Tag: Wisconsin Football Miami Hurricanes Football

Wisconsin bowl memories: 2018 Pinstripe Bowl

The 2018 Pinstripe Bowl between Wisconsin and Miami

The Wisconsin Badgers might have relished and cherished a bowl of the Pinstripe Bowl’s stature in 1981. It was in 1981 that the Badgers played the Tennessee Volunteers in the New York metropolitan area. They went to the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J., for the 1981 Garden State Bowl. In 2018, the Pinstripe Bowl was a reasonable equivalent of the early-1980s Garden State Bowl, but it wasn’t a reward for Wisconsin’s season.

In the early 1980s, Wisconsin was a seven-win program. Compared to the misery of the 1970s, the early 1980s were a very good time for Badger football. However, once Barry Alvarez completely reshaped the program and established a very different set of standards for Wisconsin football, a 7-5 season became something the Badgers definitely did not aspire to. Seven-win seasons in 1981? Impressive. Seven-win seasons in 2018? Not impressive.

So it was that in a 2018 season when Alex Hornibrook lost his fastball and a ton of injuries decimated the defense, the Badgers limped to a 7-5 finish. Minnesota and P.J. Fleck drilled them in Camp Randall Stadium. When Wisconsin went to the greater New York area for a bowl — 37 years after doing the same in 1981 — the Badgers were not playing for a big prize.

Wisconsin won New Year’s Six bowls in the 2016 and 2017 seasons. The 2017 campaign was the winningest (13 wins, 1 loss) in UW history. The 2018 season was a departure from excellence. It was not what the program expected or had become accustomed to.

Bowl games, as we all know, are theaters of motivation. They are usually decided by the team which takes the occasion more seriously. Would both Wisconsin and the Miami Hurricanes — reunited in a bowl one year after playing in the Orange Bowl — play with passion, or would they drift through the motions? Would they grumble or would they go for it with gusto? Would they sulk or soar, drift or drive themselves to a higher level?

We all got our answer, and Wisconsin answered this test of character properly. The Badgers had the advantage of playing a warm-weather opponent in cold weather conditions, but if they didn’t play hard, it wouldn’t have mattered. Wisconsin definitely played hard, powering through Miami’s front seven and enabling Jonathan Taylor to run for 205 yards. Wisconsin led 14-3 after one quarter (mirroring Miami’s 14-3 lead after one in the 2017 Orange Bowl). However, while Miami lost the plot in the Orange Bowl after grabbing an early lead, Wisconsin built on its 14-3 advantage and landed a knockout punch, 35-3 over the dazed and paralyzed Hurricanes.

Wisconsin didn’t have the 2018 season it wanted to have. Fine. Nothing could have been done to change that reality when the Badgers went to New York for the Pinstripe Bowl. All Wisconsin could do was play its bowl game as well as it possibly could, thereby restoring confidence and a sense that the program could bounce back. The Badgers did that, and in 2019, they definitely reestablished the Wisconsin Way.

Miami coach Mark Richt retired just after this Pinstripe Bowl. Manny Diaz was Temple’s head coach for a few hours, and then went to South Florida to take over The U. He face-planted in a 6-6 season. Wisconsin has the stability and reliability Miami could only dream of. Yes, the 2018 Pinstripe Bowl was a turning point for two programs.

Wisconsin bowl memories: 2017 Orange Bowl

The December 2017 Orange Bowl between Wisconsin and Miami

In the New Year’s Six bowl structure, elite bowl games have been played in late December, not just early January. This has led to years in which there are “two” bowls of the same kind. For instance, there were two 2017 Cotton Bowls: Wisconsin won the January 2017 Cotton Bowl over Western Michigan, and Ohio State won the December 2017 Cotton Bowl over USC.

When one refers to the 2017 Orange Bowl, one is referring not to January, but to December. Just before 2017 gave way to 2018, the Wisconsin Badgers played the Miami Hurricanes, and they did so in Miami at Hard Rock Stadium. It was not Wisconsin versus an SEC team in a bowl game, but the theme was familiar: Wisconsin had to play its bowl game much closer to the opponent’s campus than its own. Wisconsin had to shoulder the handicap Big Ten teams normally play with in bowl games in Southern locales. (Miami is not culturally Southern the way SEC locales are, but geographically, this is as southernmost a bowl location as one can imagine.)

Wisconsin had a reason to adopt an “us against the world” mentality due to playing in Miami’s back yard, but beyond the foreign territory angle, the Badgers had another cause to rally around: the turnover chain. You remember that part of Miami’s 2017 season, right? It was all anyone could talk about when the Hurricanes were discussed. People in the college football world wondered if “The U” was actually back. Texas has never gotten “back” under Tom Herman. Michigan has never been “back” under Jim Harbaugh. When Miami won 11 games and popped Notre Dame late in that 2017 season, it was reasonable to wonder if Mark Richt had the Canes back to their formerly lofty place in college football, ending a long period in the sport’s wilderness.

One can legitimately say that if Miami wanted to make sure that it was “back,” Wisconsin prevented that from happening. The Badgers yanked The U’s chain and showed the Hurricanes who was boss.

Everyone in and around Wisconsin football knows that Alex Hornibrook lost the plot in the 2018 season, an autumn which slipped away from the Badgers for a whole host of reasons. Yet, before the 2018 train went off the tracks, Hornibrook was a man who met the moment in 2017. Hornibrook wasn’t brilliant. He didn’t dominate games. He didn’t dazzle or demolish. He did, however, make big third-down throws.

In the Orange Bowl, he continued to do that, and he separated himself from his opposite number, Miami quarterback Malik Rosier. Hornibrook threw four touchdown passes in that Orange Bowl, making all the big throws on a fourth-quarter touchdown drive which turned a 27-24 Wisconsin game into a 34-24 Badger lead. When Miami missed a chip-shot field goal a few minutes after Wisconsin gained its 10-point advantage, the ballgame was over, and the Badgers tucked away their 13th win in the same college football season.

Whereas Hornibrook made all the big throws in this game — powering Wisconsin to a 21-point second-quarter surge which helped UW overcome a 14-3 Miami start in the first quarter — Rosier threw three interceptions. One of those interceptions came when Miami trailed 24-21 in the third quarter and was driving inside the Wisconsin 30. Hornibrook finished what he started; Rosier did not. Wisconsin won the turnover battle against the team which loved to flaunt the turnover chain.

It was a very happy chain of events for the Badgers in Miami two years ago, capping one of the most special seasons in Wisconsin football history.