CHICAGO — What comes to mind first when you think of Wisconsin football?
Power backs. Big, beefy future NFL offensive linemen. A sound-tackling, linebacker-heavy defense. Prohibitive Big Ten West favorites, ready to take that next step to the College Football Playoff. No frills, just football. Sound about right?
"It's pretty cool to say, 'It's this,' but nothing is assumed and nothing just happens," Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst said at Big Ten Media Days on Monday. "I think there's been a tradition of really good offensive linemen. Just because you go to Wisconsin, being on the offensive line doesn’t make you that. I see it different. I see all the work put in by different people. That’s what cool is about how it’s sustained, and not that there is this magic formula or anything like that."
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Chryst is one of those people who couldn't fit better in Madison, mainly because he sees through those preconceived notions. Wisconsin faced a murderer's row of a schedule last season — which featured six games against teams that were ranked in the top 10 at the time — and still enjoyed a 10-3 season that ended with a victory in the Cotton Bowl Classic. Remember, the Badgers were unranked to start last season.
Now, Wisconsin will start 2017 on the fringes of the top 10, and September features varying levels of excitement after the Friday night opener against Utah State. Lane Kiffin and Florida Atlantic will be the viral draw when they visit Camp Randall Stadium on Sept. 9. BYU welcomes the Badgers the following week, and chic sleeper Northwestern closes the month. The headline is almost always about somebody else.
But it should be this: Of the real-time College Football Playoff contenders, Wisconsin is on the short list of teams with a very clean look at running the table.
Yet the Badgers have a favorable schedule with a team that features 18 returning starters and should be every bit of a threat as last season to reach Indianapolis. Wisconsin lost three one-score games to Big Ten East heavyweights Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State, the last coming in the Big Ten championship game. Linebacker T.J. Edwards still thinks about that one.
"That one definitely sticks out because we thought we had it," Edwards said. "We didn't do what it takes to win. It's not a sense of who we want to play (this year), but we just want to get back to that Big Ten championship game."
"I think that I like this team and this group," Chryst said. "We've got a lot of guys that have played in a number of big games and won a lot of them and have lost some of them. They do a good job, I think, of sharing that with the other kids, of how you approach it."
Chryst started talking with his hands a little more to hammer that point home.
"I think the biggest thing we've got to do is give ourselves the best chance each week," he said. "Because we know every game is a great opportunity."
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This is another golden opportunity for the Badgers — a program that has piled up success since the Barry Alvarez era — to take that next fundamental step as a program to the College Football Playoff. Michigan State did it in 2015. Penn State came close in 2016. The Badgers aren't deviating from their time-tested approach.
"There's been a blueprint, but I think it's getting players to buy into it," Chryst said. "I think players have carried it more than anything else."
That might be the unexplained magic formula. Edwards tapped into that when talking about his welcome-to-Wisconsin moment by watching former linebacker Chris Borland during the recruiting process.
"Hard-working," Edwards said. "You don't have to say much to get your point across, but you have to show it with actions. That’s what I try to take on now."
Chryst, meanwhile, enters his third season with a 21-6 record, which is under-appreciated in the shadow of, say, Michigan's Jim Harbaugh, who is 20-6 the last two years. The Badgers' chances are understated, given that schedule and path back to Indianapolis.
Those power backs, big, beefy future NFL offensive linemen and sound-tackling linebackers are there, and quarterback Alex Hornibrook is good, too. It's easy to pencil this one in. Maybe too easy.
"I think it's an easier narrative to talk or write about than it doesn’t just happen," Chryst said. That's sound advice.
Forget the preconceived notions. Let Wisconsin play this one out the only way they know how.
It doesn't just happen. The people make it work.
