It all started on January 1, 2013 as the Badgers lost 20-14 to the Stanford Cardinal in the Rose Bowl. This marked the third straight Rose Bowl defeat for Bucky and they've all were pretty crushing defeats. This, of course, came after Bret Bielema abruptly departed for the apparently greener SEC pastures of Arkansas about a month before that last Rose Bowl. The Badgers were left looking for a head coach for the Rose Bowl. Former head coach and current Wisconsin athletic director, Barry Alvarez, took the reigns for just the Rose Bowl game. While it was a cute story, the game obviously didn't go as Barry or the rest of Badger Nation had planned.
The Badgers went 8-6 on the year but the Rose Bowl loss and the sudden departure of Bielema left a really sour taste in the mouths of Badger fans. Bielema's 2013 at Arkansas would end up being an even bigger disaster, especially after his wife tweeted "#karma" after the Badgers got screwed by the refs at the end of the Arizona State game. Ironically, the Razorbacks didn't win a game for the rest of the season after that tweet. I guess she got what she asked for.
Then, later in January, the Green Bay Packers were doing their usual thing and cruising right along until they met Colin Kaepernick and the San Francisco 49ers in the Divisional Round of the NFC Playoffs. That day, the defense absolutely fell apart, letting Kaepernick run and pass all over them to the tune of 444 total yards and four touchdowns en route to a somewhat embarrassing 45-31 loss.
Many fans thought the Packers would cut ties with defensive coordinator Dom Capers but he's still hanging on by a thread.
Fast forward to April as the Brewers began got their season-to-forget underway. 2013 was a disaster essentially from start to finish for Milwaukee and it all really culminated in the suspension of star OF Ryan Braun for alleged performance enhancing drug use. The witch hunt for Braun boiled over in July and he was suspended for the rest of season. This was most likely a deal worked out between MLB and Braun's camp so that he could come back immediately in 2014 in hopes of moving on. You knew that Bud Selig, a Milwaukee native, would not be denied in his thirst for suspending Braun after he let a suspension slip through his fingers at the beginning of the 2012 season.
The Brewers as a team finished with a 74-88 record in 2013. There really wasn't a whole lot to hang their hats on either. However, we saw a true breakout year from CF Carlos Gomez who hit .284 with 24 home runs and took home a National League gold glove. Also, Brewers fans got their first taste of Scooter Gennett, who hit .324 in 69 games with the Brewers last year.
While Green Bay may have made the playoffs in 2013, they spent half of their season feeling like the Jacksonville Jaguars of the world as Aaron Rodgers missed seven games with injuries. People talked about hair-brained conspiracies about why Rodgers was practicing yet not playing plus Packers fans having to watch the likes of Seneca Wallace, Matt Flynn and Scott Tolzien. Just when you think Green Bay's fanbase could get some perspective about how lucky and fortunate they are to have two rock solid quarterbacks, they somehow snake into the playoffs and fans still live the privileged lifestyle.
Finally, the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks season was probably considered a great success internally as they achieved their coveted goal of the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Now, to most fans with a brain, this season was anything but a success. The embarrassment of getting destroyed in four straight games against the Miami Heat after backing hard into the playoffs at the end of the season was truly rock bottom of the mediocrity treadmill, that the Bucks have been stuck in. Gone are the medicrity $wag twins (Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis) and the Bucks are moving in another direction and are hopefully getting off the treadmill.
Hopefully, 2014 ends up working out better for the major sports teams in the state of Wisconsin. It's off to a similar start with the Badgers dropping their New Year's Day bowl game yesterday once again. I'll wait to jump to conclusions though as there are still 363 for the rest of the teams to pick up the slack.
-Big Money
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