Re: 2013 DI BCS Thread: Thorthu Thame ish bacth!
First of all, him playing and coaching at Iowa has nothing to do with what I'm saying. I liked to rip on him as much as anybody! My whole point is that he was a winner, and regardless of his perception, he was a good football coach. It seems like there is this false sense of hatred towards the guy when he put a consistent winner on the field.
Yes, a bare cupboard. Andersen walked into a great situation and his development of players wasn't hugely tested yet. This will be the case next season. Let's talk about losing 7 of 11 starters on defense, including Borland, Armstrong, and Allen. In addition, on the offensive side of the ball, the badgers lose both their starting TEs, White, and most importantly Jerad Abbrederis, the only wideout who has been a consistent playmaker for them. Thier top 4 pass catchers this season are gone next year, with the next two having 86 and 72 yards through 8 games. Plus, Melvin Gordon could jump ship to the NFL.
Bret Bielema was 68-23 at Wisconsin. That's a .739 winning percentage. Barry was 118-74-4. That's a .667 percentage. Barry was better in bowl games, which could be the biggest knock on Bret, but Bielema led them to three straight B1G titles. Wisconsin has inherent recruiting disadvantages, similar to Iowa, both of which need to find and develop talent into "diamonds in the rough". Andersen may continue the trend at Wisconsin, and I think he will; but it remains to be seen.
My whole point is that Bielema did a hell of a lot of good for UW, while many perceive him to be a bad coach and were ecstatic when he left. Three years from now, if the Badgers have a stretch similar to Iowa's current 3 year stretch, Badger fans will be scratching their heads saying, "what was wrong with Bielema again?" I don't forsee that happening, but outside of struggling a bit in bowl games, Bielema was a pretty **** good coach.
There's nothing "false" about it. People don't like the guy due to his off the field d-baggery and his bowl game failures as well as a few pretty memorable late game, game management failures.
I saw him more than once (twice, actually) in bars making a meathead fool of himself. Once when he was d-coordinator on a Thursday night till bar time and then we went to Northwestern two days later and they put up 50+ on us. The other was in Dotty's when he was head coach where he was holding court in a booth, hammered and saying things like, "You know how much I make? and "You know who I am?"
Those are the ones I witnessed and I've heard other stories from friends and people (friends) within the department. This was "normal" behavior for him.
As far as losing a bunch of starters, you think we haven't had that before in the past 20 years? It's normal college football except for the handful of elite programs. Having to replace that many players doesn't concern me as a sufficient number of good players want to play here and always will. The program is established and I wouldn't quite compare us to Iowa. I don't believe that Iowa is a peer - next step down the ladder - sorry.
And Andersen stepped into a good situation? So did Bret. It's not like Bielema had to rebuild and in addition, he had Paul Chryst as his OC for most of his time here - the guy that most of us attribute our success to and had the timing been better, would have liked as our head coach, both in 06 and before they got Andersen.
3 Big Ten titles did you say? There's an awfully big asterisk on that third one, don't you think? Big Ten titles are not unprecedented around here anyway. Losing back to back to back Rose Bowls is though. Sure, Barry was at the helm for the third one, but he took over a team that really didn't deserve to be there and put up a decent showing with them.
Finally, Bielema has yet to prove what he can do as a head coach when he isn't handed the reigns of an existing solid program. He'll show what he's made of if he can make Arkansas competitive in the SEC. Time will tell there. I wouldn't bet on it though.
If Andersen fails, which I don't think he will, but if he does, we'll go get ourselves another quality guy and no one will pine for the days of Mr. B. I've never heard anybody say they miss Alvarez - someone who actually accomplished things here - so who's gonna miss Meathead?
It's far more likely, imo, that Mr. B is looking for a job 3 years from now (or sooner) than it is that we're wishing we had him back.