Revenge of the Badger: Alum Mike Bresnahan savors Wisconsin’s shockingly great season

Yawn Wisconsin.

That was the school mantra most of my time there, when band members were bigger than the backfield and the start of hunting season was always the state’s biggest highlight in the fall.

The Badgers didn’t merely lose back in the day. They were routinely pummeled.

The first game I attended as a freshman was against Miami, back when the Hurricanes sent shivers down entire college towns.

The ‘Canes had about 14 penalties on the Badgers’ first possession — all under the umbrella of late hit/unsportsmanlike conduct/roughing the passer/bludgeoning the running back — and Wisconsin somehow ended up with a field goal, sending the crowd into a tizzy.

Miami then turned into Miami, the Badgers lived up to the first three letters of their name, and the Hurricanes won, 51-3. The chant that day in the student section was a defiant “We scored first!” as my college football experience got off to a dismal start.

(It somehow got worse on “Parents Weekend,” when proud moms and dads visited their freshmen sons and daughters in all their glory. Unfortunately, Indiana’s Anthony Thompson also visited Madison that weekend, running all over the Badgers for 377 yards, an NCAA record at the time. Great.)

Thankfully, times change, programs improve, and the Badgers went on a run under coach Barry Alvarez, winning three Rose Bowls from 1994 to 2000, grabbing a Heisman Trophy ( Ron Dayne, 1999) and beating Auburn, Arkansas and Miami in more recent bowl games, the latter two under Coach Bret Bielema.

But this season was more shocking than any other.

Nobody looked twice when the Badgers thumped Austin Peay, 70-3. Big deal. It was only Austin Peay, whoever they are.

Then the Badgers lost their conference opener at Michigan State, their Big Ten championship hopes apparently thwarted right out of the gate. And to think I wasted a Saturday night in England watching it among drunken rowdies who jeered at soccer matches on wall-to-wall TVs while I sat in a dark corner watching Wisconsin by myself on a 26-inch screen. Do I have a problem? Yeah, probably.

But two weeks later, David Gilreath returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown and the Badgers beat top-ranked Ohio State, 31-18, setting off a carnival on the field and weeklong bragging rights at the office for alumni. Wisconsin won the following week at Iowa thanks to a fake punt, then pounded Purdue by 21 before the real chaos began.

The Badgers destroyed Indiana, 83-20, beat Michigan with ease, 48-28, and buried Northwestern, 70-23, to complete the wildest three-game outburst in Wisconsin history.

Lakers Coach Phil Jackson, a shaman of fair play and fundamentals, was so disgusted by the Indiana game that he sought me out the next day at Staples Center and informed me it was “shameful” to be a Badger. I laughed. He attended North Dakota. Do they even play football there?

I was personally more stunned to see Wisconsin hang 48 on Michigan. The Wolverines were the program that outscored the Badgers 65-3 in my first two years in college. Good times.

Lost among the Badgers’ seven-game winning streak was a 41-23 victory over Minnesota in which they were accused of running up the score by going for two after a late touchdown. Seriously? Wisconsin? Running up the score? Couldn’t be true.

Needless to say, this season has taken over my life. I bought a five-foot Badgers banner that is proudly draped over my front balcony. On a recent Friday night in New York, I watched a nine-minute highlight video of the Wisconsin running backs posted by someone on YouTube. Nothing happens after 10 p.m. in New York anyways, no?

More than a dozen Wisconsin friends are in town this weekend for the Rose Bowl. I expect a great game against the Texas Longhorns, who were unbelievable here a few years ago when Vince Young beat USC on that amazing....

Wait, what? The Badgers are playing Texas Christian? Please.

Badgers by at least 10….I hope. I don’t want the highlight of the day to be another “We scored first!” chant.

Mike Bresnahan is in his seventh season of covering the Lakers for The Times, and 16th season as a Wisconsin alum.

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

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