Underdog UW has its day against Michigan
GREATEST MOMENTS IN WISCONSIN SPORTS HISTORY OVER THE PAST 50 YEARS: THE NEXT 10
With the sports world on hold, we gave you the 50 greatest moments in Wisconsin sports history over the past 50 years. What about the next 10 that just missed the list? This is No. 59.
There were plenty of eye-popping numbers that suggested the University of Wisconsin football team had no chance against No. 1 Michigan to kick off the 1981 season, but one stood above them all: 176-0.
In the previous four meetings, Michigan had clobbered the Badgers without surrendering a point. It was a staggering level of lopsidedness.
Then, there was the fact Michigan had gone 23 quarters without giving up a touchdown until Wisconsin's Marvin Neal caught Jess Cole's 17-yard pass with 3:47 left in the first half. UW also had been shut out four times in 1980 despite a strong defensive showing. The
Badgers hadn't beaten Michigan in 14 tries — since 1962 — and the Wolverines returned eight starters on offense for a team that figured to contend for a national title.
But UW coach Dave McClain wasn't conceding anything the day before the contest, Sept. 12, 1981.
"We're not going to try and play a respectable game and keep it close," McClain said. "We're going for the win."
They are the words a coach is simply supposed to say. But the Badgers made it a reality with a stunning 21-14 win at Camp Randall Stadium, the first time a Badgers squad had knocked off a No. 1ranked team.
"I told the guys before the game, 'We're the only ones who believe we can win — nobody else in the stadium gives us a chance,' " McClain said afterward. "This is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me."
An article in the Milwaukee Journal leading up to the opener quoted Green Bay Packers safety Mike Jolly, a Michigan alumnus, musing about the Wolverines' dominance in the series.
"The coaches put it up Monday (on the wall in the dressing room)," Badgers center Ron Versnik said. "But I had it cut out of the paper long before that. That stuff Jolly said really got us mad. Talking about how they could see fear in our eyes when we took the field. And they used to talk on the sidelines and predict how many points they would roll up on us. We felt all along that we could beat them, and that kind of talk made us more determined than ever. We're good players, experienced players, and we've got a good football team."
Wisconsin players said the Wolverines were playing up their superiority before the game started.
"When they came out of the tunnel, we were doing cals (calisthenics)," said Badgers defensive lineman Tim Krumrie, one of the showcase players on the 1981 team. "Instead of going on their end of the field, they ran around our whole team. That was really an insult. We didn't say anything to them; we just said to ourselves, 'We'll get 'em.' "
Krumrie certainly played his part. The Mondovi native was matched on center Tom Dixon, who was tasked with replacing All-American George Lilja and was one of the few newcomers on offense. Krumrie finished with 13 tackles despite facing double teams, and he opened up space for Darryl Sims to register four tackles, including two for loss.
"Their philosophy was to run the ball down our throat," said Krumrie. "When they wanted to pass, it was a little late."
Davis at the buzzer
The score actually belied how dominant the Badgers were. UW held the edge in yardage, 439-229, and topped Michigan in first downs, 23-8. But the first half was still mostly Michigan's.
Michigan converted a fumbled punt into a score and took a 7-0 lead. The Badgers got nowhere on their next possession, but a 48-yard punt return by the Wolverines went for naught when the Badgers defense held and Michigan
missed a field goal.
UW tied the game with just under 4 minutes before halftime. Cole, another Mondovi native who got his first start the year before in a 24-0 loss to Michigan, found Chucky Davis for a 33-yard pass, and that led to the touchdown to Neal.
"I don't think anybody thought we could beat Michigan except ourselves," said Davis, who ran for 69 yards on 15 carries in his first game after missing the previous year due to academic ineligibility. "They were overconfident. They figured they could just run over us like the rest of the years. Before the game, they were talking about being No. 1 and what they were going to do to us. By the second half, they were frustrated."
The end of the first half played into it, too. With the Badgers out of timeouts, Davis ran over a tackler and into the end zone with 2 seconds left. Mark Doran's point after gave UW an uplifting 14-7 edge.
The Williams screen
Michigan scored early in the third quarter on an 89-yard touchdown run by Milwaukee-born Butch Woolfolk to seemingly swing momentum, but UW had an answer. With Cole working out of the shotgun, John Williams took a screen pass and ran 71 yards for a goahead touchdown that re-established a seven-point lead, 21-14, with 5:13 left in
the quarter.
"I ran so hard, I almost pulled a hamstring," Williams said. "Marvin Neal threw a fantastic block to spring me, and when I saw the last guy, I wanted to see what he was going to do. I was dancing inside and outside, and once he went one way, I went the other. After that, I was just worried about a penalty."
Neal, who made his block at the 50 and fell to the turf, threw his hands up in the air from his seated position at midfield.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime feeling," Neal said. "We'll probably never have it again. We came out of nowhere to beat a No. 1 team."
The defense took it from there. Matt Vanden Boom, a Kimberly native and former walk-on wide receiver at UW before switching to defense, came into the game with one career interception. But he sealed the victory with his third interception of the game against Michigan quarterback Steve Smith, a pick with 2 seconds left.
"It was a real thrill," Vanden Boom said. "We had nothing to lose. We're a team that has come a long way."
Fullback Dave Mohapp ran 19 times for 87 yards. Versnik bear-hugged and lifted linebacker Jim Melka into the air, and cornerback Van Mansfield broke down in tears on the sideline. For McClain, there was an added excitement of defeating legendary Michigan coach Bo Schembechler, on whose staff
McClain had served at Miami of Ohio.
"Our problems were simple," Schembechler said. "Our offense wasn't any good. Our defense wasn't any good. Our kicking game wasn't any good, and our coaching game was poor. When you have those four things go against you, and you only get beat by 7 points, it's a miracle. I'm disappointed. I'm very disappointed."
For UW, it topped the school's most recent breakthrough moment, a 21-20 win over nationally ranked Nebraska in 1974.
"I thought beating Nebraska in '74 was No. 1, but this is bigger," UW legend and then-athletics director Elroy Hirsch said. "Not only was Michigan ranked No. 1, but this was a conference game. I think we became of age today."
How the moment lives on
Camp Randall Stadium was below capacity for the game, with 68,733 fans, but Wisconsin football eventually would have no problem filling the seats — although the program was still a decade away from the successful Barry Alvarez era.
The 1981 Badgers, meanwhile, couldn't carry the momentum into Week 2 against ninth-ranked UCLA. UW, which was ranked No. 20 after beating Michigan, lost against the Pacific-10 foe, 31-13, at Camp Randall. Wisconsin did win the next three games, including a 24-21 victory over nationally ranked Ohio State.
The Badgers climbed as high as No. 14 but dropped out after a loss to Michigan State. UW finished 7-5, capped by a 2821 loss to Tennessee in the Garden State Bowl, the program's first bowl game since losing the 1962 Rose Bowl.
McClain led the Badgers to their first bowl victory the following year, a 14-3 win against Kansas State in the Independence Bowl.
Two years later, UW went to a bowl game again, losing in the Hall of Fame Classic to Kentucky.
After 1984, the Badgers went eight straight seasons without a bowl game until the Rose Bowl after the 1993 season, and seven of were without McClain.
McClain died at age 48 after a heart attack in April 1986. In his eight years at Wisconsin, he compiled a 46-42-3 record (.522 winning percentage).
JR Radcliffe can be reached at (262) 361-9141 or jradcliffe@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JRRadcliffe.