Badger Bits: Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

I've been galavanting about California the past few days and watched from afar as the great Source War of aught-12 broke out on my smartphone screen. I missed the frenzy, and opinionated people have just about wrapped up their consensus: Gary Andersen is a hell of a hire.

And that's it. There's nothing left to do except keep an eye on what will be a fascinating courtship of assistant coaches, and start thinking about the basketball team and the Rose Bowl again. If, in a dream, it felt like Jack posted a pretty great breakdown of the Stanford defense at some point, you weren't mistaken. Things got pretty crazy around here.

Relief. Thank goodness for relief at last, not just that most important chunk of the process is over, not just that Wisconsin hired an energetic and successful young-ish coach, but that excitement is back after things went dark just a few days after the Big Ten Championship Game. We didn't get to have our proper dose of fun. Now is as good a time as any. You can bet that players and recruits feel the excitement, too.

Welcome Gary Andersen. Please don't make us go through that again for a good, long time, and I promise to keep reminding everyone I can that it's two 'E's.' And sorry about the weather. It does that sometimes.

LINKS:

Andersen didn't meet every single one of Barry Alvarez' criteria for a new coach, but Tom Oates points out that he was more than close enough.

Andersen is set up to possibly have a big season in his first year as head coach.

Putting to rest concerns about recruiting.

Andersen's contract will reportedly start at $1.8 million per year and increase by $100,000 every season over the course of the five-year deal. With enough success, he might be able to renegotiate a better deal more in line with today's uber-contracts.

Meanwhile, Charlie Partridge would have to turn down $350k plus perks to come back to Madison.

Dave Heller talked to another Utah State reporter in a must-read breakdown of Andersen's style and philosophy. Color me very excited to see how new wrinkles introduced into the defense.

Wisconsin is the No. 14 most valuable college football program in the nation, according to Forbes.

Gary Andersen personally called every single member of the current team at Utah State. Check-plus for not stooping to Todd Graham-level jerk baggery.

This will make the UW-OSU rivalry immensely more awesome.

Ted Glover breaks down the death of the ACC over at Off Tackle Empire.

Two men, both UW students, have plead guilty to assaulting Montee Ball over the summer.

Wrapping up: @BeingAndersen is already a thing.