After the near miss to lowly Boise State two weeks ago, Wisconsin finally aligned their wheels to the track with a blowout of San Jose State out in the Bay Area. This week, the Badgers welcomed another team from California. San Diego State was no slouch, but Badger fans were in need of a comfortable win to gain some confidence in their team.
Luckily, running back Ron Dayne was in full swing and so was Camp Randall Stadium. Dayne roared through the flimsy Aztec defense and the crowd responded with cheers of relief. San Diego State coach Ted Tollner, wearing a stylish white sweater as I recall, could only watch as his team got steamrolled.
Despite the lopsidedness on the scoreboard, it was interesting seeing a team from the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) or as I liked to call it, Weak Athletic Competitors. Earlier in the week, Tollner had made a few comments about how the Badgers were not as physical as Washington, the team that beat them 36-3 the week prior. To Wisconsin coach, Barry Alvarez, this was a built in motivational speech. He used Tollner’s snippet to fire up the squad leading up to this warm Saturday afternoon. What was Tollner thinking? A well-known and respected coach such as himself should know better than to spark that kind of a fire. He must have had a couple of flints in his mouth during that press conference.
