“They better get season tickets right now because, before long, they probably won’t be able to.”

Barry Alvarez’s statement during his introductory 1990 press conference announcing him as the head football coach of the University of Wisconsin was viewed as either bold visionary or complete buffoonery. After all, UW was coming off five consecutive losing seasons, was a combined 6-27 in the three seasons under previous head coach Don Morton and was a program that had its fans giving away tickets to the 1989 season opener against No.3 Miami (spoiler, UW lost 51-3).

Many fans likely thought Alvarez was in over his head when the Badgers went 1-10 his first season, but the groundwork was being laid that season for what has been – for the most part – 30 years of success.

Starting with Alvarez’s 16 seasons (1990-2005) and extending to Bret Bielema’s seven years (‘06-‘12), Gary Andersen’s brief tenure (‘13-‘14) and, now, Paul Chryst (‘15-present), Wisconsin has been one of the more successful programs in the Big Ten. The program has won six conference championships, been to seven Rose Bowls and won 15 bowl games. Most importantly, the Badgers have either swung momentum in Big Ten series, completely dominating conference teams or closed the gap against some of the league’s heavyweights.

To understand how impressive Wisconsin’s run of success has been in the Big Ten, BadgerBlitz will examine UW’s series against 11 Big Ten opponents, looking at where it was and how it has evolved over four different Badgers coaches (Note: for this exercise, we are not including UW’s conference games against Maryland and Rutgers. The Badgers are 3-0 against each school and have outscored them a combined 137-71 in those six games).

Today, we examine UW’s series against the Penn State Nittany Lions.

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Even though the Nittany Lions and Alvarez joined the conference at the same time, the Badgers had two previous entanglements with the Pennsylvania program in Madison. The Badgers beat Penn State, 20-0, in 1953 and knocked off No.16 Penn State, 29-16, in 1970.

Penn State’s first Big Ten football season was 1993 and the first meeting between the two programs was in ’95, a 17-9 UW win at No.9 Penn State. Ever since then, momentum has been hard to come by. Penn State won as the third-ranked and sixth-ranked team in ’96 and ’97, respectively, before the Badgers earned a 24-3 win over No.14 Penn State in Madison.

UW won four of the next seven in the ’00 decade until Penn State delivered a pair of haymakers, winning 38-7 in State College in ’07 and 48-7 in Madison the following year. UW returned the favor in the next meeting three years later, 45-7 in ’11, but the recent battles have been frustrating finishes. UW lost a three-point game in overtime in 2012, lost as 24-point favorites in 2013 and blew a 14-point halftime lead in the 2016 Big Ten championship game. When UW lost at State College in 2018, the Badgers losing streak in the series hit four and four straight defeats in State College.

A back-and-forth series took a turn in 2013, thanks to Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg. The freshman passer torched Wisconsin for 339 yards and four touchdowns, and the Badgers blundered over themselves in a 31-24 defeat that cost them a spot in a BCS game.

Eugene Lewis had two touchdowns on three catches, including a 59-yarder with 13 minutes to go to give the Nittany Lions a 31-14 lead. Adam Breneman had 78 yards on three receptions, including a 68-yard catch-and-run for a touchdown that set the tone for the day on the game's opening drive.

Penn State was a 24-point underdog but took advantage of three interceptions by Joel Stave. The Badgers scored 10 points in a span of 1:25 of the fourth quarter, capped by a 48-yard field goal by Jack Russell with 4:13 left to get within a score. Sam Ficken’s 31-yard field-goal try went wide right with 31 seconds left to give the Badgers one more chance. But a Hail Mary attempt by Stave was intercepted in the end zone with 1 second left.

Not only were the turnovers a problem, Wisconsin’s defense, which hadn’t allowed a play longer than 51 yards entering the game, allowed four plays to go for at least 52 yards.

Like the series with Ohio State, Wisconsin hasn’t been able to close games late to win nail biters. The two teams also won’t see each other over the next several years either. UW will open the 2021 season hosting Penn State and won’t see them again until a game in Camp Randall in 2024.

Wisconsin’s overall record vs Penn State pre-Alvarez: 2-0

Wisconsin’s record vs. the Nittany Lions since 1990: 7-10

The Alvarez Years: 5-4

The Bielema Years: 2-3

The Andersen Years: 0-1

The Chryst Years: 0-2