Cheesehead Craig
Posts: 967
Joined: 7/30/2007
From: The Frozen Tundra
Status: offline
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ORIGINAL: Jim Frenette
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ORIGINAL: TJSweens
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ORIGINAL: Karl H
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ORIGINAL: Lynn G.
Was Alvarez's recruiting and coaching just so good that they turned things around? I'm thinking it just might come down to that. And of course once you start winning, recruiting becomes easier and the stands start to fill up.
I'm not sure on the recruiting part. Wisconsin's recruiting classes are typically dominated with 3 star players. They normally end up with more 2 star recruits than 4 & 5's put together in a given year. Actually, their classes look much more similar to Brewsters classes than an Ohio State or Michigan.
Of course it's always possible that the Wisconsin staff are smarter than Rivals & Scout, but I think they are just good at signing the right players for their kind of system.
Yah, my recollection is that Alverez never pulled in elite recruiting classes. Pretty much middle of the pack, but they fit the system and were well coached in that system.
And they had a much bigger football budget and able to keep good coaches around. I think we would have to see what the budget was before Alvarez. I do know the President that hired him who is now at Miami made it a point to make the team better. I can't think of her name but she was in Clintons administration
Being a UW grad and attending the university just before Barry got hired and was also there for the first Rose Bowl season, I'll give you my take.
First it started off with Donna Shalala being hired as the Chancellor. She then went out and got Barry Alvarez from ND as she wanted someone from a winner and they fit the bill. The athletic department was losing money at that time (a lot), in fact they had to cut men's baseball as that was just a money pit. So there really wasn't a whole lot of positives going on for the athletic department.
Barry never did get a great class. You are correct that it was mostly 3 star players with the spattering of 2 and the rare 4. The 4s were usually OL which has been the defining characteristic of WI football that Barry instilled. Barry knew that with a great OL, your offense could do a lot.
What he excelled at though was that he got a good coaching staff around him and got those kids to play above their ability (if that makes sense). He got the max out of a lot of his players. He knew his limitations and the value of having quality coaches around him.
One very important fact though was he never changed his philosophy - The Badgers are a power running team, Period. He went and got players that wanted to play in that offense and had the right tools to do so. When things didn't work out as planned at times, he didn't decide to change things, he stuck with what his team was built for.
Shalala made the perfect hire and Barry brought home the rest.
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RE: Gopher Football - 
. That was brutal last weekend, even for UofM standards.
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