FanHouse Barry Alvarez

Every Thursday, Pickin' On the Big Ten previews the upcoming weekend's action in The Conference Everybody Loves to Hate.

Oh, it's here. It's finally, finally, finally here. No more depth-chart speculation, no more arguing about who is the best SAM in the conference, and only one more week until the game that will either restore the Big Ten's swagger or send it sobbing into the bathroom. The teams are ready, the stadiums are ready (well, except for Minnesota's), the cheerleaders and bands are ready, the vast charcoal forests of northern Michigan have been shaved to the ground, the beer cows of Wisconsin have been "milked" into millions of brown glass bottles ... it's time for some football, y'all.

So, grab a beverage, throw some cheddarwurst on the grill, and let's take a look at this weekend's action-packed slate of games, shall we?

Every week during college football's endless offseason, The FanHouse Walk will put last week's stories to bed and deliver the essentials to bridge that agonizing space between now and September.

Good Cop Bad Cop -- The American Football Coaches Association is trying to inject some sportsmanship into an opening week pregame near you. The AFCA has put forth a non-binding proposal that teams shake hands en masse before each Week 1 game, roughly four minutes before spending the next four hours in violent, competitive, collision-heavy contact.

Kudos, I guess. It's well-meaning and doesn't necessarily do any harm, but this seems more for show than sincerity given the necessarily violent nature of the game. As AFCA honcho Grant Teaff says, "It is symbolic, but it is, we think, a very important initiative." Meanwhile, the NCAA rules committee has cooked up its own, much more dangerous plan to counter unsportsmanlike play.

After a wildly successful start to his coaching tenure at Wisconsin, Bret Bielema had a rough go of things in 2008. The Badgers started well, but slumped badly at midseason, lost three insanely close games where they blew late leads, and needed three missed extra points to beat a FCS team in their season finale. That all preceded the Badgers getting absolutely thrashed by Florida State in the Champs Sports Bowl.

These problems have led to some Badger fans grumbling about Bielema's job status. While athletic director Barry Alvarez didn't want to formally place the coach on the hot seat, his comments paint a different picture.

Barry Alvarez (pictured right), the former head football coach and current athletic director at the University of Wisconsin, is definitely a glass-half-full guy. Most athletic directors would be sweating if their season ticket renewals fell from 99% of current ticket holders to 94% in a single season, which is what has happened, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

From the outside it might seem like the football team's recent squishiness might have something to do with this sudden dropoff in renewals. The Badgers have stepped back a bit every year under head coach Bret Bielema, with last year's squad barely breaking .500 and getting stomped flat by a toothless Florida State team, 42-13, in the Champs Sports Bowl.

Nope, says Alvarez. Taking a page from Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign manual, he says it's the economy, stupid. That's why more than 3,000 season ticket holders aren't going to re-up to watch the 2009 Badgers.

It's not just a Wisconsin thing. Numerous football programs from BCS conferences have made a bad habit of scheduling cupcakes in recent years. Of course, Wisconsin has been as bad an offender as anyone. They play a Division I-AA (er, FCS) team every season, and sometimes they manage to almost lose.

Former football coach and current athletic director Barry Alvarez seems hell-bent on changing the perception that Wisconsin doesn't play anyone outside of the Big Ten schedule.

Much like Congress, University of Wisconsin football players are alleged to have mis-appropriated funds intended to assist them with housing and food. Some are alleged to have diverted some of their housing stipends to other purchases, particularly moped bikes and other vehicles. Apparently Madison has a spate of very large men riding around on very small bikes down its streets like a scene out of the narrow corridors of some remote Italian villas.

Notably, senior linebacker Jonathan Casillas explained to WKOW news how the practice worked. "Once you get to your second, third year, you start learning what's cheap (housing), what's expensive. Maybe live with somebody and split the rent. And hopefully you can get a moped, or maybe even a car. Some people got cars." The reported monthy stipend at Wisconsin averaged out to $1,009 a month.

From the "it would be funny, except it's not" department: A former Wisconsin Badger football player was arrested Friday on charges of stalking and telephone harassment. Leonard Taylor, a defensive back who played for Barry Alvarez from 1995 to 1998, left dozens of messages at the UW athletic department, including one in which he threatened to kill Alvarez and his family,


The calls began in early September but ended when Madison police called Taylor and told him to quit. However, the calls resumed on November 24, which led to Taylor's arrest.

The latest calls also included references to tennis player Maria Sharapova, whom Taylor blamed for some of his difficulties. Taylor said he wanted to marry Sharapova, which isn't that unusual a thing for guys his age to say. Or younger guys and older guys, for that matter. He also said he wanted to kill Sharapova and her family as well.

You might figure there's more to this story, stuff that makes it less comical and much sadder, and you'd be right.

FanHouse is counting down the 10 best, 10 worst, and 10 weirdest moments in Big Ten football history.

There are a lot of firsts and onlys on this list, but this one surprised even me. Only one Big Ten team has ever won back-to-back Rose Bowls, and it didn't happen way back in the 1950s. In fact, it happened less than ten years ago. When the Wisconsin Badgers won in 1999 and 2000, they became the first and so far only Big Ten team to do so.

Now, it's important to remember that prior to the early 1970s the Big Ten had a rule forbidding any team from going to the Rose Bowl in two consecutive seasons. Once that rule was lifted, Ohio State went to Pasadena four straight years (1973 through 1976) but only won once, in 1974. Not to be outdone, Michigan then went to, and lost, three straight Rose Bowls themselves. Throughout the 1980s no Big Ten team would make consecutive West Coast swings. Michigan split their 1993 and 1994 Rose Bowls, but it looked as if no Big Ten team would ever win the thing in back-to-back years

But they didn't count on ... one man.

You may remember the tale of Wisconsin running back Lance Smith. In it we heard of Smith's frugal outlook towards dating, and of his penchant for women's shoes. Particularly the part where he hits his girlfriend, takes some money from her, and then for good measure takes her shoes. And they say romance is dead. Not in Madison, Wisconsin it isn't.

Smith was suspended indefinitely by the team, and this morning before their first practice, Smith was re-instated by Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez.

Sophomore Lance Smith released a statement through the university apologizing for his actions during a July 14 dispute in which he allegedly pushed his girlfriend.

"I first want to apologize to my girlfriend, my coaches, my teammates, our fans and the university community," Smith said. "My actions did not measure up to the standards we have here at Wisconsin."

Smith then thanked God that he's still in college, and not in the NFL, where Roger Goodell would have had him shot by now.

Though just because Smith is back on the field, it doesn't mean he's free of other consequences. He's still got to deal with that whole battery, theft, and false imprisonment deal. If Smith is found guilty on all charges he will face up to a total of a year in prison, and $11,000 in fines.

That's a whole lot of shoes.