and special teams. You also have to have the ball bounce your way a little bit.'' One play, in particular, from last year's Rose Bowl underlines that point. Trailing 45-38, the Badgers were driving when
a normally sure-handed wide receiver, Jared Ab- brederis, caught a pass from quarterback Russell Wilson and fumbled on the Oregon 27. "And the ball doesn't move an inch,'' Bielema la- mented. "It just dies on the grass.'' Had the football rolled out of bounds, the Bad-
gers would have maintained possession. But they didn't get the favorable (or any) bounce, and Or- egon linebacker Michael Clay recovered the fumble. "As a coach,'' Bielema said, "you take every win or loss, and you try to improve.'' Some hurt more than others; some are harder
to delete from your memory. "People always say you learn a lot more from losses than you do from wins,'' Bielema said. "But my memory of wins is so minimal compared to my memory of losses. "In those losses, you swear that you can count off every second in your mind.''
28 ยป VARSITY AUGUST 9, 2012
Bielema's memory bank even has a deposit from his playing days at Prophetstown High School. "As a senior, I remember being in the locker room
after our last game of the season,'' said Bielema, who was then getting most of his snaps on offense at tight end. "We lost a playoff game to St. Bede Academy. We
had a pretty good team and I thought we could have gone further. But we met up with a really good team.''
Sometimes that happens; the other guy is just
little bit better in one phase or another. Over the last three seasons, TCU is 36-3, Oregon is 34-6 and Wisconsin is 32-8. So is the frustration in losing partly linked to not fulfilling expectations? "That, and they just hurt so bad,'' Bielema said. "Obviously, we've won a lot of games here (UW is 60-19 over the last six seasons), but I don't think I could be a football coach who's 2-9 very often. That's some tough stuff to live through.'' Bielema can still remember losing to Michigan in 1992; Iowa's only loss of the season.
