB looked a little better when he was sporting a non-contact jersey, the pressure of games meaning something wasn't on, and there was a mutual knowledge between the offense and defense; so he won the job at the beginning of the season. Then when he played in actual games he didn't know where the openings would be from the beginning of the play, he had to buy enough time for there to be a threat of being hit, and that caused him to play on his heels and run away like a girl any time it got close. Many fans nitpicked about Stave's tendency to throw short of targets and only go through 1-2 reads, but the first evaluation of a quarterback should be footwork, because without it you're not in position to make a play, and his calm feet, willingness to step up, and slide away from pressure alone put him at a huge advantage over DOB.

[El Duderino]

Hey Bern, i share many of the same game day frustrations with Bielema that you and many other Badgers fans have, i just bristle at those who want to see him get fired given all of the games the program has won since he took over.

Not only would that be an incredibly risky decision which could end up backfiring badly, i think a lot of college coaches would look at a firing like that and shake their heads in bewilderment if Bielema could have that much success and still get canned.

[Run-MKE 311]

This was a pathetic performance, I really do not understand some of Bret's play calling during this game.

O'Brien is God awful and we are not even committing to the run, Badgers could easily drop a few more before the year is done.

It is shocking how much worse this team is from last season.