MADISON, Wis. -- When Barry Alvarez tasked his assistant coaches with hitting the recruiting trail their first few weeks on the job in the winter of 1990, their reports back to Wisconsin's new football coach contained a mixture of surprise and exasperation. They noticed the best players in the state were fleeing the Badgers' beaten down program to fill the rosters of other Big Ten teams. And more were lining up to follow them.
Without those corn-fed, cheese-eating behemoths, Alvarez quickly determined, Wisconsin would never attain conference and national success in the manner he knew was possible. His intuition and unwavering ambition not only fundamentally altered Wisconsin football, it also put the Badgers on a unique path toward sustained prosperity that surprisingly few programs across the country have been able to replicate since.