For the Wisconsin football team's seniors, this season is the first time a bowl-game berth hasn't been locked up with just one game to play.
If the Badgers lose, Saturday's game against Cal Poly could be the seniors' last, as Iowa and Northwestern didn't get into a bowl with 6-6 records last year. If they win, the Champs Sports and Insight bowls are two plausible finales to the 2008 season.
[Saturday] is like a playoff game,"" senior defensive end Jason Chapman said. ""We're trying to end this season with a win, and hopefully we'll make it to a bowl.""
Chapman and senior cornerback Allen Langford got used to winning over the last few years. In 2005, Wisconsin went 10-3 and won the Capitol One Bowl, which features the top non-BCS teams from the Big Ten and SEC.
In 2006, the first season head coach Bret Bielema took over, the Badgers went 12-1 with a second-straight Capitol One Bowl victory, and last season they finished 9-4 after losing in the Outback Bowl against Tennessee. Until losing to Ohio State, the Badgers were undefeated at home under Bielema.
It looked like UW would carry that same success into this season when the Badgers were 3-0 and ranked No. 9 in the nation, until a four-game Big Ten losing streak put them out of the rankings for good.
To say 3-5 in the Big Ten and 6-5 overall at this point is disappointing is a huge understatement. But although this season hasn't gone quite as the seniors had hoped, it can still be somewhat salvaged by a win Saturday and subsequent bowl championship.
""[We're] trying to set an example for the younger guys so they have something to look forward to next season,"" Chapman said.
Winning Paul Bunyan's Axe last weekend, which goes to the victor of the Minnesota-Wisconsin game, was huge for the seniors. Great efforts by the defense, including back-to-back safeties, three forced fumbles and crucial sacks during the second half, put the Badgers on top 35-32 after being down 14 points at halftime. The Axe has been in Wisconsin's possession for all four years that Chapman and Langford have been playing.
""To have it as long as we have been here since freshmen, that's a big accomplishment,"" Chapman said.
Cal Poly will be Senior Day, for the class of 15 that will get to play their last game at Camp Randall Saturday. It will be the final class that played a year under former head coach Barry Alvarez. Both Chapman and Langford said it hasn't quite sunk in yet but they're too focused on the game to reminisce too much.
Langford said he's trying to have fun with the younger players as the season winds down, rather than try to drill more tips and information into their heads.
""I'm just trying to be more personable with them,"" Langford said. ""I'm trying to show them the funny side of me.
""So many times I show them the football side and try to tell them, 'Don't do that, don't do that.' I just want to have fun with those guys so they can remember me not just for what I did on the field or what I taught them, but me just being a great person,"" Langford said.
