Badgers Lose Yet Another Rose Bowl | Will Gary Anderson Find Success?

By T.J. Bryce | Posted Wednesday, January 2

The Badgers capped what has been a disappointing season with a 20-14 Rose Bowl loss yesterday against Stanford. The Cardinal have become a real force to be reckoned with, and I think that it is time to recognize them officially as one of the better programs in America. They get very good recruits yearly now and produce quality results with those players. But back to the Badgers. I think this is a season that they would, quite frankly, like to forget, so I will not make that difficult for them and do so myself. So, with that said, what are the issues and questions facing the Badgers heading into the offseason and Spring Practice?

Well first of all, what will new head coach Gary Anderson's coaching staff look like? There is no official word on any of this yet, and when there is, you can be sure that I will have something to say about it. I look at this as an opportunity for the Badgers to rethink their whole strategy as a football program. Perhaps even try to change their style of play a little. I won't go into anymore details on that as I have done so in great detail already this season. A player who could possibly benefit from the coaching change could be Danny O'Brien, who came in last year as a highly touted transfer, with whom the Badgers thought they could repeat the success they had with Russell Wilson. However 2012 turned out to be a year that Danny O'Brien would rather just forget. He was replaced by redshirt freshman Joel Stave. Personally I don't think Stave did anything to really secure the job long term, he just simply played better than O'Brien did. Spring practice might be one more chance for O'Brien to pull this off.

One of the most prolific runners in NCAA history, Monte Ball, brought his college career to a close yesterday in the Rose Bowl. He will play in the NFL, but we don't know how good he will be or how long he will play for, and that is mostly based on previous experience with Badger running backs, whom have not had good success at the NFL level. Now the running game falls to Melvin Gordon, who showed promise this year in limited playing time. James White will also be in the mix.