Eight years after departing Wisconsin for Arkansas in one of the most shocking voluntary coaching moves in college football history, Bret Bielema is returning to the Big Ten.
Bielema and the Badgers regressed to eight wins in 2012 but was one year removed from three straight double-digit-win seasons and had 68 wins in seven years. Barry Alvarez’s hand-picked 42-year-old successor appeared to be in the early stages of a prosperous marriage at a program that became the picture of stability over the previous two decades. Instead, three days after whooping Nebraska in the Big Ten Championship, Bielema bailed for an Arkansas program reeling from Bobby Petrino’s unsavory exit a year earlier.