Had I told you Friday that the final score of Saturday’s Big T1e2n football championship game would have been 70–31, you probably would have called for the firing of Badgers head coach Bret Bielema.

In the words of the late Howard Cosell: But no!

The people calling for the firing of their team’s coach would be Nebraska fans, after the Badgers turned the Cornhuskers into ethanol 70–31. And it wasn’t that close.

Here is one view of the game, from the Troglopundit:

The opposite view comes from the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star:

Few people predicted a Badger win, and no one predicted that kind of win. Yes, the Badgers lost five games (three in overtime) by a total of 19 points, but does that reflect a team that’s almost there, or a team good enough to lose close games?

Bucky’s 5th Quarter captures the air of unreality:

As much fun as I was having in the first half of Saturday’s game–and I still postulate that it was the most fun half of Wisconsin football I have ever seen–I didn’t feel like it was going to last. Even 35-10, with Good Feelings tiding over everyone following Montee Ball’s super-heroic dive for the record, didn’t feel safe. Badger Football in 2012 taught me that good things won’t last, that ecstacy is fleeting, that overtime means a loss and 17 points isn’t a real lead. I won’t say that Wisconsin was bad during the regular season, but they were sad in a lot of ways. Against the best teams they faced, they ultimately crumbled after an inspired start, crushed by the inevitable. …

I spent the second half in a titter, culminating in a fit of outrageous laughter as Bret Bielema gave an impromptu wet-windbreaker show after a Gatorade bath. After learning all season that all that’s great will turn to dust in a moment, Wisconsin fans were let loose to regale in pure atavistic pleasure, in the simple idea of smash=fun. I was drunk off everything, and touchdowns more than anything else.

A third straight Rose Bowl is a beautiful thing. Yeah Bret I agree, the team still needs to win the damn thing. Until then, WOOOOOOOOOOO.

The Wisconsin State Journal’s Tom Oates:

People will debate whether one impressive victory will erase the memory of five close losses, but they can’t argue with how thoroughly UW dispatched Nebraska. For the first time against a really good team, the Badgers kept their foot on the accelerator after taking their usual early lead. At no point did they go into the conservative shell that frustrated fans during their close losses. …

Offensive coordinator Matt Canada, who has come under some fire for UW’s offensive struggles, had a creative game plan that had Nebraska guessing from the start. As usual, Canada emptied his playbook by the end of the second drive. Then he pulled out another one and emptied it, too. By then, Nebraska was finished. …

Whether that showed real growth or was one fleeting moment of success won’t be known until UW meets Stanford in the Rose Bowl. But for one night anyway, the Badgers had nothing to apologize for. And if they can reprise the way they played, they will be a worthy Big Ten representative in the Rose Bowl.

It must be said that with all the accomplishments of Barry Alvarez, Bielema’s predecessor and boss, there is no game in Alvarez’s career that compares to this one. Alvarez beat teams either by having (eventually) superior talent or superior execution of the game plan. And nowhere in all of Alvarez’s seasons, including the three Rose Bowl-winning seasons,  was there a game where Wisconsin crushed a quality opponent. For all the criticism Bielema has received in this and previous years, it’s obvious Bielema was smart enough to figure out it was going to take something different to beat Nebraska.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Dave Heller got to write about the offense:

Anyone listening to nay-saying Wisconsin fans over the past few weeks could hear complaints about Matt Canada’s play-calling, with the word “vanilla” often used.

Against Nebraska in the Big Ten championship game Saturday night, vanilla was the last word you would use to describe the Badgers’ offense. In fact, Canada pulled flavors out of the freezer that people probably didn’t know existed. …

“I didn’t fear (the fans’ protests), but I’m not naïve. I understand we haven’t scored enough points,” Canada said. “It’s been a tough year, but it was a rewarding game.” …

Canada unveiled the “Zebra” play, with Wisconsin lining up with seven players wide left, with only center Travis Frederick, quarterback Curt Phillips, tight end Jacob Pedersen and fullback Derek Watt lined up with the ball in the middle of the field. Phillips hit Watt for a 10-yard gain on second and 9 for a first down to help set up a James White 9-yard touchdown.

White scored from the “Barge” formation, in which Wisconsin brings in extra linemen and puts them all up front, of course. And Canada wasn’t done. Far from it.

In the second quarter with UW leading, 21-10, Phillips handed off to wide receiver Jared Abbrederis on an end around, but Abbrederis – a former high school quarterback at Wautoma – threw his first collegiate pass to an uncovered Phillips, who got to the 1. …

Canada even added some wrinkles to the Barge formation. With UW ahead, 28-10, White, who takes a direct snap out of the Barge, handed off to Montee Ball, who scored from 16 yards – the last 4 via a remarkable dive to the end zone.

With 6 seconds left in the half and Wisconsin leading, 35-10, with the ball at the 3 – after yet another Gordon long run for 60 yards – Wisconsin went for a score instead of a field goal and had White throw out of the Barge for the first time this season. He found tight end Sam Arneson open in the end zone for another UW touchdown.

Wisconsin tied a record for points scored in a conference championship game. Yes, conference title games are less than two decades old, but that remains impressive given the offensive juggernauts that played in some of those games.

To put it mildly, the Husker fans are not happy. Nor are their sportswriters, beginning with the Journal Star’s Steven M. Sipple:

There’s absolutely no excusing the manner in which 14th-ranked Nebraska lost in the Big Ten Championship Game.

Bo Pelini’s squad somehow dropped a 70-31 decision to a five-loss Wisconsin team that is down to its third-string quarterback.

Nebraska somehow allowed a boatload of yards (640) to a Wisconsin outfit that entered Saturday night’s game ranked 84th nationally in total offense and 72nd in scoring at 27.5 points per game. …

Pelini apologized to everyone — including Husker fans — for the performance. Unfortunately, Bo has gotten pretty good at making such apologies. Yes, it pains me to write that, because I believe he is a good head coach.

Wisconsin’s game plan didn’t catch Nebraska’s defense off-guard, Pelini said.

“We practiced 99 percent of what they showed us,” he said. “For whatever reason, we didn’t execute. We didn’t make tackles. We didn’t make plays. Obviously, we didn’t coach them well enough.”

The Journal Star’s Brian Christopherson was sentenced to write the game story:

Ever taken a test where you keep going from question to question hoping you’ll run into one where you know the answer? You realize soon enough you’re in a world of hurt. You’re guessing. You’re toast.

That’s how the Nebraska football team looked Saturday night in a game that was equal parts stunning and embarrassing for the Huskers.

Burnt toast. The kind that leaves a smell in the kitchen that won’t leave for a while. …

They were playing a 7-5 team that finished third in its division. They were playing a team they beat in September in a game where they held the Badgers to just 56 rushing yards. They were playing a team with the 84th-ranked offense in the country.

Eighty four. That’s how many the Badgers could have probably scored if they wanted.

By game’s end, Wisconsin had 539 rushing yards, the most ever allowed on the ground by Nebraska. …

The Badgers continually burned the Huskers on a jet-sweep play, effortlessly getting outside the hash marks and making Nebraska’s defenders look like they had lead in their cleats. But Wisconsin ran the ball up the gut with success, too. It ran the wildcat with success. It ran playground-style tricks with success.

Whatever, wherever, success.

Husker fans on the Journal Star’s live blog were even less pleased as the Husker meltdown proceeded. Several predicted Pelini’s “we didn’t execute” comment, and suggested he be fired if he said that. In fact, some wanted him fired during the game. There were also two who suggested Pelini commit suicide during the postgame press conference, which seems a bit extreme.

On that blog Sunday night, someone named “bilybob” summed up his feelings, by posting, 10 times:

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@cbfowler (Chris Fowler, host of ESPN College Gameday): Can’t watch Fox game, but must be a game cast glitch. It says WIS has put 63 on NEB midway 3Q. How absurd, this faulty technology.

You know things are going bad when your own former players start dumping on you:

@jasonpeter (Jason Peter, former Husker defensive tackle): Its a simple “zone cutback”! Can the backside end please squeeze down! How many times will it take!

@CoryRossRB (Cory Ross, former Husker running back): 3 different backs over a hundred yards by the end of this one! wow where did our swag go!!!

@croucheric (Eric Crouch, Husker Heisman Trophy winner): Is this a nightmare. Someone wake me up.

Alvarez won three Rose Bowls. Bielema will be trying for his first Rose Bowl win after losing the last two. The point, however, is that getting to the Rose Bowl and losing is better than not getting there at all. Ask Nebraska fans.

And then … to make Wisconsin football fans’ weekend perfect, there was the Packers’ 23–14 win over Minnesota,  which, coupled with Da Bears’ 23–17 overtime loss to Seattle (isn’t that ironic?), puts the Packers back in first place (by tiebreaker) in the NFC North.

The question is what happened to the Vikings after they led 14–10 at the half? (Grade-school math: 14 points the first half, zero in the second half.) It is rare indeed to lose a game when one running back rushes for 210 yards, but that’s what the Vikings managed to do.

Some blame Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder, whose day was as the St. Paul Pioneer Press chronicled:

Without Percy Harvin to cover, the Packers blanketed the Vikings’ underwhelming receiving corps, which accounted for just two receptions and failed to shake loose from coverage and give its quarterback something to target.

It was so dire that Peterson ran a deep sideline route only to have Ponder overthrow him. Ponder also threw a pair of costly interceptions in Green Bay territory, including one in the end zone to start the second half.

Peterson eclipsed 200 yards for the third time in his career, and first since his 2007 rookie year, breaking Robert Smith‘s franchise record with his sixth straight 100-yard plus game. He became just the seventh running back since 1960 to run for 200-plus yards in a loss.

Or perhaps it was the defense, as the Pioneer Press’ Brian Murphy notes:

To think the Vikings had Green Bay and quarterback Aaron Rodgers right where they wanted, relatively contained and on the run. Yet it was never enough to avoid the inevitable 24-13 loss at Lambeau Field.

Too many Packers playmakers on the field made it too difficult for Vikings defenders to get off it. Mix in several inexcusable penalties and Minnesota was left to spend another afternoon ruminating about what might have been. …

Sure, the Vikings limited Rodgers to 286 yards passing and intercepted him once. But he managed to sidestep pressure, buy time in the pocket and connect with 10 different receivers to extend drives. …

Rodgers played catch and release with Minnesota’s defensive front, using a hard count and different cadences at the line of scrimmage to draw four Vikings offsides penalties.

Williams, Everson Griffen, Letroy Guion and Christian Ballard all fell victim. A fifth foul was negated when Rodgers hit James Jones for a 32-yard first-quarter touchdown.

About Da Bears’ loss, the Chicago Tribune’s Steve Rosenbloom shot the corpse the most often:

This might not be a full-blown disaster, but you can see it from here.

The Chicago Bears let a rookie quarterback on one of the worst road teams in the league go 97 yards on 12 plays late in the fourth quarter to blow what should’ve been an easy home win.

But wait. It got worse. After a Jay Cutler-to-Brandon Marshall miracle that helped the Bears get to overtime, the defense died.

The defense that is supposed to be the best part of the team gave up another inexcusable 12-play drive to a rookie quarterback on one of the worst road teams in the league, this one in overtime, this one covering 80 yards, this one giving the Seahawks a 23-17 win.

Players got tired — tired of not catching Russell Wilson, who ran a college-like read-option that pantsed Lovie Smith’s defense.

Smith took the blame for not having his team ready to beat a team that almost everybody beats at home. Smith also took the blame for the decision to go for it on fourth-and-inches instead of taking the field goal in the first half.

Smith called that the play of the game. Smith was wrong, but then, he was wrong a lot on Sunday.

Truth is, there were 24 “plays of the game,’’ the ones that Wilson engineered on those last two stunning Seattle possessions.

A 97-yard drive at home? An 80-yard drive right after that in overtime? First place teams don’t allow that to happen. Super Bowl teams don’t allow that to happen.

The Bears allowed that to happen.