Everyone has heard the numbers: UW-Madison is the third biggest party school in the country according to The Princeton Review; Madison is the best college sports town according to \Sports Illustrated On Campus"" and Camp Randall is the eighth toughest college football stadium according to EA Sports.
All of these factors will once again come together this Saturday as the Central Florida rolls in to kick off the college football season at Camp Randall.
For many of you freshmen, Saturday may be a day of firsts. Maybe it will be your first game at Camp Randall or maybe even your first football game. It could also be the first time you drink your breakfast (and I'm not talking about Red Bull), your first multi-story beer bong as you walk to the game, or your first ""Jump Around.""
For the rest of us it has just become part of the routine.
Football Saturdays are holidays here in Madison. They are the only days where you can be awakened by the sound of a band playing at seven in the morning and not be upset. When else are you going to consume brats and beer for breakfast, lunch AND dinner? And when else will you have the chance to paint your half-naked body red and white and head to a game (whether it's 60 degrees or 60 below zero) to join thousands of others dressed just like you.
But while I enjoy the revelry just as much as anyone, I cannot help but feel a bit disheartened. It's hard not to feel as though something is missing.
Since I was eight years old I remember watching most of the Badger games on TV or catching the game on the radio. Over that time I watched Barry Alvarez build a program to national prominence. I saw the Badgers go to three Rose Bowl victories in seven years, including back-to-back wins in 1999 and 2000, and dreamt of the time when I would get my chance to follow them to Pasadena.
A Sun Bowl, a year without a bowl, an Alamo Bowl and a Music City Bowl later that dream is starting to fade. Once mentioned in the same sentence as Ohio State and Michigan, Wisconsin is now mentioned in the same sentence as Iowa and Purdue as teams that wish they were Ohio State and Michigan.
I know those teams had Ron Dayne, but Anthony Davis is no slouch. Brooks Bollinger was just a freshman when UW took home the roses following the '99 season, perhaps sophomore John Stocco can do the same in his first year starting at quarterback!
There aren't many people out there giving the team a shot this year, and with a 9-15 conference record over the past three years, who could blame them? This leaves the door wide open for the Badgers to overachieve and prove everyone wrong. Maybe it won't be the Rose Bowl this year, but I've got two or three years left here, and I'm not giving up hope on a trip out West.
Nashville and San Antonio were fun but I hear Pasadena is beautiful in January.
ejschmoldt@wisc.edu.
