Tuesday’s disappointing (but not surprising, as you read) Rose Bowl loss to Stanford ended the Barry Alvarez/Bret Bielema era at Camp Randall Stadium.

It did not end, however, the era of UW Marching Band domination. Even non-Wisconsin-based blogs, such as Buzzfeed, are starting to notice:

Wisconsin’s band worked hard to deliver an excellent performance.

Straight lines.

Precision.

Stanford’s band? Well, they do whatever the hell they want. As a “scatter” band, Stanford’s musicians run willy-nilly between formations rather than marching.

The band members are adorned randomly with items such as this helmet of Medusa-like rose snakes.

Or the rainbow wig donned by the highlight of the Rose Bowl, the “Legalize Weed Drummer Boy.”

ZOOM IN.

That guy is not going to march in The Man’s company front, friends. He’s also liable to play the drum part from “White Rabbit” while everyone else is doing the fight song.

Sixteen of the players who started the game — plus the kicker and punter — are expected to return next season, highlighted by an experienced group of 26 juniors.

While the 8-6 record is a major disappointment for a team that opened the season 12th in both the media and coaches’ polls, this was in some ways a bridge year, ever since former UW coach Bret Bielema started gushing prior to the season about the potential for 2013.

“I know they’re going to be great here next year,” departing offensive coordinator Matt Canada said. “I have no doubt about it. You have nine (starters) coming back on offense. This was the tough year, this was the year to work through a lot of things and a lot of transition.

“They’re moving forward and they’ll have an unbelievable … they’ll have a top offense in the nation with all of the great guys they have coming back and I know a quality staff coming in. They’ll do a great job.” …

Ultimately, this team had some shortcomings and they started at quarterback. The Badgers had 218 rushing yards against the nation’s third-ranked run defense, which came in allowing 87.7 yards per game.

But they weren’t able to make enough plays in the air. …

The Badgers need to significantly upgrade at the receiver position. Junior Jared Abbrederis was the only legitimate threat in the group, and he fell off late in the second half when defenses focused coverages on him. He didn’t have a touchdown in the last eight games and averaged only 40.1 receiving yards in that stretch.

Bielema, who was prone to overstating the abilities of his players, called this his most talented group of tight ends. Junior Jacob Pedersen was named the top tight end in the Big Ten Conference, but the group needs to be more dynamic in the passing game. …

As good as the defense played for most of the season, it needs to produce more turnovers. The Badgers had 15 takeaways — none against Stanford.

The other issues are how quickly the Badgers will adapt to an almost entirely new coaching staff and new schemes on both sides of the ball. That was an issue early this season after replacing six assistant coaches, including a new coordinator in Canada.

Of course, now Andersen is replacing nearly the entire coaching staff. Andersen ran a 3–4 defense at Utah State; I prefer the 3–4 because of its versatility with the linebackers. (As if football coaches care what I think.)

Andersen ran the spread offense at Utah State; Wisconsin’s offense might have more of a spread look, but unless UW finds receivers somewhere, that won’t matter much. But spread formations are not incompatible with successful rushing offenses. Horizontally widening the field puts fewer defenders in the tackle-to-tackle box. UW has used fewer fullback/tailback formations the last few seasons anyway, preferring two or even three tight ends and one running back.

UW needs to be more productive through the air while not losing its ability to pound its opponents on the ground. The template, I think, should be the 2011 Badgers, with Russell Wilson, the best quarterback UW has ever had (yes, based on one season). A quarterback who can run to gain yardage or to extend plays is a quarterback who will cause defensive coordinators sleepless nights. Such quarterbacks often end up assigned to defensive “spies,” whose job is to track and contain the quarterback, and that means one less defensive player for the skill-position players to need to avoid.