Wisconsin Badgers Football - Barry Alvarez and the Badger Revival - Sports

Wisconsin Badgers fans know all too well the tumultuous history that has often accompanied their beloved football program. The Wisconsin teams have managed to win more than 600 games, but have also endured lengthy periods in which success was elusive. One example of their times of woe came on the heels of a terrific season in 1901. That season was followed by a thirty-five year history of decline that had but one bright spot: the 1912 undefeated campaign. Years later, they would find themselves in the midst of another mediocre era, after losing their 1962 Rose Bowl Game. Thirty years of agony would follow that loss. When Barry Alvarez was brought in to coach the team in 1990, there were few who seriously expected the program to turn around.Alvarez' coaching pedigreeBarry Alvarez had a strong pedigree in college football when he first arrived at Wisconsin. As a player in the 1960s, he was coached by the great Bob Devaney. He later tried his hand as a high school coach in bo th Nebraska and Iowa, until he was given an assistant coaching position at the University of Iowa under the legendary Hawkeye coach Hayden Fry. A brief tenure as an assistant at the University of Notre Dame completed the Alvarez journey to the Badgers' front door. His arrival at the school in 1990 was to be the beginning of the Badger revival - though the first three seasons of play gave little indication of the outstanding results that would soon follow.A slow startAs often happens with new coaches, the early years of the Alvarez era were something less than spectacular. In fact, the first season's campaign saw the Badgers lose all but one of their eleven games. The next two seasons were slightly better, with a five win, six loss record in each. Still, there were already grumblings that the team was not progressing quickly enough. That all began to change as the 1993 season began.Three Rose BowlsThe '93 campaign saw an impressive Badger team charge through the Big Ten Confe rence by winning 10 of their 12 games, with one loss and one tie. It also saw them head to the Rose Bowl - where they had played and lost three times before in their history. Under Alvarez' leadership, though, this Badger team not only played well but won the Rose Bowl and ended up being ranked number six in the final AP poll of the season. The 1994 season was an 8 game season, and resulted in a postseason victory in the Hall of Fame Bowl. Over the next eleven seasons, the Badgers would suffer only two losing seasons, and would repeatedly receive invites to various bowl games. Most impressively, the program returned to the Rose Bowl after the 1998 and 1999 seasons, winning both. When he left the program after the 2005, the most successful coach in the program's history left behind one unassailable fact: Wisconsin football was back at last!

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