Bret Bielema....Coach of The Year?...

I'm not afraid to admit it. I've sipped my fair share of Bielema flavored hater-ade, and I don't regret it. I've been in Madison for almost 4 years now and have been a badger fan since conception. I can wholeheartedly say that I've seen some terrible badger football teams in my time, but not lately. When Wisconsin head football coach Bret Bielema took over for the god-like Barry Alvarez in 2006 it was almost too good to be true. The guy comes in as a rookie coach and earns a ridiculous 12-1 record, becoming the first coach in Wisconsin history with 11 wins in a season. Well it wasn't too long until ever optimistic Badger fans came to terms with the fact that winning with someone else's recruits is far different than winning with your own, as Bielema then led Wisconsin to a 9-4 season and a 7-6 season. It seemed likely that Bielema would be in the hot seat until he countered that with two outstanding seasons (10-3 and 11-1 thus far). Obviously he's working with his own recruits and having incredible success, but should he be in the running for coach of the year? Yes...the windbreaker donning, khaki wearing, biggest bro in college football does deserve that honor...and here's why

Bret Bielema has a giant set of cojones. period. (just ask him - I'm sure he'll let you know) Time and time again we have seen him make some of what look like the stupidest decisions a coach could make, and he's been lucky enough this year to be successful with almost all of them. Take the game against Iowa when the Badgers walked into Iowa City as underdogs even after taking down the #1 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes only a week before, and defeat the Hawkeyes. This is quite the feat, but what I'm focusing on is what happened en route to this victory. With 6:24 left in the 4th quarter after they had just given up a touchdown and gone down by 6 points, they were faced with a 4th and 4 situation on their own 26 yard line, and Bielema decided to fake a punt. Is that a joke? You've got over 6 minutes left to get the ball back and you make that call? He's lucky it worked and he looked like a genius, unfortunately later in the drive they were faced with a 4th and 5 situation on Iowa's 34 yard line with 3:23 left. This is an obvious field goal situation and then hope to get the ball back right?....WRONG...Bielema goes for it yet again and is successful. The dude's got ice in his veins. Had he not made the decision to go for it twice in the last drive, it's hard to say whether or not they pull that out. COJONES!

Aside from this road victory, Bielema has led the badgers to wins at Las Vegas, at Purdue, and at the Big House in Michigan - this from a guy who "can't win on the road." The win at Michigan was the first for the badgers since 1994. I'd say that's a minor accomplishment.

One of the other knocks on Bielema has been his play calling or the offensive play calling of his coaching staff. I've heard it a million times - Bielema gets a good lead and then gets complacent and sits on the ball bla bla bla. Not this year. Big B has left no doubt that he plans to score early, often, and consistently (70-3 against Austin Peay, 83-20 against Indiana, and 70-23 against Northwestern.) Granted you could make the argument that no matter what play you call it's going to be succesful behind Wisconsin's O-line, but we've proven in the past that even with an incredible line, complacency leads to come from behind defeats (see the 2009 Ohio State game). But lets put this into perspective...83 points is the most a team has ever put up in big ten play. It is tied for the 3rd most points scored in the history of the league, and they did it against A BIG TEN OPPONENT. Indiana barely lost to an excellent Iowa team this year, and gave Michigan a run for their money when they were healthy. It's not a great team by any means but it's not an awful team either. It seems to be a reoccurring theme that Bielema and his squad absolutely throttle teams that should never be throttled in such a fashion.

That's another good point to bring up - the squad that runs for Coach B. Being a student at UW, I've heard all sorts of different stories about how his players love him, how his players hate him, and everything in between. It doesn't matter what people say. This guy has never been called out by his team, has never called out a player or coach, and has never really had any negativity strewn on his character aside from theories about running up the score (as it turns out, running the ball up the middle 39 plays in a row isn't defend-able and means you are running up the score). My point is that as much as people like to laugh at the fact that Bielema is this middle aged frat boy that likes the smell of his own shit (don't shoot the messenger) commanding respect from a team is not easy by any means. And like I said, maybe the players do respect him and maybe they don't, but all issues appear to stay in house. That fact alone makes him an outstanding coach.

So lets pull this all together. Here's a relatively young coach with a relatively young team who came into the season with high expectations and has been almost 100% successful in meeting those expectations. He's at the helm of one of the most dominating teams in college football presently, and shows no signs of slowing as recruits continue to flock to Bret Bielema and the Wisconsin Badgers. He took down the #1 team in the nation and finished the season ranked 4th in the human polls, 5th in what must be the Microsoft Vista based computer poll, and will undoubtedly earn the school it's first Rose Bowl bid in ten years. He's got balls the size of his enormous head, he continues to respond to any sort of criticism with win after win after win, and he goes for 2 when he's up 25 points against the school's biggest rival. How is he not coach of the year? More importantly - how can you not love this guy?