Dayne Elected to College Football H.O.F.

May 7, 2013 Leave a comment

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MADISON, Wis. – More than 13 years after running to the top of the NCAA career rushing list, former Wisconsin running back Ron Dayne has been chosen to join an elite group. On Tuesday, the National Football Foundation announced that Dayne will be immortalized as part of the College Football Hall of Fame Class of 2013.

 

“I’m very excited and thrilled to be mentioned with the greatest names in college football history,” Dayne said. “This is a tremendous honor for me and the university. As with everything in my career, I see this as a team honor and something I never could have achieved without my teammates and coaches.”

 Dayne finished his career as college football’s all-time leading rusher. The official NCAA record book credits him with 6,397 career rushing yards, most in FBS history. Including bowl games, Dayne rushed for 7,125 total yards as a Badger.

 As a senior, Dayne became the second player in Badgers’ history to win the Heisman Trophy, racking up 2,034 rushing yards and scoring 20 touchdowns. That year he also won the Maxwell Award, Walter Camp Player of the Year Award, Doak Walker Award, Chicago Tribune Silver Football and was a unanimous, consensus first-team All-American.

 Dayne helped lead UW to back-to-back Big Ten titles and Rose Bowl championships in 1998 and 1999. A member of the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame, he is one of just four players to ever be named MVP of “The Grandaddy of Them All” twice.

 Dayne burst onto the college football scene as a freshman, running for a then-FBS record 1,863 yards in the regular season (Adrian Peterson broke the record with 1,925 yards as a freshman in 2004). Dayne added 246 yards and Copper Bowl MVP honors to finish the season with 2,109 yards despite not starting the first four games of the season.

 As a sophomore, Dayne was a finalist for the Doak Walker Award and a first-team All-American from College Football News. Despite missing two full games and parts of two others, he still ranked fifth nationally with an average of 142.0 rushing yards per game (1,457 total yards).

 Dayne was again a finalist for the Doak Walker Award as a junior, leading the Big Ten in rushing and earning Walter Camp first-team All-America honors. He led the Badgers’ upset of No. 6 UCLA in the 1999 Rose Bowl, rushing for 246 yards and earning game MVP honors. That game also set the stage for his Heisman Trophy campaign the following season.

 

“In my opinion, Ron was simply the most dominant running back that ever played college football,” said Dayne’s former coach, current Wisconsin Director of Athletics Barry Alvarez. “If the rules back then were the same as they are now, with bowl games counting towards his career rushing total, no one would even come close to touching his record. We’ve had a lot of great players come through here but when people think of Wisconsin football, they think of Ron Dayne running the football.”

 Dayne’s No. 33 was officially retired by Wisconsin in 2007. He was elected to the UW Athletics Hall of Fame in 2009.

 Dayne becomes the 11th former Badgers’ player or coach to be elected to the College Football Hall of Fame. The most recent inductee was his former coach, as Alvarez was a member of the Class of 2010. Dayne is the fourth former UW running back in the Hall of Fame, joining Wisconsin’s only other Heisman Trophy winner, Alan Ameche, along with Pat Harder and Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch.

The 2013 College Football Hall of Fame Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Class will be inducted at the 56th NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Dec. 10, 2013, at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. They will be honored guests at the National Hall of Fame Salute at the Allstate Sugar Bowl in New Orleans on Jan. 2, 2014 and officially enshrined in the summer of 2014.

 

Badgers in the College Football H.O.F.

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Barry Alvarez, Coach, Class of 2010
Alan Ameche, RB, Class of 1975
Marty Below, OL, Class of 1988
Robert Butler, OL, Class of 1972
Ron Dayne, RB, Class of 2013
Pat Harder, FB, Class of 1993
“Crazylegs” Hirsch, RB, Class of 1974
George Little, Coach, Class of 1962
Pat O’Dea, P, Class of 1962
Pat Richter, WR, Class of 1996
Dave Schreiner, End, Class of 1955

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New Division Alignments Begin in 2014 and Nine-Game Schedules Start in 2016

April 29, 2013 Leave a comment

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Park Ridge, Ill. – The Big Ten Conference office announced football division alignments set to begin in 2014 and nine-game conference schedules set to start in 2016.  The changes were unanimously recommended by conference directors of athletics and supported by the Big Ten Council of Presidents/Chancellors.

 “Big Ten directors of athletics concluded four months of study and deliberation with unanimous approval of a future football structure that preserved rivalries and created divisions based on their primary principle of East/West geography,” said Big Ten Commissioner James E. Delany.  “The directors of athletics also relied on the results of a fan survey commissioned by BTN last December to arrive at their recommendation, which is consistent with the public sentiment expressed in the poll.”

 The new division alignments will feature Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State and Rutgers in the East Division and Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue and Wisconsin in the West Division. All schools in the East Division are in the eastern time zone and all schools in the West Division are in the central time zone with the exception of Purdue. Each school will play the other six schools in its division plus two teams from the other division in 2014 and 2015, which will serve as transitional years in which the schools will still be playing eight-game schedules. Beginning in 2016, each school will play three teams from the other division as part of its nine-game schedule. The cross-division games will include one protected matchup on an annual basis between Indiana and Purdue.

 With the start of the nine-game conference schedule in 2016, teams from the East Division will host five conference home games during even-numbered years, while teams from the West Division will host five conference home games during odd-numbered years. As a result of the nine-game conference schedule and the Big Ten’s schedule rotation, every student-athlete will have the opportunity to play against every other team in the conference at least once during a four-year period. The Big Ten is returning to a nine-game conference schedule for all teams for the first time since the 1983 and 1984 seasons.

 “Big Ten directors of athletics met in person or by conference call six times from December to March to discuss a new Big Ten football model,” Delany said.  “The level of cooperation and collaboration was reflective of what we’ve come to expect from this group of administrators who have worked extremely well together on a number of complex matters over the past several years.  We are all looking forward to ushering in this new era of Big Ten football.”

 The Big Ten will hold the 2013 Football Media Days and 42nd annual Kickoff Luncheon on Wednesday and Thursday, July 24 and 25, at the Hilton Chicago, featuring all 12 head coaches and some of the nation’s top returning players. The 118th season of Big Ten football kicks off Thursday, August 29, and culminates with the third annual Big Ten Football Championship Game on Saturday, Dec. 7, to be played at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and televised by FOX. The winner of the title game will earn the Big Ten Championship and a chance to play in either the Rose Bowl Game or Bowl Championship Series National Championship Game.

Filed under Wisconsin Badgers

Badgers vs Buckeyes in Primetime… Again!

April 29, 2013 Leave a comment

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 MADISON, Wis. – In what seems to be a yearly event, when Wisconsin and Ohio State meet in Columbus on Sept. 28, the game will be played in prime time on either ABC or ESPN. It will mark the fourth time in the last six seasons the two teams have played a night game, and the fifth time since 2003.

 The 2013 game will kick off at 7 p.m. CT on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2. This will be the ninth straight year Wisconsin has played at least one night game. Over the past five seasons, 16 of UW’s 67 games (24 percent) have been played at night.

 Overall, Wisconsin owns a 37-25 record in night games. Dating back to 1995, the Badgers are 31-6 in their last 37 games at night. Against Ohio State, UW is 2-2 in night games. The average margin of victory for the winning team in those four games is 6.8 points.

Filed under Wisconsin Badgers

Wisconsin and USF Agree to Home-and-Home Series

April 19, 2013 Leave a comment

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 MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin football team will play a home-and-home series with USF, the two schools announced on Friday. The Badgers and Bulls will square off on Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014 at Camp Randall Stadium and on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017 in Tampa.

 “We obviously recruit a lot in the state of Florida and these games will be great for our exposure down there,” UW head coach Gary Andersen said. “USF is traditionally a strong program so it’s exciting to get a quality opponent on the schedule for our players and the fans.”

 Wisconsin and USF have never faced each other. The Bulls have been to six bowl games in the last eight years and have won at least eight games in five of the last seven seasons.

 Both UW and USF have new coaches in 2013, Gary Andersen for the Badgers and Willie Taggart for the Bulls.

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