Doing A Number On No. 1

No doubt about it. If Bo Schembechler had his choice of any Big Ten team—aside from Northwestern, that is—to feed his No. 1-ranked Michigan Wolverines in their season opener last Saturday, Wisconsin would have been high at the top of the list.

Bo tried to convince his players that the Badgers were no pushover, telling them he thought Wisconsin would finish third in the Big Ten, but as everyone knows, No. 3 in the Big Ten is like No. 98 in the U.S. Why, these Badgers were even known around the state of Wisconsin as "The Bad Guys," and for good reason. In keeping with recent Wisconsin tradition—two winning seasons in the last 17—they weren't supposed to be very good.

Bo didn't think the final score was very good: Wisconsin 21, Michigan 14.

Last year Wisconsin didn't score a touchdown until its fourth game. On Saturday in Madison, against a Michigan team that hadn't yielded a touchdown in 5� games, Wisconsin scored two touchdowns in the second quarter and the gamer—on a 71-yard pass play. Quarterback Jess Cole throwing to Tailback John Williams—in the third. "This win is the best thing that ever happened to me," said Coach Dave McClain, making no attempt to conceal the "thrill" of beating Schembechler, who had been his coaching mentor when McClain was an assistant at Miami of Ohio.

Two other Top 10 teams were also defeated—Nebraska losing to Iowa 10-7, and Alabama succumbing to Georgia Tech 24-21—but Wisconsin's shocker was easily the biggest upset of the season's first full weekend. The Badgers, after all, hadn't beaten Michigan since 1962, and in their last four games Michigan had outscored Wisconsin 176 to 0. Michigan hadn't lost an opening game on the road since 1881, at Harvard.

Certainly McClain and his players had no reason for optimism before Saturday's kickoff. In fact, McClain has been more of a morale lowerer than morale booster since he came to Wisconsin in 1977. The Badgers went 13-18-2 in his first three seasons, and after practically every loss McClain would utter this stock line: "We don't have any skilled players. We've got more unskilled players." He even called one of his players a "dodo."

Some frustrated Wisconsin players said McClain is more like a camp counselor than a football coach. McClain has fed his players cookies and milk, and leads them on what he calls "The Victory Walk" before games. Imagine the sight of burly Badgers walking around and around and around the parking lot of the Yahara Center hotel in Madison Saturday morning. McClain maintains the mile walks "create a unity."

McClain has other problems, too. The NCAA is investigating an alleged stashing incident that took place when Wisconsin was recruiting Offensive Guard Carlton Walker, now a sophomore; Walker has said that an alumnus took him to a Florida hotel and forced him to sign with Wisconsin. Also, it was recently disclosed that McClain and his assistants have been giving complimentary tickets to dealers in return for the use of new cars.

On the player front, Williams has argued with McClain over what position he should play, and McClain has been getting low marks for his handling of his star player. Running Back Chucky Davis, who had been Georgia's high school player of the year before Herschel Walker won that honor.

To say the least, Davis has had a checkered academic and athletic career in Wisconsin. He played for the Badgers as a freshman in 1979, but subsequently failed to meet the Big Ten's eligibility requirements and didn't play in 1980. Badger coaches enrolled Davis in summer school at Wisconsin. That fall the coaches enrolled Davis in Madison Tech, a local junior college. But he withdrew, and remained out of school entirely until this past summer when Badger coaches again got him to take some courses at Wisconsin. This time he stayed in school and completed whatever courses he needed to return to Wisconsin in the fall, regain his eligibility and play for the Badgers this season.