Wisconsin Finds Their Coach For The Rose Bowl, Former Coach Barry Alvarez

A very strange situation for the Badgers of Wisconsin who, looking for a coach to lead in them "grand daddy of them all," the Rose Bowl, looked within and found their former coach, now currently their Athletic Director, Barry Alvarez to lead them against Stanford for the Roses.

Now former coach Brett Bielema wanted to coach the club before heading off to Arkansas, but that wasn't going to happen. Instead team captains asked Alvarez who retired after the 2005 season with three Rose Bowl wins to coach the club. Yesterday Alvarez agreed to do so.

After retiring, the hall of famer Alvarez became the Athletic Director of Wisconsin and handpicked Bielema to take his place. Now the mentor takes over for the defector.

Wisconsin got to the Rose Bowl by thumping Nebraska and winning the Big Ten title. They will face a very good Stanford club that defeated UCLA 27-24 in the Pac-12 title game.

Wisconsin will hold a press conference on Thursday to make the one game coaching situation official. It is believed Alvarez will coach just the bowl game then continue looking for a successor to Bielema if one is not found by that time.