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.
As Mark Hasty mentioned Friday, there is much pressure on the Wisconsin Badgers football team this fall. After a disappointing season a year ago, the heat is on to prove it was nothing but a fluke.
To do so, Wisconsin will rely, in large part, on a "new" starting offensive backfield in 2009. 2008's starting running back, P.J. Hill, is gone. Also gone is the guy who started the season as the top quarterback, Allan Evridge.
It's barely spring here in the Midwest but spring football is well under way, and there's abundant intrigue in the Big Ten conference. Coming off what seems like the 46th consecutive disappointing bowl season, including a Rose Bowl where Penn State's Daryll Clark (right) did his best but the Nittany Lions still couldn't beat Southern Cal, nobody will be expecting much from the conference or its teams when fall rolls around. Somebody has to win it, however, and now is when the jockeying for position really begins.
In the first installment of the end-of-season report card on the Big Ten, we looked at the schools in the first half of the alphabet. Know what letter is in the first half of the alphabet? That's right. F. But then, all the other grade letters are in the first half of the alphabet too.
Even though it wasn't a great year overall for the conference, there were plenty of bright points and hopeful signs and "wait until next year" moments which should have Big Ten fans excited for next season. Either that, or we'll all look like Charlie Brown did five seconds after Lucy teed up the football. But I digress. Let's take a look at the teams in the second drawer of the Big Ten file cabinet, shall we?
RIGHT: Brian Hartline, the harbinger of Spartan doom.
Look, I tried to warn you. I told you last week that Michigan State just didn't have enough defense to contain the Buckeyes. The only thing that shocked me about the outcome of that game was how easy it was for Ohio State. Clearly, I failed to consider the possibility that ur-conservative Jim Tressel might start letting Terrelle Pryor throw deep. Clearly, neither did Mark Dantonio, who probably went into his office after the game and knocked all the stuff off his shelves.
Tressel did it the way you're supposed to do it. He used the running abilities of Pryor and Beanie Wells as bait. Once the Spartans were forced to stick close to the line of scrimmage lest they give up another 20-yard (or more) run, Pryor hit Brian Hartline on a 56 yard pass. That marked the official beginning of the "we don't know what to do next" phase for Sparty. Enter fumbles and interceptions; exit, Sparty's hopes of being a dark horse.
The Spartans get to recoup against a doddering Michigan team which once again wasted a good half of football in order to become the latest thing stuck to the bottom of Joe Paterno's shoe. The Buckeyes move on, too, for their second Clash of the Titans remake of the season.
These are unsteady days here in Wisconsin. The Badgers are on a three-game skid which includes a loss to Michigan that grows less explicable every week. The Brewers made the playoffs for the first time since the early years of the Reagan administration, only to get blown out by the Phillies. Worst of all, last week Aaron Rodgers got hurt on the same day Brett Favre threw for six touchdowns.
The Badgers are a team in disarray. A month ago they were a consensus top-ten team and people were praising them for a gutty win over Fresno State. A month ago nearly everyone thought that Bret Bielema's team was the only thing standing between Ohio State and the Big Ten title. A month ago, everybody was wrong about the Badgers.
Blame is like fruitcake: Somehow, it always seems like there's more than enough to go around. This week's designated hate sink is woebegone quarterback Allan Evridge. He was beyond dreadful last night. His first touchdown run as a Badger (he started his career at Kansas State, where Bielema used to coach) was nullified by his passing statistics: 2 of 10 for 50 yards. One touchdown. One interception. No wonder the UW faithful cheered backup Dustin Sherer when he came in halfway through the third quarter.
RIGHT: Let's face it, this is what everybody's talking about in the Big Ten this week.
We're now two weeks into the conference season and already things are starting to sort themselves out. It's clear that Penn State and Ohio State are going to duke it out for the conference title and a Rose Bowl berth, unless Penn State wins out and gets some help from the Big XII and SEC. It's clear that Illinois, Michigan State, and (probably) Northwestern constitute the conference's second tier. Just below them, put Minnesota (gadzooks, how long has it been since you could put the Gophers ahead of anybody in this conference?) and ... yeesh. Is Minnesota all alone in the third tier?
That leaves us with five teams who right now are fighting for one bowl slot, unless two Big Ten teams wind up in the BCS. Early estimates would favor Wisconsin, though it's starting to look like the Badgers may have been overhyped. (I'll save you the trouble, SEC fan: "All teams in the Big Ten are overhyped!" Oh, look, none of your teams have beaten Vanderbilt!)
Iowa is a strange case, as usual. The Hawkeyes have been more unlucky than awful in their three-game skid, but there aren't any easy games left, except maybe this week. Purdue, Indiana, and Michigan? Stink, stank, and stunk.
ABOVE: Wisconsin's Jonathan Casillas couldn't catch the above quarterback, who is not John Elway. Perhaps if Casillas had a motorized vehicle of some sort ...
Okay, I know it's still quite early in the season, but I think we've seen the Horrible Pants-Blasting Loss of the Year. Not to take anything away from the Wolverines, but when you look at the box score from last Saturday's Wisconsin/Michigan game, you can't help but come away thinking, "How on Earth did the Badgers lose that game?" Up 19-0 at halftime against a team that had only scored 19 points once in three games, with a clock-gobbling running game and a usually stifling defense ... and they gacked.
Sure, there are some good reasons why they lost. Allan Evridge is an inexperienced quarterback. Then again, he's more experienced than Steven Threet, who looked like John freakin' Elway in the fourth quarter. (Okay, he looked like Elway would have looked if Elway had been able to run. I haven't forgotten all the O.J. Simpson jokes, you know.) Again, you have to give Michigan credit for doing what it took to win that game ... but how did Wisconsin lose it? You can only reach one conclusion: Pants-blast.
Other teams whose lower body laundry you wouldn't have wanted to do last week: Indiana, Iowa, and Purdue, who I think became the first team ever to not intercept Jimmy Clausen. How will these teams rebound this week? Hint: like a dead cat.
Wisconsin linebacker Jonathan Casillas is due in court Friday to face DUI and other charges related to an August 24 incident, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. Casillas was pulled over by university police while driving his moped with a passenger on it. His preliminary blood alcohol level was .15, almost twice Wisconsin's .08 limit.
Badger coach Bret Bielema told the Wisconsin State Journal that he has already disciplined Casillas and the linebacker will not face additional disciplinary measures. Casillas will not miss any games due to jail time, either; the worst penalty he can face is a $300 fine, a $355 surcharge, and a nine-month suspension of his driver's license.
Now, there's absolutely nothing funny about drunk driving, which kills about 13,000 people a year in the United States, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Casillas is lucky he and his passenger weren't hurt and didn't hurt anybody. And I know, gas is quite expensive these days. But ... come on. A moped?
With a passenger?
At least we know he wasn't speeding.
This has to be the most embarrassing college football player incident since Kansas's Dion Rayford went batcakes over a missing chalupa and got stuck in the drive-thru window at a Taco Bell. Why do I have a feeling that the bulk of Casillas's in-house punishment involved having to endure the hoots of laughter as the details of his incident became known to his teammates?
"You guys in the offseason are going to give me some questions about scheduling and different things like that," Bielema said. "I guarantee you I'm never going to schedule a game that's officiated by WAC officials, that's for sure."
That was said in the aftermath of Wisconsin's curiously-officiated loss against Tennessee in the Outback bowl, but there's just one issue: it was a Mountain West crew that worked the game. Actually, two issues: Wisconsin had already signed up for a road game against WAC power Fresno State for this year.
Well, Bielema was right to be suspicious, because late in the Fresno State game he got absolutely hosed by a review:
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.
As Mark Hasty 
It's barely spring here in the Midwest but spring football is well under way, and there's abundant intrigue in the Big Ten conference. Coming off what seems like the 46th consecutive disappointing bowl season, including a Rose Bowl where Penn State's 
In 
Every Thursday, 
These are unsteady days here in Wisconsin. The Badgers are on a three-game skid which includes a loss to Michigan that grows less explicable every week. The Brewers made the playoffs for the first time since the early years of the Reagan administration, only to get blown out by the Phillies. Worst of all, last week 
Every Thursday, 
Wisconsin linebacker Jonathan Casillas is due in court Friday to face DUI and other charges related to an August 24 incident, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel 
