The Big One

Getting pretty jacked up for the Badgers to host the #1 Buckeyes tomorrow night. The Badgers have fared reasonably well against OSU since the arrival of Coach Alvarez, often pulling the "upset" over the typically higher-ranked Buckeyes.

Sure, lots of old-timers are hanging onto the 1942 match-up at the Camp, in which Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch and the upstart #6 Badgers knocked off the #1 Buckeyes. Hirsch ran all over the field and threw a game-closing TD pass to Dave Schreiner. Both men have their names on the Camp Randall facade.

My favorite Badgers road game at the 'Shoe was in 1999 and involved a Redshirt Freshman QB by the name of Brooks Bollinger. I was in school in Milwaukee that year and watched the game at BW3 on Water Street with some UW alum chums. That Badgers team was originally led by somebody named Scott Kavanaugh, and Barry may have stuck with the senior too long. The Badgers dropped a bad one to Cincinnati and then lost the Big Ten opener at home against Michigan, during which Kavanaugh was injured. Bollinger took over in place of Kavanaugh, and never gave up the reins. After losing a close game to Michigan 21-16 in promising mid-game relief of Kavanaugh, Brooks made his first ever start at the 'Shoe. The Buckeyes jumped out to a 17-0 lead in the second quarter, but Brooks and the Badgers rallied and it was all Bucky from there on. After 6 unanswered TDs, Bucky walked out with a 42-17 come from behind win. Honestly, I've never seen anything out of Bucky as awesome as the second part of that game. If you have a recording of it, get at me. Bucky ran the table from there, and the insertion of Brooks into the lineup not only saved the season and put the Badgers back in the Rose Bowl, it also gave the Badgers a #4 finish and gave Ron Dayne a chance to win the Heisman. Badger fans still debate endlessly whether Bucky could have run the table and won the whole enchilada if Barry had the balls to turn Brooks loose from the start of the season.

Personally, for more than a decade, my all-time favorite OSU game at the Camp was the 1992 game. It was my freshman year as a student at UW and you could really start to see the improvements in the competitiveness of the program that Barry was bringing. You had no idea they would win the conference and the Rose Bowl a year later, but to borrow a line from Rex Ryan, "Goddamn, they did look pretty fuckin' good" that day, knocking off Kirk Herbstreit and the Buckeyes - a top 20 team that finished 2nd in the Big Ten. That game was particularly fun for me, because Herbstreit was harassed all day and sacked 3 times by Chad Yocum, a sophomore rush end who was on my high school team just 2 years earlier. (We were on the same team, but it never looked like we were playing the same game.)

However, even that was trumped, as Big Tasty alluded to below, in 2003. In what really was an otherwise lackluster season (7-6, 4-4 in conference), the Badgers caught lightning in a bottle on rainy Saturday night under the lights. OSU was the defending national champion and they came to Madison riding a 19-game winning streak and a #3 ranking. The Badgers were slugging out a gritty, defense-minded game and going toe-to-toe with the Buckeyes, but as the game wore on, you could just get a sense that the Buckeyes' superior defense and special teams was eventually going to leave their offense in a position to score the kill shot, which had been OSU's M.O. during the winning streak. After roid-raging Robert Reynolds literally choked Jim Sorgi in a post-whistle pile incident, backup Matt Schabert came into the game and it looked like Bucky was fucked. Being grounded against the Buckeye defense was a completely unsurvivable position, and with the Buckeyes tied 10-10 and the Schabert-led Badgers pinned in their own territory with less than 6 minutes to play, it felt like OSU would rope-a-dope to another 3 point win. Then, the unthinkable happened. NFL talent beat NFL talent on an out and up, and Schabert laid it out there nice and easy for a wide-open Lee Evans to grab on his way to the house. "The Play" is below, but after Bucky managed to get the ball back, it again appeared that OSU may very well get the ball back in the closing minutes, again having Schabert and the Badgers offense pinned deep. On a 3rd and medium, The Call was made and Schabert ran a naked boot for a game-sealing first down. Unfuckingbelievable. The game was also notable for Big Tasty's 21st birthday and C-Weed making the national media spotlight for throwing tomatoes.