Are you ready for some Bucky?

There are so many reasons to love Badger game days

"I have declared Madison, Wisconsin the greatest college sports town in America." - Scott Van Pelt, ESPN

"It's not just a football game, it's a happening. And it's not just a stadium, it's the neighborhoods, it's the parking lots, it's the whole community. They are into the game." — Barry Alvarez, UW-Madison Director of Athletics

NEIGHBORS

"Good morning Breese Terrace!"

We've lived for almost five years in the shadow of Camp Randall Stadium. Literally in the shadow. We get no direct sun through our east-facing windows because the stadium blocks it. And of the few things I worried about when moving into this neighborhood, surviving Badger football games was first on the list.

I mean, an 11 a.m. start time means the kegs are already being tapped at 8 a.m. I mean, by 9:30, Breese Terrace has become a sea of howling, undulating red, the soundtrack an unlikely yet strangely energizing blend of pop, hip-hop and techno . Walking our dog on those mornings, I'm frequently offered chances to chug from a beer bong, enjoy a bloody Mary or play a round of cornhole. Likewise my dog has been offered beer and pieces of brat. Little beagles are quite a hit with the college boys.

The thing is, despite the noise and hassles, I catch myself smiling hugely at people. The energy — at least for day games — is just plain happy. Everyone is having so damn much fun, and it's catching. It helps knowing that people who've partied all day won't be keeping me up with their revelry all night. Usually by 9 p.m., all the parties have wound down and those with the fortitude have headed downtown to the bars.

My favorite part of game day? Waking up around 6:15 a.m. to the UW Marching Band tuning up in the stadium. Through a muffled, echoing loudspeaker, Mike Leckrone calls out, "GOOD MORNING BREESE TERRACE" before the band breaks into "On, Wisconsin!" If someone five years ago had suggested I might enjoy a marching band concert from my bed at the crack of dawn, they might have heard expletives. And yet I love it. God help me, I do love it so.

— Rosemary Zurlo Cuva

TAILGATING

Bring back the Hurricane cocktail!

"I joke that it's worse than being a farmer. Farmers worry about weather; we have to worry about weather and opponents," says Sam Brown, manager of the Rocky Rococo at 1301 Regent St.

He means the trials and tribulations of gauging business, and praying for good weather and a win, at the seven Badger football Saturdays that make up an enormous proportion of his annual sales, true also for many other businesses along Regent Street.

"It stinks if we lose," he adds, "and there's lousy turnout if it's too hot or rains."

Brown knows the pizza business; his family is celebrating the 40th anniversary of Rocky Rococo this year. The mostly Midwestern chain's first store opened in 1974 at 411 W. Gilman St.

But Brown has turned his attention to managing the Regent Street location, a position he took three years ago. In that time he's done his part to revolutionize how Badger fans tailgate near Camp Randall.

Two years ago, Brown added well-known local DJ Nick Nice, who keeps fans bopping from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. — the hours allotted by the city for the Regent Street tailgate.

"Pregame it's mostly an older crowd so it's a lot of funk and classic rock," says Nice, "but during and after the game it's a younger set, young professionals. Sam [Brown] is really doing something different from everyone else down there."

As one of a handful of nearby establishments with liquor licenses that extend into the parking lot (Red Zone, Jordan's Big Ten, Buckingham's and Lucky's among them), Rocky's-Regent has become ground zero for game-goers looking for a scene beyond Miller and Coors cans.

Last year, the restaurant batched a thousand Old Fashioned cocktails. There are 15 beers on tap, including locals such as Karben4 and Ale Asylum. As it gets cold toward the end of the season, the restaurant makes hot drinks like the Tom & ; Jerry.

This year, Brown plans to offer a version of the Hurricane cocktail, which he claims he wants to restore as a Wisconsin cocktail: "No less than legendary bartender Dale DeGroff says it originated at the Webb Lake Hotel here in Wisconsin, not in New Orleans, so I'm trying to return it to its rightful home," Brown says.

And there's more than pizza: house-made pulled pork sandwiches, Detroit-style hotdogs (think chili on top) and Jacobson 's brats in addition to the usual Rocky's menu.

This year, the new cocktail consulting outfit Three Count (composed of bartenders Chad Vogel, JR Mocanu and Jeremy Bazely) will debut their Barmadillo — an airstream camper retrofitted into a bar — at the Sept 27 game in the Rocky Rococo parking lot.

"[Vogel] approached me about the idea, and I thought it was fantastic," says Brown, "I think he'll have his own Old Fashioned made with maple syrup, and maybe Hurricanes, too."

— André Darlington

THE VOICE

"Touchdown Wisconsin!"

By its nature, college football is full of transient personalities. Players stay for only four seasons, and many of the best stay for fewer than that. Coaches often change jobs as frequently as they change socks. Perh aps that's the reason fans often feel connected to a program through someone that's been with their team as long as they h ave. For Wisconsin Badgers fans, one such person is play-by-play broadcaster Matt Lepay.

For a quarter-century, Lepay has been the constant, recognizable voice that tells the story of Badger football (as well as basketball games) on radio to fans across the state and across the nation.

Lepay arrived in Madison in 1998 to call Badger men's basketball games and picked up Badger football in 1994. Since the n, he's become as associated with Badger athletics as the great players and coaches he's described.

Even after all the players, seasons, road trips and memorable moments gone by, Lepay's excitement for each new year is just like the first season.

"You can smell the brats on the grill, everyone is having a good time... it never gets old." — Matt Lepay

"I just love college athletics," he says. "It's the anticipation when you drive to Camp Randall the morning of a game a nd you just see all the people decked out in their Badger gear. You can smell the brats on the grill, everyone is having a good time, and the stadium is full. It's an event — a happening. And for me it never gets old."

Badger fans can close their eyes and hear Lepay's signature "Touchdown Wisconsin!" call.

Audiences have become used to broadcasters with catchphrases that feel rehearsed. Lepay, a seven-time winner of the Wis consin Sportscaster of the Year Award, insists that these things need to happen organically. In fact, his famous touchdown call originated from necessity. Lepay reveals that early on in his career he often couldn't locate his binoculars right a way to figure out which team member had scored. "So rather than misidentifying the player who caught the pass, I would jus t say ‘Touchdown Wisconsin!' Not an overly scientific thought process, but just to let everyone know that it was Wisconsin that scored the touchdown."

Now beginning his 20th season of Badger football games, Lepay has called 17 bowl games, including five Rose Bowls, and countless memorable plays and wins.

Two moments stand out. It's not a surprise that both took place at Camp Randall.

In 1999, eventual Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dayne entered the Nov. 13 game against Iowa needing 99 yards to break the NCAA all-time rushing record. All through the week, fans wanted to know how Lepay would call this historic moment. He admit s, "I had no idea." Lepay was also concerned about a possible injury: "What if he flips his ankle? There were a lot of things that could go wrong before he broke the record, but the fact that he broke it on a big run where the moment really did meet or surpass the hype was special."

Then, in 2010, with number-one-ranked Ohio State bringing a national spotlight, David Gilreath's opening kick return started the game with a bang. "It caught everyone off guard," Lepay says. The stadium was amped up, the place was packed, an d boom — he took it all the way back. To have that happen right out of the gate was phenomenal."

For Lepay, moments like those transcend hype.

This fall, don't be afraid to clean out your garage or take your kids to their soccer game while the Badgers are playin g — as long as you have a radio handy. You can even turn down that ESPN broadcast and turn up the Badger Radio Network (WI BA in Madison with streaming online). Players graduate, coaches come and go, but Matt Lepay is a constant.

— David Petroff

BEST TRADITION

"Get out your seats and... uh uh uh... "

Everybody loves a bracket. And this past July, the Wisconsin Badgers came out on top in the sec ond annual Sirius XM College Sports Nation Traditions Tournament 2014, for "Jump Around."

Kevin Kluender, assistant athletic director for marketing and promotions, isn't sure how Sirius chose which UW traditio n to enter; the UW didn't nominate it. It's for the best that "ESFU" wasn't chosen. "Varsity" is sweet, but a little sedat e. And perhaps the Fifth Quarter takes too long (and it's not technically part of the game). "Jump Around" has become "one of the most recognized traditions in college football," says Kluender, noting that it's won other such brackets, such as one from Sports Illustrated.

"Jump Around," as you doubtless already know, is a recording by House of Pain that's played between the third and fourth quarters of a Badger home game, while — to put it mildly — everybody in the stadium goes nuts.

At some late-season games, by that time of the day it's necessary to get the crowd moving to keep them from freezing to death. For some Cheeseheads, this might be the most exercise they get all year. The opposing team's players have even bee n known to join in.

Preceding "Jump Around," and perhaps now inseparable from it, is the animated Race of the Student Section Letters on th e big screen, set to the tune of the theme song to Bonanza. Why?

Kluender recalls that the student section race started, like "Jump Around," in 1998 as a way to engage the student sect ions. At the time it was merely dot matrix letters ticking across a digital message board. (The section that wins the randomized race then screams louder than the others.)

When the video board was installed, the animation was added and somehow set to the Bonanza soundtrack, just because "it kind of fit the visual," Kluender surmises.

To get to the top of the Sirius XM tradition heap, Wisconsin beat out Auburn, nominated for "Nova/Spirit," in which a t rained falcon swoops over the stadium (a tradition that has been criticized by PETA); then took out LSU's Mike the Tiger t radition, in which a live tiger in a cage is driven around the field, to the accompaniment of "Eye of the Tiger" (a tradit ion that's also come under fire from PETA). It then trounced Florida State's Chief Osceola Flaming Spear, in which someone dressed as Chief Osceola charges a horse named Renegade to midfield and hurls a burning spear into the turf; and Arkansas ' "Calling of the Hogs," in which fans chant "Woooooooooo, Pig! Sooie! Razorbacks!" At least with that one there are apparently no actual hogs involved.

Finally, "Jump Around" bested Ohio State's "Script Ohio" tradition, in which the band marches to write out "Ohio." In script. (That might be a fair fight if it were up against "Varsity." Just witness the gripping YouTube video of the formation.)

"Jump Around" isn't about the band, or the team, or someone dressed up as a badger. "The fans make it what it is," says Kluender. "They own it. That's why it's as popular as it is."

Good news. Though this year's opening game against LSU is being played on neutral territory, Wisconsin will be allowed to do its thing between the third and fourth quarters.

— Linda Falkenstein

FAN FEEDBACK

Ticket-holders who can speak for the crowd

Alan Rubenstein with his daughter Gillian: "Most schools can only envy what we have at Wisconsin"

There's a group of Badger fans you may not be aware of, but they are aware of every aspect of game day — from how easy it was for fans to find a parking spot, to what the service was like at the concessions stands, to how long someone may have waited in line for a restroom break.

Known as the Wisconsin Fan Advisory Board, they provide feedback about the entire game-day experience, as well as more fringe elements like the user-friendliness of the athletic department's website and its communication with fans.

"It becomes a really good give-and-take," says Justin Doherty, associate athletic director for external relations and one of the initiators of the board. "We're able to educate fans on why we do the things we do, and they're able to educate us on their experiences as fans. Ultimately we want them to know we made decisions based on the feedback they gave to us."

Current advisory board member Alan Rubenstein got involved because he wanted "the opportunity to try to give back and h elp to continue to improve the experience for all fans, of all ages."

Now in its second year, the advisory board consists of 25 members, all season ticket holders from either football, men's or women's basketball, men's or women's hockey, or volleyball.

"We try to have the composition be as diverse as it can be," says Doherty, adding that the group includes alumni and non-alumni, residents of Madison and those who live beyond, and longtime and newbie season ticket holders.

The group meets four times during the academic year, alternating between the Kohl Center and Camp Randall. Doherty believes in the value of having the group meet face-to-face to discuss feedback and generate ideas. Members also have a chance to hear from the likes of Barry Alvarez, Gary Andersen and Bo Ryan and receive behind-the-scenes tours of the facilities.

Rubenstein, a UW graduate and season ticket holder since 1993, gladly makes the 130-mile trek from his home in Buffalo Grove, Ill., both for game days and board meetings. At the kickoff meeting in early August, he had a chance to tell coach Alvarez how much Badger fans appreciated his work in turning around the athletic program.

"Most schools can only envy what we have at Wisconsin," says Rubenstein. "It's great that we are at the point to debate the little things, while knowing that our programs are in excellent hands."

— Candice Wagener

VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

#Badgers on Twitter

Gary Andersen's gung-ho spirit is exactly what Wisconsin needs.

SEASON PROSPECTS

UW is "in the playoff conversation"

The only time you'll see Bowling Green, Washington State, Akron, Northern Illinois, UNLV, North ern Iowa, Massachusetts and LSU in the same sentence is when reading about the Wisconsin Badgers' Week 1 football opponent s between 2006 and 2014.

UW won the games against the first eight of these teams (beating UNLV twice) by a combined score of 306-131, triggering annual cries from both haters and the Badger faithful for a more challenging nonconference schedule.

Enter LSU and this year's inaugural AdvoCare Texas Kickoff game at NRG Stadium in Houston, home of the NFL's Houston Te xans and their All-Pro defensive end, former Badger J.J. Watt.

The Badgers are seven-point underdogs heading into the heavily hyped Aug. 30 prime-time confrontation on ESPN with the 2014 Outback Bowl Champion LSU Tigers. This will be UW's first regular-season meeting with a team from the Southeastern Conference since 1972 (when LSU beat UW 27-7 in Baton Rouge, La.). The game also kicks off three consecutive neutral-site season openers for Wisconsin involving perennial SEC powerhouses.

LSU will head north to Lambeau Field for a rematch against the Badgers in 2016, while UW will travel to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, in 2015 to take on Alabama.

The Wisconsin State Journal reported last month that neither LSU coach Les Miles nor Alabama coach Nick Saban had any interest in a true "home-and-home" series, which would have required both teams to march into Camp Randall Stadium. Why? No one's saying, but it could have something to do with Wisconsin's 70- 13 record at home since 2002.

Second-year UW football coach Gary Andersen would love to take on LSU in Madison, and he says he'd relish the challenge of playing at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge. "Going down to Death Valley would be a great experience, a very difficult pla ce to play," he told the State Journal.

Andersen's gung-ho spirit is exactly what Wisconsin needs if its football program is to thrive in the post-Bowl Championship Series era.

This season marks the beginning of the College Football Playoff system. It's a highly subjective and therefore question able format in which a disparate panel of 13 so-called experts, including UW athletic director Barry Alvarez, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former USA Today college football reporter Steve Wieberg, will eschew traditional computer rankings and polls to select and seed teams.

The weekly process will culminate in a four-team playoff for the opportunity to vie for a national title in the new College Football Championship Game, slated for Jan. 12, 2015, at AT&T Stadium.

Strength of schedule, win-loss records and head-to-head results are among the key factors in determining the rankings t hat will lead to college football's version of the Final Four. The fact that UW agreed to play LSU not only puts Wisconsin in the national playoff conversation, but also signals a turning point in Badger football history — one in which not ever y nonconference game will be even close to a gimme.

That said, those gimme days aren't over yet, as Wisconsin's next three opponents will be Western Illinois, Bowling Gree n and Southern Florida. Baby steps, Bucky, baby steps.

A SportsNation poll suggests the majority of football fans who don't reside in the Deep South think the Badgers can tame the Tigers and pull off an upset. Which is entirely possible.

Campus Insiders, a college sports news and information website, claims UW' s playoff hopes will be decided during the first third of the LSU game; we'll give the Badgers a little more time than tha t. After all, both teams have young rosters, and it might take several possessions before players at key positions settle in and find their groove.

Beating a team like LSU in the first game of Andersen's second year would be huge, giving the Badgers an all-important signature victory that was missing last season among losses at Arizona State and Ohio State, before the team fell to South Carolina, 34-24, in the Capital One Bowl.

Once the Badgers get their biggest game of the season out of the way early, not even a Nebraska team seeking revenge after a thumping 70-31 defeat by UW in the 2012 Big Ten Championship Game should be able to shut down Bucky.

Even if missteps result in a Wisconsin loss to LSU, the team should be able to regroup and still take advantage of its light conference schedule — which does not include Ohio State, Michigan or Michigan State — and easily dominate the Big Ten's renamed and freshly realigned West Division.

Slightly more compelling than games against Illinois and Purdue will be consecutive midseason contests that introduce U W to conference newcomers Maryland and Rutgers. Unlike the Badgers, each of those teams will play the Buckeyes, Wolverines and Spartans during their inaugural Big Ten seasons.

Look for the Badgers to make their third Big Ten Championship Game appearance since 2011. But unlike the men's basketball team, these Badgers likely won't end up among the last four national teams standing.

— Michael Popke