#3: January 1, 1999, #9 Wisconsin 38, #6 UCLA 31, Rose Bowl.
"The worst team ever to play in the Rose Bowl." That was, at least according to Craig James, your 1998 Wisconsin Badgers. It was Ron Dayne's junior year. Mike Samuel was under center. Chris Chambers was an unpolished deep threat. 11-1 notwithstanding, with only a single win over a ranked team (#14 Penn State), Wisconsin wasn't supposed to be in Pasadena. But there we were. Across the field from a legitimate national title contender with Heisman hopeful Cade McKnown and playing in their home stadium. Wisconsin was a 10-point dog.
It wasn't pretty -- the defense gave up 538 yards and 31 points -- but it was enough. The Bruins had no answer for Ron Dayne, who averaged over 9 yards per carry and scored all 4 offensive touchdowns (seen here, here, here, here, and here). Late in the game, with a slight 31-28 lead, Freshman Jamar Fletcher stepped in front of DeShaun Foster on a deep route to midfield. Fletcher made the pick and followed a convoy of blockers to the house, to give the Badgers a 10-point lead with 14 minutes to play. The Badgers held on for the win. Suck it, Craig James.
I remember this game well!
A couple things. The Big11Ten (as it was back then) was odd that year. In the final poll we had:
- 11-1 #2 Ohio State
- 11-1 #6 Wisconsin
- 10-3 #12 Michigan
- 9-3 #17 Penn State
- 9-4 #24 Purdue
Ohio State's loss was an upset to MSU (Saban was there at the time). Wisconsin's was to Michigan in the Big House. Michigan's were to #2 tOSU, #22 ND, and #25 Syracuse.
The top-3 were all probably legit NC level good. After that though the drop-off was severe. PSU's three losses were to tOSU, UW, and M which is respectable but none of them were very close and Purdue won nine games largely because they somehow ducked both tOSU and M in scheduling. They lost to UW and PSU in back-to-back weeks in October and had two OOC losses (USC and ND) but they did get an impressive bowl win over #4 KSU.
Anyway, back to why I remember that game so well:
UCLA was scheduled to play an OOC game at Miami early in the season. It was postponed due to a Hurricane (a real one, not a Miami player) and they ended up moving it to Conference Championship weekend. Heading into that weekend here are the top-5 and who they were playing:
- 11-0 Tennessee vs MissSt, SECCG
- 11-0 KSU vs aTm, B12CG
- 10-0 UCLA @ Miami, FL
- 11-1 FSU - regular season complete
- 10-1 tOSU - regular season complete
As an Ohio State fan I was hoping against hope that my team could sneak into the inaugural BCSNCG but they needed all kinds of help. FSU wasn't much different than the Buckeyes. Like Ohio State, the Seminoles had pretty much dominated most of their opposition but also like the Buckeyes, they had lost inexplicably to a mediocre team (NCST in FSU's case, MSU in tOSU's case).
Since FSU wasn't playing CCG weekend the Buckeyes were stuck behind them. Thus, in order to make the BCSNCG the Buckeyes would have needed the top-3 to all lose. It almost happened:
#3 UCLA went to Miami and gave up 49 points in a 45-49 loss to the Hurricanes. Edgerrin James had around 300 yards rushing against the Bruins.
#2 KSU lost 36-33 in the B12CG.
#1 Tennessee was oh-so-close. Mississippi State held a 14-10 fourth quarter lead but Tee Martin threw two late TD passes to win it for the Volunteers.
Back to your Badgers:
I was talking to a friend who thought UCLA was just going to clobber Wisconsin and I asked him, "If UCLA can't stop Miami's rushing attack, how are they going to stop Wisconsin's?" We made a bet on the game and I happily won!
