The Badgers Get Booed, and Packers Taste Their First Loss

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, the Badgers lost a must-win game against Maryland on Saturday, causing the fans to act in a way that has some people a bit perturbed. Boos were loud in Camp Randall, and with half the stadium gone in the fourth quarter the “Fire Fickell” chants were also loud. Lucas and Oates agree that the Fire Fickell chants were uncalled for, but they also don’t love how former Athletic Director and Badger Football Coach Barry Alvarez reacted to the calls. On his radio show earlier this week, he said that the fans are spoiled rotten, and it's disrespectful to flip on the team this early in the season. He did walk back his tone a little bit, and Oates doesn’t disagree with the sentiment behind the statements, but he also doesn’t think it’s doing anything to help the program when people are already tuning out.

There was a lot of blame going around, along with votes of confidence for those being blamed, but Lucas returns to an old question: can you boo college athletes? In the past, he says no. Once upon a time college athletes were still student athletes doing their best. But in today’s game, these players are getting paid not insignificant amounts of money. That makes them pros, and open to boos. Who can blame the fans for booing a professional player who they don’t even know? It’s not like the old days where you could watch a player grow over the course of four years; today’s college athletes are staying for a year or maybe two then moving to where the money is. Would Lucas boo? No, but it’s all fair game when there is no loyalty except to the money. 

Speaking of horrible football losses, the Packers fell to the Browns on Sunday in an all around awful game. Specifically, it was Jordan Love’s interception that cost Green Bay the game in the fourth quarter. At least here the blame can only lay with two people. Jordan Love should have seen the defender coming and adjusted as needed. The play looked a lot more like Brett Favre than Aaron Rodgers. But the playcall was also bad, a fact that Matt LaFleur owned up to. At the end of the day, they are both at fault and that play cost them the game. It doesn’t help when the offensive line completely falls apart, with Zach Thom and Aaron Banks leaving the game once again due to injury. The Browns defense did their job against the Packers, making sure that Love was never comfortable, and Myles Garrett showed why he’s a great player. But don’t get too caught up on the loss, Oates says, the Packers have a history of overlooking an opponent. Maybe now certain players will stop running their mouths about how the Green and Gold are unstoppable… 

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

A weekly podcast with insights and analysis on the Wisconsin Badgers, Milwaukee Brewers, Green Bay Packers and Milwaukee Bucks from two of Wisconsin’s most experienced sports journalists. Mike Lucas is a veteran sports columnist for the Cap Times and was a Badgers radio color commentator for over 25 years. Tom Oates was a sports reporter and columnist for the Wisconsin State Journal for 40 years.