Varsity is the free Official Digital Magazine of Wisconsin Athletics, covering Badgers football, basketball, hockey and more each week.
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I BEHIND THE DESK BY BARRY ALVAREZ // UW DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS Some final thoughts on a fine football season 16 f you watched all the BCS games, they came down to the same things. You've got to win in the fourth quarter, you've got to win down the stretch and you've got to make plays. We weren't able to do that against South Carolina in the Capital One Bowl. But there were a lot of good things that we did. We had our chances to win the game. I didn't feel like they could stop us running the ball. And if we had a lead in the fourth quarter, we wouldn't have had to throw it. But we didn't have the time to do what we did earlier in the game. I felt there was a questionable holding call on us in the third quarter after we recovered a fumble. We were leading by four points and it took away momentum. We ended up missing a field goal. It would have been interesting to see how we would have done if Joel Stave hadn't been injured. He gives you a better chance of throwing the ball downfield; just throwing the ball, in general. I was very impressed with their quarterback, Connor Shaw. I've seen only one better performance against us. That was Georgia's Mike Bobo (who was 26-of-28 in the 1998 Outback Bowl). Shaw used his feet more than Bobo. He extended plays and he put the ball where he needed to put it. He didn't miss anything. He was really good. But there were a couple of phenomenal catches by the South Carolina receivers. That catch by Bruce Ellington on fourth-and-7 // VARSITY January 9, 2014 was ridiculous. That's what I mean by making plays. Jadeveon Clowney is a great player, I'm telling you. But he didn't dominate the game. We gave him extra attention. We were chipping him with a running back and we were using the tight end to help. You have to know where he is, and you have to give him respect. But I thought we blocked him well in the run game. We ran extremely well. Melvin Gordon ran hard. He finished runs, he moved piles. Like I said earlier, there were a lot of good things. But you can't turn it over like we did down the stretch. The pick in the end zone really hurt, but you're running out of time and you have to throw it. It has come down to the same things in every bowl game we've lost the last four years. It's winning down the stretch, it's winning in the fourth quarter and it's putting the game away. That's something that Gary will have to address. Right after the season, you go back and look at everything. We have already visited and I told him what I did one year. I decided we had to compete more every day. In the weight room, you have to finish your lifts with a competition. In practice, you have to do the same thing, so you're either winning or losing. You have to teach your guys how to compete and how to finish. I think there are some things that you can do in the off-season that can help with that. Our offense could be very good next season. We have the majority of the O-line back, along with two good tailbacks and a good fullback. Obviously some people have to come through at wide receiver. Defensively, we're going to have a young D-line. But I think we'll be more athletic and able to run better. We should be much faster on defense overall. A lot of the guys in the secondary were young, inexperienced kids. I think we can improve back there and they will just understand our scheme much better. We have a good nucleus returning and we open up next season with another SEC opponent, LSU. It's a challenge, something the kids can look forward to. It will be here faster than you think.