What I take issue with is his excuse for your scheduling. There was a poll posted on a national football message board about whether BCS teams were afraid to play at Madison or whether it was an excuse for scheduling cupcakes.
Badgers like cupcakes: 110
BCS foes fear Camp Randall: 7
The nation has resoundlingly answered that it is just an excuse. You just can't say BCS teams won't schedule home/homes when the other teams in the discussion for most imposing home field advantage have all scheduled legit BCS opponents recently.
You are smart enough to know that an internet message board poll of 117 people, at best only gauges perception of the issue, not necessarily the reality. (At worst, an internet message board poll could just as well be one 13-year-old boy having fun.) Most analyses of "scheduling cupcakes" is problematic since the writer is talking prospectively, not retrospectively. You simply look at the reputation of the teams on the schedule and decide whether the team is a "tough" team or a "cupcake." I don't think this type of analysis is useful.
A retrospective look would examine the final records of the teams played on a schedule and those teams' schedule strengths. Wisconsin hasn't gotten credit for scheduling home/home with West Virginia and Oregon in recent years when they were very good. Same with Fresno State (although they were unexpectedly bad last year, UW played them when they finished 11-3).
In 2006, the NCAA College Football Records book put out a list of the schools who play the toughest schedule (using the above described retrospective look) between 2001-2005. The results:
Number of years among top ten toughest schedules, 2001-05
4 (1 team)
Arkansas
2 (14 teams)
Kansas State
Florida State
Wisconsin
Southern California
Iowa State
Texas Tech
Florida
Stanford
Alabama
Notre Dame
Texas A&M
Arizona
Ohio State
North Carolina
1 (18 teams)
California
Colorado
Kansas
Mississippi State
Tennessee
Oklahoma State
Miami (F)
Bowling Green
South Carolina
Arizona State
Auburn
Baylor
Georgia
Iowa
Oklahoma
Michigan
Northwestern
Texas
0 (the other 86 I-AA teams)
This type of table is interesting because it shows just how few teams consistently schedule a tough schedule. Part of that is due to how much parity there is (teams can be up and down from year to year, so your schedule that looks so tough at the start of the year, ain't). Part of it is due to the rare non-conference matchups between really good teams. You can throw out examples all you want, but it usually is a very short list.
Finally, no team can control how good a team is going to be years down the line when the games are actually played. Minnesota's series against USC may be the exception. As long as Pete Carroll is there, USC will be good. But you can't say that about almost every other team (every team in the SEC has down years and so do teams like OSU). When you actually look at UW's schedule/results over the last ten years or so UW has had some pretty good out of conference games. The team has beaten and lost to teams that weren't expected to be all that good. Schedule difficulty on message boards is always rated by whether a team is expected to be good. Rarely do fans look back out the final records of the teams played in non-conference games. But when you look at their opponents final record for the season the game was played, you find out that UW played some good teams.
In the last nearly fifteen years, Wisconsin has played/will play the following top 20/bowl teams out of conference:
1995 Colorado in Madison (lost). Colorado finished 10-2. UW got killed. The fancy, dumb new uniform game.
Stanford at Stanford (tied). Stanford finished 7-4-1
1996 Stanford in Madison (won). Stanford finished 7-5. Both Stanford games were thought to be unispiring efforts by the Badgers.
1997 Syracuse in New Jersey (lost). Syracuse finished 9-4.
1998 San Diego State in San Diego (won). Another uninspring early effort, but maybe SDSU was at least above average. SDSU finished 7-5
2000 Oregon in Madison (won). Oregon finished 10-2. One of the more intense games I have attended.
Cincinnati in Madison (won - UW lost to them the year before in Cincy). Cincinnati finished 7-5.
Western Michigan in Madison (won). WMU finished 9-3. This game was thought of, at the time, as a crushing, embarassing narrow victory. UW was limited by the Shoebox suspensions.
2001 Oregon in Eugene (lost). Oregon finished11-1! Yes, that means Wisconsin almost beat one of Oregon's best teams ever at Oregon, widely considered the toughest place to play in the Pac10.
Fresno State in Madison (lost). FSU finished 11-3!. This was thought to be a national
embarassment, but FSU was good. Remember Bernard Berrian? What's he doing now?
2002 Fresno State in Madison (won). FSU finished 9-5.
West Virginia in Madison (won). WVU finished 9-4.
Northern Illinois in Madison (won). Northern finished 8-4.
note: UW also played Arizona this year at home and UA was really bad this year but this game was set when Arizona was a bowl team.
2003 West Virginia in Morgantown (won), another place considered a very, very difficult place to play. WVU finished 8-5.
Akron in Madison. Akron finished 7-5.
2004 at Arizona (not a good team but scheduled when they were a contender)
2005 at North Carolina (same as Arizona)
2006 UW was supposed to play Oregon State. The Beavers backed out and Western Illinois got put on the calendar.
In 2007, Wisconsin had Washington State which was scheduled during WSU's high-water mark Ryan Leaf years..
In 2008, Wisconsin had Marshall and played at Fresno State, where BCS teams rarely, if ever, travel to.
In 2009, Wisconsin has Fresno State at home again.
In 2010, Wisconsin has a game at Arizona State.
The scheduling philosophy is to play one difficult OOC game, one easy one, and one middle of the road and Wisconsin has followed that for a long time. Based on the facts above, it cannot be said that Wisconsin plays a cupcake schedule. They play a schedule that, over the last ten years or so, has been in the upper tier of difficulty for the Big Ten.
Certainly, their schedule over the last ten years has been tougher than Minnesota, Northwestern, Illinois, Purdue, MSU, Indiana, and Iowa. Michigan and OSU and sometimes PSU may play a slightly tougher schedule but the difference, over time, is negligible. Lastly, Bielema's comments were certainly motivated by the fact that deals with Notre Dame, Auburn, and Boise State have stalled or fallen-through this last off season, largely because the other schools do not want to play a true home-and-home series, but would rather play two nuetral site games. It seems reasonable that Bielema's conclusion would follow.