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If there was ever the right time to attend a Homecoming game, this was it. I grew up in Wisconsin and it’s still where I instinctively refer to as “home.” And I attended college for three years at Indiana University. So for stepping out to do live coverage of football in Big Ten Country, a UW-IU game on Homecoming in Madison was surely an appropriate place to start.
There is very little to match the festive atmosphere that accompanies a game at Camp Randall. The landscape doesn’t lend itself to easy tailgating—make no mistake about, it wouldn’t be Wisconsin without the grills out--but it’s not like at Penn State where there are large amounts of open space to set up. People have to make do in more cramped conditions. But the electricity that exists within the neighborhoods and the bars on game day morning is hard to match.
Kickoff was at 11 AM, a time slot created so ESPN can televise a Big Ten game and still have a noon start in the Eastern markets. This is an area where adjusting kickoff times to television has hurt the outside-the-stadium atmosphere. Living in the Eastern time zone, as I do, noon kickoffs are great if you’re watching on the tube. You get enough time to get stuff done in the morning and still have some afternoon remaining when the game’s over. But when the game is in the Central time zone, it wreaks havoc with tailgating plans. Our house is about a one-hour drive from Camp Randall. Given that we are located between Milwaukee and Madison (in Oconomowoc, for readers who may be familiar with the area), this isn’t an incredibly long distance, given the number of Badger alumni that drive even further from Milwaukee.
But you take that one hour and add on the additional time it takes dealing with game-day traffic and finding parking. By the time all’s said and done, you’re leaving the house at eight o’clock just to have a minimal amount of time to cook up a burger. Wisconsin has seemingly owned the eleven o’clock time slot in recent years—they’re always good enough to draw the attention of television, but never quite good enough to be a regular in the ABC slot at 2:30 CST. And the tailgate atmosphere here has suffered for it. It’s time for the Big Ten to ensure that no game will kick off later then noon local time, not noon as defined by the Eastern media establishment.
The game itself was an interesting matchup on paper, although it didn’t generate the same energy among the fans and assembled press corps that it did for me. The students took a while filling up their seats and the press box was not well-populated. Given that most of Indiana was more concerned about the recruiting allegations surrounding Kelvin Sampson then about their football team’s push for a bowl bid, this was not surprising. In addition to the early start time and the students probably still sweating out their hangovers, Wisconsin was still a little down after back-to-back losses at Illinois & Penn State had taken them out of Rose Bowl contention. Beating Northern Illinois the previous week was nice, but not anything that was going to stir anyone’s juices. A scout from the Alamo Bowl was on hand, and travel information to San Antonio was available at each media person’s assigned seat. I guess that’s a hint as to where the Badgers might be spending the week after Christmas.
Indiana was playing to make itself bowl-eligible. However, they would still have three more shots after this, two of them against Ball State and Northwestern, so a sense of urgency wasn’t there. But the previous week, their offensive tandem of Kellen Lewis at quarterback and James Hardy at receiver had lit up Penn State and its talented cornerback Justin King. I wondered who would win the matchup between Hardy and UW’s highly touted Jack Ikegwuonu. Another key question would be if Indiana’s senior defensive lineman could slow down P.J. Hill and preventing Wisconsin from controlling the game on the ground.
Both questions were answered early. The Badgers pounded Indiana on the ground. On virtually every play the surest way to discern the direction of the run wasn’t to follow the ball—it was just to watch which way the Indiana nose tackle was turned, as it was always opposite the hole. Injuries forced the Hoosiers to use several players inside, but the result was always the same. Wisconsin pounded their way to a quick 17-0 lead before we were even settled in.
On the other side of the ball, Indiana made no attempt to get Hardy in the offense. On virtually every play, the receiver just made a few token steps off the line of scrimmage, and that was it. Andrew Means got the bulk of the catches. But while he had nice numbers, he’s the kind of player who can only be valuable if he’s in a subordinate role—if he’s a means to an end, if I might be pardoned a bad pun. Wisconsin was in no danger of losing their lead if IU didn’t go down the field to Hardy. And they never did.
Wisconsin did lose Hill to a leg injury in the second quarter and without him the running game bogged down. Indiana had also made a defensive adjustment, shifting a player off the nose and playing their lineman over the guards. Because both changes happened simultaneously, it was tough to tell which one was most important, or if it was both.
The game meandered through the second and third quarters, and UW finally pulled away for a 33-3 win that was every bit as easy as the score makes it sound. Indiana coach Bill Lynch was gracious to both the victorious Badgers as well to his own fallen team in the press conference afterward. In spite of some complaints from assembled media that the session was cut short too quickly, Coach Lynch struck me as a man of great kindness. While it’s risky to read too much about a person into one postgame session, I was pleased to see his team get their needed victory for bowl-eligibility the following week against Ball State.
No one who attends Wisconsin football games regularly ever misses the famous “Fifth Quarter.” That’s when the band comes out and puts on a show. The UW band is renowned for their spontaneous enthusiasm and an essential part of the fun is when they break off into small groups and just do whatever they feel like. I wonder how much of this is truly spontaneous—Winston Churchill is said to have spent the better part of his public life composing all his spontaneous speeches—but it comes off that way, and it’s a reason why very few UW fans ever left a game early, even in the dark ages before Barry Alvarez.
The postgame parties could take place in the glow of victory—not that it mattered. Wisconsin students are notorious for not letting things like wins and losses, or even classwork, get in the way of what needs to be done at the bars. The bars are packed wall-to-wall up and down State Street and around the campus on an afternoon and night like tonight.
It was time to call it a day. A friend’s wife had delivered a baby during the game, calling him back to the house minutes after he’d left for Camp Randall to take her to the hospital. And so I went to the hospital to visit and watch a little bit of Penn State-Ohio State and the World Series that night. It was a great end to a great day. A football game at Camp Randall is exciting for anyone in any circumstances. For me, though I never attended a day’s worth of classes at Madison, it felt like coming home.
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