This time I focus on the final founding conference member still playing college football (except Illinois, which I am saving for the end. University of Chicago, the final founding member of the conference, no longer fields a football team) -- Wisconsin.
Wisconsin was the most successful school in the earliest years. The Badgers won the first two conference titles, in 1896 and 1897. They were successful before that, though. The team started play in 1889, and the following year they registered what is still the largest margin of victory in Division IA football history -- a 106-0 victory over the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Surprisingly, they suffered their worst loss in school THE VERY NEXT WEEK, losing to Minnesota 63-0. That ignited what is the second longest football rivalry in college football, and the longest in Division IA, what is now called the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS).
Wisconsin won two more conference titles in the first ten years of the conference, then captured the 1912 title. After that, it was forty years until their next title, a share of the 1952 title with Purdue. Their next outright title was 1959.
The Badgers play in Camp Randall Stadium, which is the oldest continuous-use stadium in the conference. Camp Randall hosted its first football game in 1895. While it has been remodeled and expanded several times, the stadium's foundation and location has remained intact.
Camp Randall is the originating institution of one of the most popular "fan participation" traditions in college sports -- the "Jump Around". It officially began at the Homecoming Game in 1998. After a scoreless third quarter, with opponent Purdue starting to come back, an assistant coach had the idea to pipe the song through the stadium loudspeakers. It was not a completely original idea. The Wisconsin swim team had been playing the song over a CD "boom box" at games since 1992, but this was the first time it was officially played over the stadium sound system. The song sparked the team to score twice in the fourth, sealing their sixth win of the season. Since then, "Jump Around" has become the tradition between the third and fourth quarters at home games.
Despite their early success, and later conference titles in 1952, 1959, and 1962. Wisconsin had fallen to a "also ran" team by 1990. Enter Barry Alvarez, a Wisconsin alum who replaced disappointing head coach Don Morton, who had gone a dismal 6-27 in three seasons. Alvarez had been the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame, and realized the importance of controlling the pace of the game. He designed a ground-based time-consuming offense. At first, it was not successful. The team went 1-10 in his first season. However, it began to take root. The team improved steadily each season, until they cruised through their 1993 schedule to finish 10-2 and capture their first Big Ten title in thirty years. Later Alvarez would capture the school's first consecutive titles since the first two, winning a share of both the 1998 and 1999 titles. Alvarez quit coaching and became the Athletic Director in 2005. He finished as the team's longest-tenured coach and most successful coach, winning over 71% of his games.
Bret Bielema followed Barry Alvarez. In his first season, the Badgers went 11-1, but lost the conference title to unbeaten Ohio State. Bielema did lead the Badgers to three consecutive conference titles from 2010-2012. Most significantly, the Badgers won the first ever Big Ten Championship Game in 2011, defeating Michigan State from the Legends division (at that time, the two divisions were called "Leaders" and "Legends"). Wisconsin won the second Big Ten Championship Game the following year. That was their last conference title, despite winning the West division four times in the past eight years. In fact, since the divisions were realigned into West and East, the East division has won every single conference title.
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