For TCU, playing Wisconsin is a really big deal

Texas Christian Coach Gary Patterson didn’t dawdle around the question. He had an answer at the ready.

Last season’s Fiesta Bowl versus Boise State was big for TCU, but the upcoming Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day against No. 4 Wisconsin is even bigger.

“This is a bigger game because we had played Boise State before and everyone billed it as the two best non-[automatic] qualifiers,” Patterson said Sunday as the Horned Frogs and Badgers visited Disneyland.

Now, he said, facing one of college football’s traditional blue-blood powers — the co- Big Ten Conference champion Badgers (11-1) — means TCU can measure itself against the nation’s elite.

That doesn’t seem the case for Wisconsin, but Badgers Coach Bret Bielema said No. 3 TCU (12-0) is itself a measuring stick.

“Without a doubt,” he said. “First off, we have an opportunity on Jan. 1 to play one of three undefeated teams. They don’t get there by chance.”

But doesn’t Wisconsin have more to lose, since TCU is considered a mid-major?

“We’ve never talked to [our players] in those terms,” he said. “We see them as an undefeated team that’s on our schedule and they have a lot of respect from our sideline going forward.’

Rose Bowl preview

Bielema doesn’t usually take his players to stadiums before they play in them, but the Rose Bowl is different, and Saturday he took them there for a history lesson.

About the grass.

“This grass was put in three weeks ago,” he told them, saying that it’s from Palm Springs — where the same company that provides some of the Super Bowl fields grows it— and that it’s tended to by the stadium’s longtime turf superintendent, Will Schnell, who “treats it as his baby.”

Then, Bielema added, speaking of his players who will play in the NFL, “No matter where you go and play from this point forward, you’ll probably never play on a field as clean as this.”

“You’ve never seen such gorgeous grass,” Wisconsin senior offensive tackle Gabe Carimi said.

For Carimi, playing on it will be especially special, since he remembers watching Wisconsin tailback Ron Dayne earn MVP honors in the 1999 and 2000 Rose Bowls.

“It’s my favorite bowl,” said Carimi, who won the 2010 Outland Trophy as the nation’s best interior lineman.

But Carimi said the coaches relayed another message beyond the grass: They want the players to see the stadium now so they’re not in awe on game day.

Etc.

Patterson’s return to Southern California after coaching stints at UC Davis and Cal Lutheran means catching up with former colleagues, which he said he’s done plenty of lately, especially with longtime UC Davis Coach Bob Biggs and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Coach Tim Walsh, whom he worked with at Sonoma State in the late 1980s and early ‘90s . … Each team is averaging 43.3 points a game, tied for fourth-best nationally, but most of the early betting lines have TCU favored by three points. Bielema doesn’t feel snubbed. “We’ll play whatever card we have to do to try to gain motivation,” he said. … This will be the second meeting for the teams, the first a 14-14 tie in 1970 at Wisconsin.

baxter.holmes@latimes.com