When studying the schedule prior to the start of this year's season, most people felt Wisconsin's best break came in that they did not have to face Michigan. The Wolverines are the only other undefeated team in conference play. But after the first eight weeks of the season, the bye week seems just as important as not facing the Maize and Blue.
The obvious reason that the bye is so important is to get every player back to 100 percent health. Some of the Badgers' biggest contributors on both sides of the ball have been banged up over the past few weeks, and the extra week off will make sure they are ready and healthy for the game against Minnesota.
\After awhile you just get to the point where you're not the same team,"" Head Coach Barry Alvarez said. ""And we had a lot at the end of [the Northwestern] game, they were drained. So we need this week. We really need this week to get healthy.""
""Everybody is just real tired right now,"" senior wide receiver Darrin Charles said after the victory over Northwestern. ""Everyone has been playing extremely hard. This was a tougher one in the fact that most of the team looked fatigued.""
The defense needs the break more than anyone. The extra week should give senior defensive ends Erasmus James and Jonathan Welsh and freshman linebacker Reggie Cribbs time to get healthy and back into the starting lineup.
""I think everybody needed [the week off],"" defensive coordinator Bret Bielema said.
Before being injured during the Purdue game, James proved that he was not only one of the best defensive linemen in the league, but in the country.
While freshman defensive end Jamal Cooper and sophomore end Joe Monty filled in well, having the line intact for the rest of the season will be necessary for the Badgers' defense.
The offense needs the break too. Senior running back Anthony Davis continues to be banged up, but should be back and ready to run against the Gophers.
""I was very nervous playing this game without three starters, a team that's very difficult to defend, a team that's been very productive offensively and had a week off to get healthy,"" Alvarez said Saturday.
Now it is Wisconsin's turn to get that week off to get healthy and focus on the next game.
But Minnesota is not the only team on the remaining schedule that the Badgers have to worry about. Stepping away from the team's mentality a bit, after the battle for Paul Bunyan's Axe, the team has to go on the road to Michigan State and Iowa. That schedule is quite possibly the toughest of all the remaining unbeaten teams around the country.
Michigan State and Iowa are currently tied for third in the Big Ten standings, with Minnesota one game behind them, and both the Hawkeyes and Gophers are currently ranked in the Top 25.
While it may prove to be the toughest three-game stretch of the season, the Badgers know that the key to success is taking things one game at a time, just as they have done all season. If all goes well, they will prove that they deserved more respect than they got before the season began.
""The last couple years we've had higher expectations and we fell short,"" Davis said. ""All I do is look at the team that we're going to play, and I know we're playing a good Minnesota football team, so it's very easy to just focus on that.""
Just three teams stand in the way of a Big Ten title and a perfect season for Wisconsin. But those three teams represent three solid Big Ten foes and the Badgers could have asked for no better time than now to take a weekend off.
BCS complications
When the Bowl Championship Series announced its new rankings Monday, many Badgers fans did a double take. How was it possible that Utah jumped passed Wisconsin despite the fact that Wisconsin won? The answer lies within the computer systems of the BCS.
With Wisconsin at No. 6 in both the Associated Press poll and the USA Today poll and Utah being No. 9 and No. 10 respectively in each poll, the final verdict came down to the six computers.
The six computer providers are Anderson & Hester, Richard Billingsley, Colley Matrix, Kenneth Massey, Jeff Sagarin and Peter Wolfe, and each has its own mathematical formulas which include strength of schedule and home/away performance. Each of the six computers ranks its top teams from one to 25 and then each team is given points for its ranking. For example, the No. 1 gets 25 points and the No. 11 team gets 15 points. The best and worst ranking for each team is dropped and the final four rankings are added together and divided by 100 to get the final computer percentage.
Despite winning last weekend, Wisconsin dropped five spots in Sagarin's rankings and three spots in Wolfe's, mostly due to Purdue's loss.
The only ranking in which the Badgers were ranked higher than Utah is the Billingsley ranking and despite Wisconsin moving up two spots to No. 12 in the Massey rankings, Utah was ranked No. 3 in the poll.
The difference is strength of schedule. In Massey's computer rankings, Utah's schedule is No. 27 while Wisconsin's schedule is No. 88. To put things in perspective as to how much the strength of schedule goes into Massey's rankings, the No. 1 schedule belongs to North Carolina.
The Tar Heels are 3-4 this season, yet are ranked No. 23 in the Massey rankings.
So how much do the computer rankings and the BCS matter to Alvarez and the Badgers?
""I don't know who tabulates the computer polls. I don't know what data is entered,"" Alvarez said. ""I would think that the media who follows it and the coaches who certainly follow the game have a pretty good pulse on the better teams in the country and who's playing best at that particular time. I just don't know much about the computer aspect and who's doing it. I think you can, those things can be skewed very easily.""
It is pretty safe to say that the Badgers are more worried about going 1-0 than how a computer ranks their play.
To find out more about the specific computer systems and the BCS, go to bcsfootball.org.
