Exactly one year ago, I started this same column with these words: Please, let me state the obvious. If UW head coach Bret Bielema thought that taking over a program left behind by Barry Alvarez was too much pressure, then wait until he has to top the best record ever in Wisconsin football history when his team returns next fall.
If you missed the sarcasm in that sentence, then I apologize, but even with all the expectations coming into this past season, I don't think anyone expected the guy to go 13-0. Beating Illinois, Penn State and Ohio State would have been nice, but even when the team was 5-0 and ranked No. 5 in the country it was obvious the Badgers were not as good as we thought.
With that said, they should have beaten Tennessee in the Outback Bowl, and while we didn't expect you to go 13-0 Bret, we expected you to give your potential NFL and senior kicker Taylor Mehlhaff a shot to get his first game-winner. We expected you to run at least a few times on 3rd-and-short. We expected you to take some of the blame for the loss, not pin it on the officials who were from the Mountain West, not the WAC.
From the point the Badgers secured the Axe at Minnesota all the way to what seemed like 200 days later at the Outback Bowl, the one thing I gave Bielema credit for was that he would get the boys ready to play Tennessee.
No one gave his defense a chance two years prior against Auburn in the Capital One Bowl and it shocked the country by stopping the Tigers. Last year against Arkansas, the defense stopped Darren McFadden and held Felix Jones in check enough to preserve a close victory.
But Jan. 1 this season, it was clear that the boys just weren't on the same page. Four timeouts were burned because of confusion on offense. Getting the ball to Travis Beckum was just as likely as getting a stop on 3rd-and-long - it happened just twice.
But despite all of that, Wisconsin was only down 21-17 and had the ball in the red zone late in the fourth quarter.
That's when the coaching fell apart.
On 4th-and-2 Bielema could have let Mehlhaff make it a one point game. Yeah, the same kicker he has been hyping up to NFL scouts. The same kicker who in four years never got an opportunity to kick a game-winning field goal.
Instead, Bielema opts to go for the first down and instead of handing the ball off to P.J. Hill, who only had two of his 16 carries go for less than 2 yards, the Badgers roll Tyler Donovan to his left where he throws it away on fourth down. Okay, he was trying"" to get the ball to Beckum, but let's face it, he threw the ball away on fourth down.
Sure enough, the Badgers found themselves at the Tennessee 36 yard line on the next drive - still down four. Had they kicked the field goal on the last drive, Mehlhaff would have been warming up on the sideline for the perfect collegiate career ending field goal - one that all those NFL scouts would have loved to see.
But instead of Donovan looking for another 10 yards, Bielema saw his quarterback going for it all with an under thrown pass to Paul Hubbard in the end zone, which was picked off to end the game.
Of course, it was the referees fault. The WAC officials who didn't even call the game were to blame.
""I guarantee you I'm never going to schedule a game that is officiated by WAC officials,"" Bielema said. ""That's for sure.""
Well that seems a little harsh, seeing as how the officials were from the Mountain West.
Meanwhile, Phillip Fulmer took the blame for leaving freshman wide receiver Gerald Jones at quarterback on 3rd-and-7 from the Wisconsin 12 yard-line earlier in the fourth quarter. Jones only gained a yard and the Badgers blocked the subsequent field goal.
You might say it's easy to take the blame for a bad decision when you won the game. But the striking part of Fulmer's comment was that he wasn't even asked about the decision. He was asked about something completely different and brought it up himself. Most people had forgotten about the questionable call, but he took the blame for it anyway.
Meanwhile, Bielema was already on the phone with a very confused WAC commissioner. And what did Wisconsin's head coach have to say about the 4th-and-2 call?
""On third down we had made a decision that if it was 4th-and-2 or less we were going for it,"" Bielema said. ""We weren't able to execute and Tennessee did a good job.""
Sitting there listening to Fulmer glowing while Bielema criticized referees that were on the other side of the country, it was natural to think about how much things can change in a year.
We didn't expect Bielema to top his 12-1 rookie record. We didn't even expect him to make the right decision on 4th-and-short every time this season. But we did expect him to take the blame every once in a while when a gamble didn't work out.
And with 17 starters returning next season, I'm sure fans expect him to top his 9-4 sophomore record next season.
E-mail Adam at hoge@wisc.edu to discuss your thoughts on the Badgers' loss to Tennessee.
