Wow, what a 15-year run!

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Ol Badger

Wow, what a 15-year run!

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Posts: 3809

07/17/08 9:01 PM

Inside the Beltway

I have just been considering the 15 years of Badger football since the 1993 breakthrough season, and I'm a bit astounded. First look at how the Badgers have done in overall record relative to our Big Ten peers:

Ohio State: 149-38-1 .795
Michigan: 138-48 .742
Wisconsin: 128-56-4 .691
Penn State: 125-58 .683
Iowa: 99-80-1 .553
Purdue: 96-82-3 .539
Michigan State: 86-92-1 .483
Northwestern: 80-96-1 .455
Minnesota: 79-98 .446
Illinois: 67-105-1 .390
Indiana: 62-109 .363

Ohio State's record is unreal, but look at ours--just a couple of wins short of .700! If we'd had a .691 winning percentage throughout our football history, we'd be among the top ten teams all-time, that's how good the past 15 seasons have been.

To put this into context, I decided to go back from 1993 to see how many seasons it took to amass 128 wins and 56 losses.

Losses: Back to the last three games of 1986 (losses to Minnesota, OSU and MSU), so 6 seasons + 3 games.

Wins: Back to the last game of the 1961 season (win over Minnesota), so 31 seasons + 1 game.

That's right. In just 15 seasons we've won as many games as in the previous 31, plus 1. I was a junior in high school during the 1961 season. JFK was a new President. And from then all the way through 1992 the Badgers won just as many games as they have in the past 15 seasons. That takes us from Milt Bruhn, through John Coatta, John Jardine, Dave McClain, Jim Hilles, Don Morton, and Barry's first three seasons. Just wow!

Meanwhile, the losses piled up pretty quickly. All it took was Barry's first three years and Morton's three, plus the last three games under Hilles.

If this isn't the Golden Age of Badger football, I don't know when it could have been (and, yes, Padre, I know all about Phil King).

NOTE: I miscounted our losses by 1 and had some other minor errors, so had to make some slight changes above. Naturally, after doing this by hand I found a convenient site that will make these calculations for you (presumably they have correct data):

http://football.stassen.com/records/

These ARE the good old days!

Last Edited By: Ol Badger 07/17/08 11:51 PM. Edited 3 times.

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OmniOne

#1

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Posts: 727

07/17/08 9:39 PM

Hophead

Granted, starting at 1993 is a Badger-centric view. It'd probably be more unbiased to take a 10 or 25 year look at overall win-loss records.

"we the exiles spend most of our waking days plotting our return"
- Tristan, regarding the Badger diaspora from Madison

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Ol Badger

#2

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Posts: 3810

07/17/08 10:10 PM

Inside the Beltway

OmniOne wrote:
Granted, starting at 1993 is a Badger-centric view. It'd probably be more unbiased to take a 10 or 25 year look at overall win-loss records.

Well, yeah it's Badger-centric. The point is that everyone agrees 1993 was our breaktrhough season. That's why I started then. I was intrigued by just how much of a breakthrough that turned out to be. It's been a very big deal, even more than I'd realized.

Back in the late 1990s, after we'd won two straight Big Ten titles and gone 21-3, there was a long discussion on the Board over whether we now had made it into the first ranks of college football. At the time I noted that the really top programs do it decade after decade, not just for a few seasons. Well, we're up to 1 1/2 decades, and right now I'd say we're not quite in the top tier, but we're in that next eschelon. If we keep up at this pace, and somewhere along the way get an MNC, we'll really have arrived.

These ARE the good old days!

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TheMonsignor

#3

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Posts: 1713

07/17/08 10:31 PM

Phil King

And, as we all remember, during Phil King's era as Badger coach, the UW had an .851 winning percentage.

Bless the Badgers.

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Ol Badger

#4

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Posts: 3811

07/17/08 11:08 PM

Inside the Beltway

TheMonsignor wrote:
And, as we all remember, during Phil King's era as Badger coach, the UW had an .851 winning percentage.

Yeah, but some of those wins were against high schools, lol. And to think today's fans complain about Cal Poly and Citadel; at least their players are over 18.

These ARE the good old days!

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Ol Badger

#5

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Posts: 3812

07/17/08 11:56 PM

Inside the Beltway

By the way, we have the 16th-best record in all of I-A over the past 15 seasons:

Rank Team Name Winning precentage Wins Losses Ties Total games

1	Ohio State	0.79521	149	38	1	188
2	Florida	0.77749	148	42	1	191
3	Florida State	0.77513	146	42	1	189
4	Nebraska	0.76842	146	44	0	190
5t	Tennessee	0.76064	143	45	0	188
5t	Virginia Tech	0.76064	143	45	0	188
7	Texas	0.75532	141	45	2	188
8	Michigan	0.74194	138	48	0	186
9	Miami-Florida	0.74176	135	47	0	182
10	Boise State	0.72667	109	41	0	150

11	Southern Cal	0.71123	132	53	2	187
12	Auburn	0.70765	129	53	1	183
13	Georgia	0.70380	129	54	1	184
14	Kansas State	0.70161	130	55	1	186
15	Oklahoma	0.69415	130	57	1	188
16	Wisconsin	0.69149	128	56	4	188
17	Penn State	0.68306	125	58	0	183
18	Louisiana State	0.67663	124	59	1	184
19	Marshall	0.66423	91	46	0	137
20	Oregon	0.65934	120	62	0	182

These ARE the good old days!

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badgerjon66

#6

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Posts: 629

07/18/08 6:56 AM

Interesting that Nebraska is still #4 despite a couple of very poor recent seasons and that we are ahead of Penn State, whom I would guess most people assume is a better program.

Where is the fabled Notre Dame? Not in the top 20 for 15 years, but a lot of relatively prestigious bowl games during that period.

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Ol Badger

#7

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Posts: 3817

07/18/08 11:12 AM

Inside the Beltway

badgerjon66 wrote:
Where is the fabled Notre Dame? Not in the top 20 for 15 years, but a lot of relatively prestigious bowl games during that period.

Notre Dame football: Putting the LLLLLLLLL in BowL Game!

These ARE the good old days!

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madjeff66

#8

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Posts: 821

07/18/08 2:23 PM

1993 works good for the Badgers as an end point, but it makes sense in that it's Penn State's first year in the Big 10 as well.

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sackman86

#9

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Posts: 496

07/19/08 9:54 PM

In other words, OB, Barry's ego is well deserved. What he has accomplished at UW is truly remarkable. What is nearly as amazing as the turnaround under his Coaching is his understanding and courage to replace his top assistants when necessary at the end of his coaching career and wisely elevating Bret before we lost him somewhere else as a head coach.

We better all enjoy this and our BBall ride because these things are cyclical and at some point we will have some lean years again. It's sure sweet while it lasts though.

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Ol Badger

#10

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Posts: 3834

07/19/08 10:03 PM

Inside the Beltway

sackman86 wrote:

We better all enjoy this and our BBall ride because these things are cyclical and at some point we will have some lean years again. It's sure sweet while it lasts though.

See my tag line.

These ARE the good old days!

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Check For Bees

#11

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Posts: 258

07/20/08 11:01 PM

Vic Rattlehead

Ol Badger wrote:

sackman86 wrote:

We better all enjoy this and our BBall ride because these things are cyclical and at some point we will have some lean years again. It's sure sweet while it lasts though.

See my tag line.

The '01-'03 seasons were pretty brutal. Sure, there were some great moments in that stretch, but overall I would consider those years lean...especially when you consider that UW went 12-9 at home with losses to Indiana, Illinois, and UNLV.

Sports have the potential to bring enjoyment on several levels, but as long as the Badgers are not totally pathetic Wisconsin fans will enjoy following the team. In fact, in some ways rooting for a team that is mostly inept is more enjoyable than rooting for a good team because there is less at stake and thus less to get totally bummed about (Scott Thorman pretty much ruined the Iowa game for me last year). Not that I'm saying I like it when my teams are bad, but you get the point.

Well, yes, but I'm afraid I prematurely shot my wad on what was supposed to be a dry run, if you will, so now I'm afraid I have something of a mess on my hands.

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SavannahBadger

#12

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Posts: 96

07/21/08 12:17 AM

Ol Badger wrote:
By the way, we have the 16th-best record in all of I-A over the past 15 seasons:

Rank Team Name Winning precentage Wins Losses Ties Total games

16 Wisconsin 0.69149 128 56 4 188

19 Marshall 0.66423 91 46 0 137

Hasn't this matchup been underestimated in our OOC schedule this year? or is Marshall coming off a really bad year? Seems like this was a GREAT matchup when it was scheduled 8 years ago.

wiggle wiggle womp, wiggle wiggle wump, wiggle wiggle ooh wah whooo

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Ol Badger

#13

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Posts: 3850

07/21/08 8:57 AM

Inside the Beltway

SavannahBadger wrote:

Ol Badger wrote:
By the way, we have the 16th-best record in all of I-A over the past 15 seasons:

Rank Team Name Winning precentage Wins Losses Ties Total games

16 Wisconsin 0.69149 128 56 4 188

19 Marshall 0.66423 91 46 0 137

Hasn't this matchup been underestimated in our OOC schedule this year? or is Marshall coming off a really bad year? Seems like this was a GREAT matchup when it was scheduled 8 years ago.

Yeah, Marshall was a thundering success when this game was scheduled. They had been in the I-AA Southern Conference for a number of years, and in their last six seasons in that division they made it to the Championship Game five times, winning twice, and to the Semi-Finals once. Then they moved up to I-A in the MAC and went to the Conference Championship Game the first six years, winning five times! Their records over those 12 years:

91: 11-4 (lost I-AA Championship Game)
92: 12-3 (I-AA Champions)
93: 11-4 (lost I-AA Championship Game)
94: 12-2 (lost I-AA Semi-final Game)
95: 12-3 (lost I-AA Championship Game)
96: 15-0 (I-AA Champions)
97: 10-3 (MAC Champions)
98: 12-1 (MAC Champions)
99: 13-0 (MAC Champions)
00: 8-5 (MAC Champions)
01: 11-2 (lost MAC Championship Game)
02: 11-2 (MAC Champions)
03: 8-4
04: 6-6

As you can see, they trailed off at the end there, and that trend continued once they left for C-USA:

05: 4-7
06: 5-7
07: 3-9

They're not the program they used to be, and it's not simply because they stepped up by joining C-USA--the decline had already set in before they left the MAC. Coach Bob Pruett, who had led the team for nine of the above seasons, retired after 2004; he was replaced by Mark Snyder. In the late 1990s they had Chad Pennington at QB, which certainly didn't hurt their success ratio, lol.

These ARE the good old days!

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Strange Brew eh

#14

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Posts: 357

07/21/08 10:12 AM

Part of their success was that as a I-AA team players who transferred from a I-A school could play immediately. They used that along with the plan to be in I-A the following year for players who still wanted to play I-A ball and transfer and not sit out a year. This along with Pennington and Randy Moss got them some wins right away in I-AA and they were able to play that for a few years.

I'd also guess that WVU success the last few years has hurt their depth.

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NumenLumen

#15

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Posts: 2011

07/21/08 10:23 AM

"Most men are pigs, but I think in a much more subtle way than we're given credit for."

"In the late 1990s they had Chad Pennington at QB, which certainly didn't hurt their success ratio, lol."

Pennington was succeeded by Byron Leftwich, who was also a heckuva collegiate QB.

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Ol Badger

#16

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Posts: 3855

07/21/08 10:34 AM

Inside the Beltway

NumenLumen wrote:
"In the late 1990s they had Chad Pennington at QB, which certainly didn't hurt their success ratio, lol."

Pennington was succeeded by Byron Leftwich, who was also a heckuva collegiate QB.

Yes, I should have added that.

As to StrangeBrew's comment about how WVU's success might have hurt Marshall's recruiting: They've always played second fiddle to WVU in the state, losing badly in four very early meetings (1911-23). But their first game in I-A in 1997 was at WVU, and they made a game of it, finally losing 42-31. The two schools are in the third year of a seven-year deal. It was big for Marshall to get WVU on their schedule, and when they played in Huntington last year there was a lot of anticipation. The air went out of that bubble, however, as WVU rolled to a 48-23 win (after winning the 2006 game in Morgantown, 42-10). I'd say Marshall is to WVU what MSU was to Michigan before MSU joined the Big Ten.

These ARE the good old days!

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