USC goes to Big Ten media days in Indianapolis this week. The Trojans enter a new world and a new era. One of their new conference neighbors is Wisconsin.
The Badgers have had a lot of good teams in the past 35 years. They have beaten Miami in an Orange Bowl game. They have played in several Rose Bowl games. They have produced multiple Heisman Trophy winners, Alan Ameche and Ron Dayne. Yet, if trying to pinpoint the greatest Wisconsin football moment, which one is the best of them all?
It has to be the 1994 Rose Bowl.
Wisconsin’s 1963 Rose Bowl against USC was one of the greatest college football games ever played, but the Badgers didn’t win that one. Wisconsin made three Rose Bowls in 11 seasons from 1952 through 1962 but didn’t win any of those Granddaddies. The Badgers did win Rose Bowls in the 1998 and 1999 seasons, but the first Pasadena triumph holds a special place in the hearts of Badger fans. Wisconsin was a total nobody in college football for nearly 30 years from the early 1960s through early 1990s, but then Barry Alvarez turned the program around. The 1993 Big Ten title and subsequent 1994 Rose Bowl win over Terry Donahue’s UCLA Bruins were special achievements, but there was an element of magic and romance which could never be duplicated by subsequent championship moments. The 1993 season will endure as a uniquely cherished part of Wisconsin sports history.
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