Halloween and football - that's what Madison does.
This weekend, after watching Wedding Crashers"" and the Badgers shellac Northern Illinois, I was trying to decide what I should be for Halloween. The Harry Caray routine backfired last year when I lost my voice Saturday night. I believe it was a combination of too many shouts of ""Cubs win"" and quite a few ""tall, cool Budweisers.""
My friends and I tried to go as the ""Anchorman"" crew a few years ago, but it's hard to pull that off when Ron Burgundy and Champ Kind bail out to take Tinkerbell and Nurse Naughty to Pleasuretown. The conch and ""news team assemble"" thing is no match for promises of pixie dust and a quick check up.
The Santa costume is always a winner. Girls love it. You'll stay warm. And more importantly, you get to make all those crude, cheesy Christmas jokes like ""Man, my chestnuts are roasting in this suit"" or ""Honey, you can deck my halls anytime"" or ""Girl, you can't come home with me; you're so hot you'd melt the North Pole and then Al Gore would cry.""
Yet the more I thought about costumes and Halloween in Madison, the more I thought about Badger football.
First, there's the obvious comparison. A bunch of college kids drink, yell and swear while older folks sit (either in the stadium or in front of their television sets) and make comments about riff-raff and rabble rousing. The security forces are there to maintain order or kill a good time, depending on your point of view.
But the Halloween-Badger football parallel works on a much deeper level.
Consider Coach Bielema's ""1-0"" philosophy. Every time the Badgers strap on their shoulder pads, tighten their chin straps, don their cardinal and white jerseys and step onto the Camp Randall field, they are totally focused on this one shared goal.
Now think about Halloween night.
Whenever those lovely ladies adjust their Playboy bunny ears, tighten their devil horns, put on their Miller High Life beer wench outfits and step onto State Street, there are a bunch of guys focused on going 1-0 with them.
And by ""going 1-0 with them"" I mean engaging them in intellectually stimulating conversations and asking them if they'd like to go horseback riding through the countryside on some fine Sunday afternoon.
Still not buying the Halloween- UW football metaphor? All right, what about the Badger defense?
Saturday it unleashed the monster within, holding Northern Illinois to six first downs and 99 yards of total offense. Sophomore safety Shane Carter snagged two picks and the defensive line put steady pressure on the NIU quarterbacks.
Although it was nice to finally get a blow out victory over a team that should be blown out, I couldn't help but think the defense's performance was just not legitimate. Yes, UW shut down Huskie running back Justin Anderson, but Northern Illinois has only scored 20-plus points in two games.
So UW held the Huskies at bay just like powerhouses at Temple and Eastern Michigan.
This upcoming Saturday UW will face an Indiana squad with a phenomenal receiver in James Hardy and - gulp - an athletic, dual-threat quarterback in Kellen Lewis.
So which Badger defense will we encounter?
Will the fast and furious terror we saw against NIU re-emerge? Or will we see the Casper-like tenacity we saw for much of the first seven games?
It might be Halloween, but there will be no masking the truth this week.
E-mail Ryan your costume ideas at reszel@dailycardinal.com.
