While not immediately calling for Bret Bielema to be fired as of yet, his lackluster performance especially in the past two seasons gives SERIOUS reason to put him on the "hot seat." Let's look at what he has done so far.

He took an experienced team recruited by Barry Alvarez, and led them to an 11-1 season. Granted we did do our part by winning eleven games, that was a season taylor made to be successful no matter who was coaching. The schedule that year was unbelievably easy, with the only ranked team all year being Michigan at the Big House, which as we all know was the only game we lost that season as well. Give credit to him for winning that bowl game vs. Arkansas though, despite the fact that the Razorbacks were not even one of the top 3 teams in the SEC and McFadden was slowed by an injury for that game.

 Last year in 2007, the Badgers proved themselves to be a poor road team. With a team many would argue was better than the previous year's Capitol One Bowl winning team, and one which had Rose Bowl or higher aspirations from the start of the season, a 9-4 record was a HUGE letdown. Even taking into account we did not have a great balance in home to road games (OSU, Penn St. Illinois on the road, with a banged up, post-Appalaichan St. Michigan team at home) a two loss season or better should have been expected, and the lameduck performance in the Outback Bowl left the season with only a more bitter taste.

 As for this year, although still a work in progress, we now have a partial evaluation of Bielema. One, he is not a great motivator. Given his 1-0 mantra and hardnosed attitude, you would expect him to be a great lockerroom guy, and a guy that could fire up his team at the start of games. The truth is, his teams flat out stink in the first quarter. Just look at the OSU game this past Saturday at home, and tell me that he is a great motivator. Two, he is not a proven recruiter. Name some players who he recruited who should be making contributions right now, who actually are. Three, he is a terrible in game adjustment maker and plays so conservatively you'd think he was trying not to "lose" every game, instead of trying to win them. Case in point, @ Michigan this year when we were running the ball on third and long in the first half assuming that we were going to win. Last, Bielema is not showing any improvements in any aspect of his coaching. What has changed with Bielema from day 1 to today? Obviously Bielema has failed to learn from his losses.

 With all that said, it is time to officially put Bielema on the "hot seat" and if next season does not see any progress being made, it is time to STRONGLY consider firing him. As for possible replacements, why not follow the chic trend of signing former NFL coaches who still have the desir to coach, but no longer at the NFL level. These kind of coaches come in being great recruiters because they have the name and resume. Just thinking of some people who would take us to the next level...a guy like Bill Cowher or how about Brian Billick, Just some ideas I obvioulsy have no idea if they would have any interest in doing so. In any case, Bielema better start making some better decisions, or he WILL get the ax.

tanny14618:

Just thinking of some people who would take us to the next level...a guy like Bill Cowher

ROFL. 

We need to steal a guy from the SEC or Big12 somehow. Way easier said than done though.

At this point, I'll take AbeFroman over BB. Im done with him. Losing by 41 at home? 100% screwing your team out of a huge win vs OSU? Losing to Michigan in 2008? REALLY?!?!

Absolute nightmare. This program could sink fast because next year won't be a whole lot better, if at all.

Premature.

Lane Kiffin

Pudyellow please do not bring your personal problems on here.

Seriously are you kidding? The biggest Packer apologist is doing the same thing here? Do you hold any coach accountable?

puddyellow:

Premature.

I wonder how much of this years perceived lack of coaching discipline has to do with the erosion/departure of senior members within BB's staff over the years.  When he first took over, BB retained a few members of BA's staff and brought on Hankowitz.  Hankowitz was the only "older" coach remaining and he was dismissed last year.  This year BB is running with all young coaches and there seems to have been percipitous decline in attention to detail.  Just a thought.

How about Brian Kelly from Cincinatti.  Led Grand Valley State University (division 2) to national championships.  Went

to Central Micigan University (MAC conference) and led them to championship.  Now coaching at Cincinatti (Big East)

has turnned around Cincinatti's program.  Brian utilizes the spread offense with the no huddle concept.  Great

recruiter.

The worst part of this whole mess is now Brewster has the Gophers playing better than us and he is kicking BB's a** in recruiting.  That burns me more than anything.

fp3:

The worst part of this whole mess is now Brewster has the Gophers playing better than us and he is kicking BB's a** in recruiting.  That burns me more than anything.

I have a feeling the gophers are going to lose to ohio state and penn state also.  If your statement is based on the fact that minnesota has beaten a bunch of patsy's and we lost to a preseason NC contender, and a current NC contender i agree with your post.  I just think you fire BB people are getting a little irrational because of a bad run against high level (michigan notwithstanding) competition. 

I recently spoke to some high level members of the Mendota Gridiron Club and apparently they are working on a deal to bring Holmgren back in 2010 to coach the badgers.  They were going to offer him a position next year, but he wanted a year off. 

jimmythegreek:

 

I recently spoke to some high level members of the Mendota Gridiron Club and apparently they are working on a deal to bring Holmgren back in 2010 to coach the badgers.  They were going to offer him a position next year, but he wanted a year off. 

Seriously?  That's intriguing but I can't see it working it out.

jimmythegreek:

I just think you fire BB people are getting a little irrational because of a bad run against high level (michigan notwithstanding) competition. 

I recently spoke to some high level members of the Mendota Gridiron Club and apparently they are working on a deal to bring Holmgren back in 2010 to coach the badgers.  They were going to offer him a position next year, but he wanted a year off. 

Greek--kudos on the sarcasm.  Too bad many here will not get it.  I agree with your point re:irrationality.  It will be interesting to see how Bret and the team play the rest of the season.  Will there be improvement or will they pack it in?  That question needs to be answered before you can even start to think about a coaching change.

fp3--I wouldn't get too worried about Minny just yet.  They may have won at Illinois, but that was more of a Illinois loss than a Minny win.  It's not often that you give up 500+ yards (like Minny did) and win.  The Axe will stay in Madison.

Dohhh.... Should read that post better.  Sorry Jimmy. 

 Anyways, I do agree with the point of the sarcasm... although the trend this team has been heading in the past few years worries me.  As talented as Penn St was, they were MUCH more disciplined than the Badgers on Saturday.  Way too many boneheaded mistakes going on this year.

Yeah guys, just to clarify, my original post was just to bring attention to the fact that Bielema's job security is at the point where he does not get many more mulligan losses and therefore each loss must have some impact on his job security. Alvarez obviously left the program in a position to become a perennial top 10 team, now we are back to being a marginal 19-25 ranked team, without any solid signs of improvement in sight. Okay, so don't overreact to the three consecutive losses to Michigan, OSU and PSU if you don't want to, but what makes you think that these kinds of games will turn out any different in the future. Face it, the Big Ten is improving, and we can no longer rely on a mostly weak conference schedule to get by. Sure, Bielema won't get fired, even if this season continues poorly and next year we lose three to four games (which is a safe assessment judging from this year) he probably won't either. But I feel at the point we were right after the victory against Arkansas, we could have really made the next step forward in terms of our program.

 The only reason I brought up the NFL type coach topic, is because I sincerely believe the only way to make that jump to the next level is by much improved recruiting. I am positive that we were on many more high school player's radars after we finished 11-1. And please don't say players "just" don't want to come to Wisconsin. Coaches (yes, many times they did coach in the NFL for some amount of time and sometimes they just came up in the college ranks and became fantastic recruiters a la' Rich Rodriguez, Jim Tressel)  can recruit a player to anywhere, and following that 11-1 season, and even after the 9-4 season tell me why a player would rather go to a recently mediocre team (such as Notre Dame for example), than us. The answer is not that these teams who can still recruit well despite bad years have better programs, but rather that they have realized a.)recruitment can make them from a mediocre team into a BCS bowl team in a matter of a few years and b.) they have coaches who are proven top recruiters. So even if a coach like Cowher/Holmgren probably won't happen, it is that kind of thinking that will get us past complacency and back into the position we were heading before we "let down" recently.

gbmickey:

Pudyellow please do not bring your personal problems on here.

Seriously are you kidding? The biggest Packer apologist is doing the same thing here? Do you hold any coach accountable?

puddyellow:

Premature.

Seriously, I think you're stalking me.  I'm not a Ted or Bret apologist.  I'm a realist.  Calling for Bret's head after his second ever home loss is premature.  He has work to do and this season is not something he's proud about either I'm sure.

But what have we become when the first signs of trouble necessitate calls for the head of the coach?  So just 3 weeks ago, we were ranked 9th (albeit above where we deserved).  We lose a game to a team we should have beat.  We then lose to a traditional power and an excellent team at our place (both of which we were the underdog) 

Even a so-so overall record to this point would be debatable.  He's 24-8.  12-7 in the conference.  If memory serves, Barry would have a few good seasons followed by a fairly poor one (or two).  1-10, 5-6, 10-1-1, 7-4-1, 4-5-2, 8-5, 11-1, 10-2, 9-4, 5-7, 8-6, 7-6, 9-3, and 10-3

So, Bret goes 12-1, 9-4, and 3-3.  And that equals decapitation?  Give the guy some room.  Relax.

I'm frustrated we didn't beat both Michigan and Ohio State...those should be in our pocket right now.  Would you call for his head if we had pulled those two out?  If not, then you're basing his whole body of work on two games no matter how they blew it.

Calling for a QB change has plenty of merit...debate that.  In the offseason, debate coordinators and recruiting.  But, sorry Bret is staying if he wants to.