Top 10 again

The Badgers quietly moved into the AP top 10 after beating Marshall last week, and moved up to #8 after beating Fresno State. It really wasn't all that unexpected, given that we started ranked in the top 15 and the frequency with which highly-ranked teams lose in college football nowadays.

But consider this: that's three years in a row now that we've cracked the top 10, and four of the last five.

So here's my question: can Wisconsin be called a perennial top 10 team? Probably not, because in only one of those seasons has UW finished in the top 10, this season pending. But it's still pretty cool to get there on a regular basis.

By my count, Wisconsin has reached the AP top 10 in 20 seasons in its history, with nine of those seasons coming since 1993. From 1958 through 1963 the Badgers reached that part of the rankings four times, and ascended to #11 and #13 in the other two seasons (that's Ron Vander Kelen, quarterback of the 1962 Rose Bowl team, above). That could arguably be the best run in school history.

Overall, including this week Wisconsin has been ranked in the top 10 in 111 weekly polls, with 48 of those coming in the last 15 seasons. It should be noted that modern day polls appear to be published more frequently than they did in the '50s and '60s. Here is the breakdown:

Season Weeks in top 10
1942 8
1947 1
1951 5
1952 4
1953 1
1954 9
1955 2
1958 9
1959 10
1962 7
1963 7
1993 4
1994 3
1998 9
1999 10
2000 4
2004 6
2006 4
2007 6
2008 2

Trivia question: what is the only season since 1993 in which Wisconsin hasn't cracked the AP top 25?

UW football and basketball books

The holiday break gave me a chance to read two other Wisconsin sports books by UW alum Dave Anderson. The books cover the Badgers' football and basketball history.

While these books will help fill out the UW section of my bookshelf, I can't in good faith recommend buying them - save the combined $30. Instead, buy The World Without Us (read it over Thanksgiving, still getting my thoughts together for a review), and download the history sections of the media guides posted at uwbadgers.com. Because that's all these books really are: a collection of team, stadium, and athlete pictures from the UW archives accompanied by redundant captions that often contain errors. There's no new analysis or historical context.

The first thing I said to Jana about them was "I can't believe this guy got paid to put these books together," and then kicked myself for not getting there first. In fairness, Anderson probably didn't set out to write a Halbertsam-esaue tome about his alma mater's athletics, and my expectations shouldn't have been to receive anything along those lines. Also, having been exposed to so many media guides over the years, I probably know more of this historical stuff than the average fan.

Anderson does make the good point that while the last 15 years or so have undeniably been a Golden Era in UW athletics, it wasn't always as bad as the preceding couple decades. In fact, UW athletics in the first three or four decades of the 20th century were pretty damn good, with plenty of conference titles, All-Americans, and even a few national titles. Then we hit a 50-year dry spell with a good season here and there.

What happened? Good question, and one that's not answered in these books. My thought is that the coaches of the times did not adapt quickly enough to changes in strategy and recruiting; the radical/turbulent nature of Madison during the '60s and '70s scared off many kids who weren't up for that kind of college experience; and a bad football team drags down everything else. Without the '93 Rose Bowl, does the Kohl Center get built?

Also took the time to read Game Day: Wisconsin Football by Athlon Sports. A much better book, it had lots of color photos and in-depth sections on players, coaches, games, rivalries, etc. If you're a true Badgers fan, you need to learn about Pat O'Dea, Pat Harder, Dave Schreiner, Crazylegs Hirsch, Alan Ameche, the Hard Rocks defense, Dan Lanphear, Ron Vander Kelen, Pat Richter the athlete, Dennis Lick, Ray Snell, Mike Webster, Tim Krumrie, Matt Vanden Boom, Al Toon, Ivy Williamson, Harry Stuhldreher, Milt Bruhn, Dave McClain, and the other men who made Badger football great in previous generations.

I recommend taking the time to learn UW athletics history. It does, in fact, predate Barry Alvarez and Dick Bennett.