LouisEly

NASTY!!

If we can get this ump to call a strike a strike, we'll be doing alright

As was his bench coach picking his nose after giving Greg the one finger sign.

Los is pretty full of himself

Chad Patrick bustin' it 97/98 out of the pen? Good grief.

He didn't transfer in until after spring practice, so he may have been behind in the learning curve on the offense. He also had a season-ending injury and may not have been healthy enough to participate in football activities until fall camp.

Purely subjective. I don't find anyone jumping at the Nortwestern or Rutgers or Maryland jobs because they're in the B1G. If you can find quotes from coaches that support that, I'll acknowledge. The objective part is that Oklahoma State has been a better program than UW for the last decade, and that is not debatable. What time period would be relevant for this discussion?

September is the worst. But October is 4th worst and August is in the middle of the pack.

Sell them on Facebook Marketplace. Post on social media to your friends/family that you have tickets for sale. Post on NextDoor or other local neighborhood social media sites. Tack up a sign on the bulletin board in the break room at work. And you don't have to pay seller fees that way. StubHub/Vivid Seats/etc. aren't the only way to sell your tickets.

Oklahoma State finished top 10 in 2021 and played in the Fiesta Bowl that year. They were also top 20 in 2023. Wisconsin hasn't finished in the top 25 since 2019. Oklahoma State has finished in the top 20 six times in the last 10 years, Wisconsin four. I think you're selling Oklahoma State short.

They gave a big (at the time) extension to Davante Adams after he got a serious concussion on a blatant head-hunt from a Bears linebacker. I know that Doubs has had multiple concussions, but I don't believe that either was as bad as the hit that Adams took. That being said, the science is starting to show that it's more about quantity of concussions. The fact that they have fewer draft picks over the next two years is all the more reason to extend him, one less position that they need to plan for. Remember that 3/$30M is basically baseline for any FA WR now, and pretty much all NFL contracts are structured to be 2-year contracts if need be.

A lot is spent to cater to stupid people who inherit stupid wealth.

That sounds like an execution issue, not a play-calling issue. And what's MLF supposed to say? "Yeah, Kraft screwed up by not even bothering to look where the ball was spotted which cost us several seconds in getting set, and Love screwed up by dumping the ball off to a RB who couldn't get out of bounds." Of course he's going to publicly take responsibility because he's never going to publicly throw his players under the bus. He may say something completely different privately in practice and in film review.

Agree, but I think there is another reason. Someone on the outside is going to look at this and see that a high-profile hire was only given three years and wasn't even given three full recruiting classes to rebuild the program. On top of that, the high-profile hire had to play backup QBs in most of their games because the high-profile transfer QBs they brought (bought?) were injured most of the time. Add to that being a head coach during basically the Wild West of college football with players going to the highest bidder... Is a prospective coach going to feel like he will "get a fair shake" at UW? Is a prospective coach going to feel like there is extra risk in taking the job and will have a really short leash? Increased risk needs to be countered with increased reward. A prospective coach is going to have to really want to come to UW, or is going to need to be paid more to account for the perceived increased risk of a very short leash. You don't get a better job after you get fired. Since UW has never competed for national championships, they will be on the same level as Oklahoma State or Stanford as far as program prestige and then it comes down to security and support. (Stanford's coach was fired after a short period of time, but it was for cause - bullying and belittling female staff members.)

They already have: https://uwbadgers.com/sports/football/roster/staff/marcus-sedberry/983

So did the Packers. They scored on 7 of their 10 possessions and had almost 500 total yards of offense (425 in regulation). The Bears scored on 5 out of 9 possessions (excluding the end of game) and had just under 400 yards of offense. Oh, and the Bears scored 31 points versus the Packers 37 in regulation.

I like how people think it's so easy to call plays in a game where you have about 5 seconds to decide on what play to call with trying to get personnel in and out in time for the opponent to substitute with play clock. They scored on 7 out of their 10 possessions excluding the end of the 1st half, and yet somehow the play caller is a "mental midget".

I think the main reason for why they did what they did is because of Aubrey. He's already hit from 64 this year. If they give Dallas any time, they don't need to get much yardage to give him a chance. As we saw, they didn't need much time to drive the length of the field.

That cheap owner needs to spend some money and go for it!!!

Singed my eyebrows reading the premature hot takes in this thread.

I think you can look at the pitching staffs for the first 46 and last 40 games compared to the middle 76 and come up with a fairly good explanation.

Anecdotally I'm sure this is true. Fickell was hired in late November 2022. The 2023 in-state class, which he didn't have much of a shot at anyway, wasn't good. Nate White was ranked #1 and Will McDonald #2 and they got both of them. The class of 2024 was signed in December of 2023 which means that Fickell likely started recruiting them in 2022 (or earlier) when he was at Cincinnati. That's the main reason why there are few in-state players - they had already built the relationships with out of state kids. From what I've heard, the staff wasn't real high on Sexton, Roy didn't grow up in WI (moved to WI in high school) and was indifferent and they tried to keep him but the history and relationship wasn't there, Corey Smith and Donnie Harbour were indifferent to UW and liked Franklin's "swagger", and they got Jensen (but he left), Rob Booker (medically retired), and Landon Gauthier. You've brought up Leibfried, but he was the #12 player in WI and the #69 OT overall and of the five OL they brought in the lowest ranked one was Cubberly as the #43 OT and he's starting. There just wasn't room for Leibfried with the other five OL they had. As for 2025, Flanigan and Strebig are from Catholic families and went to Catholic schools and when ND comes calling that's like a dream (plus Flanigan is a legacy at ND). Poteat wasn't coming to UW after they fired his dad, but they got Roeske (Wautoma), Grant Dean (Neenah), Cooper Catalano (Germantown, and already playing as a true FR), Torin Pettaway (Middleton), and Emmett Bork (Oconomomoc), so yes, they are giving kids from Wautoma, Neenah, Germantown, and Oconomowoc chances to earn a starting spot. As for 2026, they took Wenzel (Appleton). They weren't going to take many OL having taking a combined 10 in the last two classes. Maybe they missed on Meier, maybe he didn't want to go to a situation where there were 10 guys taken in the two classes ahead of him. Walk-ons are kind of going away with scholarship expansion to 105 and a hard roster limit of 105, so maybe that's why they aren't putting as much effort into a walk-on class.

The 80% buyout might not kick in until after his third year, this year. I've heard that the buyout "drops" to $25M in December, and the payout is then $334K/month through March 2032, or ~$4M/year. That would be offset by any salary he gets in FBS or the NFL. For reference, the Toledo head coach makes $1.1M, so that would only bring Fickell's annual buyout down to ~$3M/year. With $70M+/year in TV revenue, that shouldn't be an issue. The issue is more that if they have to wait until December, will they be able to get a coach in place by signing day and have enough time to sell kids on staying? Being a state employee, they have to follow state law in posting the position, so they can't interview behind his back and have a candidate ready to go the day after they fire him. And with the elimination of the spring portal window, they only have December and early January to bring in players.

Last night ESPN had their 30 for 30 on about "The U Part 2". After the 1994 season, Dennis Erickson left and Butch Davis was hired. Miami's foundation was already crumbling - they were banned from participating in a bowl game in the 1995 season and had 31 scholarships revoked over the next three years - but it hadn't shown up in their record yet. They were 10-2 in 1994. Three years later in 1997, Davis' team went 5-6. Fans were calling for his firing. People hired airplanes to fly over the stadium with banners that said, "From national champs to national chumps". To many fans, Davis "ruined the program". Three years later in 2000, Davis' team went 11-1 and finished #2 in the polls. Obviously a different era, different rules, but lots of similarities. The foundation was crumbling even though it hadn't shown up in the record yet. Didn't bottom out until year 3. Yes, there is the portal and NIL now, but that's no different than recruiting back then - you're still competing with everybody else for recruits, every other big school has NIL and can use the portal too, and many schools have more resources. Sure you can bring guys in via the portal, but they can leave via the portal just as well if they don't like being a backup or if someone comes along and offers more money. Point being, there are examples where it took more than three years to build a program.