MIKE LUCAS

Senior Writer Related Content

• Varsity Magazine



BY MIKE LUCAS

UWBadgers.com Senior Writer

MADISON, Wis. — The late, great Luther Vandross had "One Shining Moment" at Western Michigan University. One and done. He left school after one year to get started on his music career.

Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh got his master's degree at Western Michigan while serving as an assistant to his dad, Jack, who was the Broncos' head coach between 1982 and 1986.

The late John Saunders played hockey with his brother at Western Michigan before transferring to Ryerson University in Toronto. A pro's pro, he was a stellar journalist for ESPN and ABC.

The "Bulldog" — right-handed pitcher Jim Bouton — was a mainstay with the Broncos before embarking on a Major League career with the New York Yankees. He later authored "Ball Four."

Greg Jennings, a product of Kalamazoo Central, caught 238 passes for 3,539 yards and 39 touchdown during his Western Michigan career. In 2006, the Packers drafted Jennings in the second round and he went on to a solid seven years in Green Bay with 425 catches for 6,537 yards and 53 touchdowns. Just don't ask him about Aaron Rodgers.

Western Michigan also can claim a billionaire (Alec Gores), a country western singer (Josh Gracin), a baseball executive (Dave Dombrowski) and a toolman (Tim Allen).

One of the Broncos' greatest football players was a Cheesehead.

John Offerdahl was born in Wisconsin Rapids and attended high school in Fort Atkinson. Ignored by major college programs, he made a name for himself at Western Michigan, the only school to offer.

Offerdahl, a bio-medicine major, had a school-record 694 career tackles, including the single-season record of 192 during his sophomore year. Offerdahl even had his No. 49 retired.

A two-time All-American linebacker and a member of the MAC Hall of Fame, Offerdahl was selected to five Pro Bowls with the Miami Dolphins and earned a spot on the Dolphins' Ring of Honor.

Outside of football, Offerdahl scored as a businessman with bagels, notably Einstein Bros.

Another former Western Michigan defensive player has also had success off the field. That would be Terry Crews, the original Old Spice Guy. (Isaiah Mustafa is "New" Old Spice Guy.)

Crews may be better known today as Sergeant Terry Jeffords on "Brooklyn Nine-Nine."

The 6-foot-2, 245-pound Crews, a Flint, Michigan native, was an All-MAC defensive end for the Broncos and an 11th-round draft pick of the Los Angeles Rams. He played 32 games on four different NFL teams.

Crews also played in Camp Randall Stadium. It was a memorable game for Western Michigan. And for Crews, who recovered quarterback Otis Flowers' fumble inside the Broncos' 5-yard line. In the 1988 season opener, Western Michigan shocked the Badgers, 24-14, behind quarterback Dave Kruse, who passed for 247 yards and a touchdown, and Rob Davis, who rushed for 136 and two TDs.

It was Western Michigan's first victory over a Big Ten opponent in 12 attempts. In their only two previous meetings, the Badgers won 41-0 in 1963 and 21-10 in 1981.

Wisconsin won just once under Don Morton during the '88 season, which was Paul Chryst 's senior year at UW.

Western Michigan didn't show up on the UW schedule again until the 2000 season opener. Or what UW head coach Barry Alvarez called "the longest day I've ever had to go through in coaching."

Just before noon on the day of the game — a rare Thursday night contest — the NCAA rejected a school appeal on sanctions for players accepting unadvertised discounts at a shoe store.

That meant 26 players faced suspensions of one to three games that had to be served over the first four games of the 2000 season — 11 of the players had to sit out three games each.

Alvarez thus had to make some last-second roster decisions that affected the depth chart. The Badgers wound up sitting 11 players, including five starters, against Western Michigan. Keep in mind that the Badgers were coming off back-to-back Rose Bowls and Alvarez felt like this team had the potential to be better and more complete than the other two.

Camp Randall Stadium was a sauna that night with a heat index of over 100 degrees. On top of it, the UW offense was stagnant from the start against the Broncos, who were fired up by the turmoil.

The No. 4 Badgers got a lift from an unexpected source, Josh Hunt, a walk-on receiver, who was subbing as a punt returner for Nick Davis, one of the suspended players.

Hunt was No. 23 in the game program, a duplicate number he shared with cornerback B.J. Tucker. Since both were on special teams, Hunt switched to No. 20 for the Western Michigan game.

The irony was that he had to wait until halftime to get his name stitched on the back of his jersey. By then, though, everyone knew his identity. With less than five minutes remaining in the second quarter, Hunt electrified the crowd by returning a punt 89 yards for a touchdown, the second longest punt return in school history.

Hunt, a junior from Mequon, had a couple of TD returns at Homestead High School. But nothing compared with this moment on this stage as he staked Wisconsin to a 10-0 lead.

It didn't last long because Western Michigan quarterback Jeff Welsh completed a short touchdown pass to tight end Mobolaji Afariogun just before the end of that half, making it 10-7.

That kept Western Michigan's upset hopes alive. It wasn't until the fourth quarter that the Badgers got some breathing room thanks to an 8-yard scoring run by Michael Bennett.

On a night in which the Badgers managed just 252 yards of total offense, Bennett came up big with 128 rushing yards on 30 carries. It was not a bad starting point for Ron Dayne's replacement.

The Badgers later got a safety from defensive tackle Ross Kolodziej , who tackled Welsh in the end zone — Kolodziej is now UW's strength coach — and escaped with a 19-7 victory.

Wisconsin quarterback Brooks Bollinger might challenge the verb. Escaped? Without his starting left tackle — the suspended Ben Johnson — Bollinger was sacked five times by Western Michigan.

"The victory is the only thing that is important now," Bollinger said afterwards.

The Broncos, meanwhile, were disappointed that they didn't take advantage of the situation. "We believed that we would leave with nothing less than a win," said linebacker Anthony Allsbury.

Sixteen years later, Western Michigan will get another shot at Wisconsin — this time in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic on Jan. 2 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

The 13-0 Broncos are one of only two undefeated teams left, joining the College Football Playoff's No. 1 seed, Alabama. Western Michigan's head coach, P.J. Fleck, might be No. 1 on some wish lists for schools with a coaching vacancy.

As it is, Fleck has the unique distinction of setting the Camp Randall Stadium record for most fair catches signaled and caught in a single game. This dates to his playing days at Northern Illinois.

Hit rewind to Sept. 14, 2002, the fourth game of the season.

The Huskies came to Madison without starting tailback Thomas Hammock, a 1,000-yard rusher. Hammock was eventually forced to give up football because of a heart condition. Yes, this is the same Thomas Hammock who eventually coached the UW running backs. His replacement in 2002 was Michael Turner, who ran for 160 yards and two TDs against the Badgers.

The Huskies, quarterbacked by Josh Haldi, had 455 yards of total offense — almost doubling the output by the Badgers, who had trouble protecting their QB. Bollinger was sacked 10 times.

With 2 minutes and 13 seconds remaining in the game, Northern Illinois led 21-17. Behind Bollinger and walk-on wide receiver David Braun, though, the Badgers rallied for a 24-21 win.

NIU coach Joe Novak had grounds to go "Harbaugh" (Jim Harbaugh) on the officiating, because the Badgers definitely benefited from some calls down the stretch by the Big Ten zebras.

Fleck might have been thinking about how his team got "jobbed" on the two-hour bus ride back to DeKalb, Illinois. Or he might have been just frustrated by a hamstring injury that limited his participation.

Fleck, an outstanding MAC wide receiver, was used to return punts because of a mid-week injury to Vince Thompson, the regular returner. But there was a caveat. Novak ordered Fleck to call fair catches. He didn't want him to re-tweak his hammy. (By the way, the UW punt returner was Jim Leonhard , now the Badgers' defensive backs coach).

Fleck obeyed Novak and called fair catches on six of R.J. Morse's nine punts. Nobody has come close to topping that record. Maybe he will regale his Western Michigan players with that story.

Or maybe he will play a little "Luther" for them on how they can create their own One Shining Moment in the Cotton Bowl. The Broncos are a seven-point underdog. Northern Illinois was a 21-point dog that day in 2002.

The world is much smaller than you think between Madison and Kalamazoo.