I hate to yell but let me try caps (nothing else seems to work)...
THIS ISN'T ABOUT WISCONSIN'S HOME RECORD... IT IS ABOUT BB'S CRAZY EXCUSE WHY WISCONSIN CAN'T GET GOOD TEAMS TO PLAY NON CONFERENCE
Amazingly, you keep avoiding the point. My expectation: You will post back about Wisconsin being tough at home. Or perhaps, try a 7,000 word essay providing play by play on Wisconsin's home wins. Either way... it won't address the whole point here: Saying that Wisconsin can't get quality non-con opponents because schools outside the Big 10 are afraid to play in CR is SILLY.
Dear Sir Schnauzer,
First, a good number of posts in this thread argue (poorly) that Camp Randall is not a tough place to play. I am responding to those posts by providing facts that show that, since Coach Bielema has led Wisconsin, Camp Randall is the toughest place to play for the simple reason that more visiting teams lose there more than any other place over Bielema's tenure of three years.
Second, in direct response to your point that, "Saying that Wisconsin can't get quality non-con opponents because schools outside the Big 10 are afraid to play in CR is SILLY," I think (as I stated in this thread earlier) that unless you are privy to the negotiations between Wisconsin and other non-conference schools (like Notre Dame, Auburn, and Boise State,
all of whom have been approached to fill 2010 schedule slots), you really are poorly situated to have an opinion about the reasons these games aren't getting done. Maybe you are in on the negotiations, in which case I would agree with you that you probably know best, but, barring that, I'll take Barry Alvarez at his word. He says teams that he has spoken with do not want to come into Camp Randall. Maybe that's silly, but that is his experience after being involved in the negotiations.
My understanding (again, as I said earlier in the thread) is that at least one of the teams, Notre Dame, does not want a home and home, but would rather play two games at nuetral sites, on the theory, apparently, that Notre Dame's national draw would result in nuetral site games drawing more Notre Dame fans.
Finally, I don't think it is only Wisconsin that has this problem. It is a problem for most schools in college football. The attractive division one non-conference matchups are few and far in between. They just don't happen too much. Texas-OSU is a rarity. But other than a series like that, you have to kind of have a recent history of sucking for a top BCS team to come into your stadium. Most teams are understandably chicken because an away loss takes you out of the big BCS money, most seasons, plus if you're one of those teams that fills their stadium, it is further financially risky to skip out of a four home non-conference game with that kind of payday to play a game you could possibly lose across the country.
As I said before, some of it has to do with how far in advance these things are set and the fact that teams ebb and flow as far as how good they are from year to year (USC being a recent notable exception). In the last three years, or even the last ten years, it is hard to come up with a substantial list of non-conference, top 25 BCS teams playing home and home series.
p.s. Your caps worked. Thanks for setting me straight. I was thinking that there was something missing from this thread that was keeping me from staying on point. Turns out it was the lack of caps. For that, I thank you, sir.
