Alvarez: Kinnick is no place like home
Badgers are facing a tough task in Iowa
MADISON – Barry Alvarez understands as well as anyone the degree of difficulty facing teams that visit Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium.
Alvarez was an assistant at Iowa for eight seasons, led teams there seven times as Wisconsin’s head coach and has seen the Badgers play there six times since he retired from coaching after the
2005 season and focused solely on his job as athletic director.
So what does the 71-year-old Alvarez enjoy about traveling to Kinnick Stadium?
“I don’t like anything about going in there as the road team,” he said, laughing. “I don’t like anything. It is a hard place to play.”
UW (2-1), ranked No. 16 in the Amway coaches poll, is set to make the short trip west this week to face the Hawkeyes (3-0) in the teams’ Big Ten opener at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Alvarez’s UW teams went 2-5 at Kinnick Stadium, with the victories coming in 1998 and 2000.
Curiously, UW has won its last four games at Iowa and is 5-1 at Kinnick Stadium since Alvarez stepped down as coach.
The lone loss was a 38-16 drubbing in 2008. Bret Bielema was in his third season as UW’s head coach; Scott Tolzien was the third-string quarterback; and Shonn Greene rushed for 217 yards and four touchdowns in that game.
UW was ranked No. 10 in 2016 when it recorded a hard-fought 17-9 victory at Kinnick Stadium, but three other ranked teams have stumbled there in the last two seasons.
Keith Duncan’s 33-yard field goal
on the final play of the game gave the Hawkeyes a 14-13 victory over No. 2 Michigan in 2016.
Later that season, the Hawkeyes rushed for 264 yards and three touchdowns in a 40-10 victory No. 15 Nebraska.
Last season, No. 4 Penn State capped an 80-yard drive with a touchdown on the final play to escape with a 21-19 victory.
No. 3 Ohio State wasn’t as fortunate. Iowa rolled up 243 rushing yards and 487 total in a stunning 55-24 victory.
“What you do have is a sweet opportunity to play Iowa at night,” UW senior offensive lineman Michael Deiter said. “That is going to be a tough game. That is a hard place to play at 11, let alone at night. And they’re a good football team.
“I expect it to be crazy, super loud. That just makes the game that much more fun, to feel a fan base that’s into it. Just to feel the energy from the stands, if you don’t appreciate that I don’t know why you’re even out there.”
Alvarez has spent the last few trips to Kinnick sitting in the box reserved for the visiting team’s athletic director.
That doesn’t mean he has forgotten the sidelines there are so tight that Iowa fans can reach over the wall and whisper sweet things into the ears of visiting players and coaches.
“They are in your ear now,” Alvarez said. “You’ve got to spend time to talk to your kids and tell them they’re deaf. Just focus on the game.”
Four years ago, one week after Melvin Gordon set the FBS rushing record with 408 yards – in three quarters and 25 carries – in a 59-24 victory over Nebraska, UW traveled to Iowa.
Gordon rushed 31 times for 200 yards in a 26-24 victory over the Hawkeyes, but his rushing mark fell to Oklahoma’s Samaje Perine, who rushed 34 times for 427 yards in a victory over Kansas.
Iowa fans, hearing Gordon’s record had been broken, let him know about it from the stands.
“It is going to be hostile territory,” senior safety D’Cota Dixon said. “It is always tough playing them on the road. It makes it that much more exciting.
“I am looking forward to seeing us bounce back and respond to last week.”