Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 9-4
’93W’94W’96W’97L’98W’99W’00W’02W’03L’04L’05W’12L’14W
Show all 13 games
1993Rose BowlW 21-16
1994Hall of Fame BowlW 34-20
1996Copper BowlW 38-10
1997Outback BowlL 6-33
1998Rose BowlW 38-31
1999Rose BowlW 17-9
2000Sun BowlW 21-20
2002Alamo BowlW 31-28
2003Music City BowlL 14-28
2004Outback BowlL 21-24
2005Capital One BowlW 24-10
2012Rose BowlL 14-20
2014Outback BowlW 34-31Report card
Top-quarter on both sides of the ball — 80th percentile offense, 88th percentile defense.
Wisconsin, every completed season graded against the whole field, then averaged.
Offense
Defense
Each season is his team’s percentile among every team with that stat (the share it beat), averaged over his completed seasons here; a mid-season takeover year and the season in progress aren’t graded. Letters: A+ 90th percentile and up, A 80, B+ 70, B 60, B− 50, C+ 45, C 40, C− 30, D 15, F below.
Fans
No fan talk about him on our list yet. His record is on Career.
Stats
Big games
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
16-14 against his rivals. Just 1-6 against Lloyd Carr.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Ran more than the situation called for under Ludwig.
1,284 run and pass snaps at Wisconsin, 2004–2014, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points. Play-by-play starts in 2004, so his earlier seasons there aren’t in it.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Building the roster
Three numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2014 roster arrived on his watch — 58 of 113 players. The other 55 are holdovers from before he was hired.
This coach's entire tenure (1990-2014) predates 2021, when transfer-portal tracking begins in this database. Portal usage cannot be measured for this tenure at all -- this is not the same as '0% portal'.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 74 of 199 signees (37%) across his 2000–2014 classes on record (his tenure ran 1990–2014), drawn from 26 states in all. Next: FL (23).
52% of his signees come from WI and its 4 border states (IL 16, MN 9, MI 3, IA 1).
Off this map: 11 signees to the west (CA 3, CO 2, others).
- median hometown distance
- 179 mi
- within 100 mi
- 44%
- within 500 mi
- 71%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 14%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
The NFL pipeline
The NFL pipeline
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here (a floor — see the note below). None can be traced to who brought them in — there’s no roster record for these players here. 9 went in the first round.
At least 55 — the draft class following his 1995 season is missing from this table entirely; and his 1990, 1991, 1992 seasons predate the modern 7-round draft, so this table’s pre-1994 pick counts are a floor, not a full count, for those seasons.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | R3.10 | Brian Calhoun | Running Back |  Detroit Lions | Estimated |
| 2006 | R3.20 | Brandon Williams | Wide Receiver |  San Francisco 49ers | Estimated |
| 2006 | R4.01 | Owen Daniels | Tight End |  Houston Texans | Estimated |
| 2006 | R5.17 | Jason Pociask | Tight End |  New York Jets | Estimated |
| 2006 | R6.03 | Jonathan Orr | Wide Receiver |  Tennessee Titans | Estimated |
| 2005 | R1.18 | Erasmus James | Defensive End |  Minnesota Vikings | Estimated |
| 2005 | R3.23 | Scott Starks | Defensive Back |  Jacksonville Jaguars | Estimated |
| 2005 | R4.06 | Dan Buenning | Offensive Guard |  Tampa Bay Buccaneers | Estimated |
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | R5.12 | Jonathan Welsh | Defensive End |  Indianapolis Colts | Estimated |
| 2005 | R6.01 | Anttaj Hawthorne | Defensive Tackle |  Oakland Raiders | Estimated |
| 2005 | R6.19 | Jason Jefferson | Defensive Tackle |  New Orleans Saints | Estimated |
| 2005 | R7.29 | Anthony Davis | Running Back | Indianapolis Colts | Estimated |
| 2004 | R1.13 | Lee Evans | Wide Receiver |  Buffalo Bills | Estimated |
| 2004 | R5.08 | Alex Lewis | Linebacker | Detroit Lions | Estimated |
| 2004 | R6.28 | Jim Sorgi | Quarterback | Indianapolis Colts | Estimated |
| 2003 | R2.06 | Al Johnson | Center |  Dallas Cowboys | Estimated |
| 2003 | R6.05 | B.J. Tucker | Defensive Back | Dallas Cowboys | Estimated |
| 2003 | R6.27 | Brooks Bollinger | Quarterback | New York Jets | Estimated |
| 2003 | R7.02 | Ben Johnson | Offensive Tackle | Detroit Lions | Estimated |
| 2002 | R1.12 | Wendell Bryant | Defensive Tackle |  Arizona Cardinals | Estimated |
| 2002 | R4.12 | Mike Echols | Defensive Back | Tennessee Titans | Estimated |
| 2002 | R5.17 | Nick Greisen | Linebacker |  New York Giants | Estimated |
| 2002 | R6.29 | Mark Anelli | Tight End |  San Francisco 49ers | Estimated |
| 2001 | R1.26 | Jamar Fletcher | Defensive Back |  Miami Dolphins | Estimated |
| 2001 | R1.27 | Michael Bennett | Running Back |  Minnesota Vikings | Estimated |
| 2001 | R2.21 | Chris Chambers | Wide Receiver | Miami Dolphins | Estimated |
| 2001 | R3.30 | Casey Rabach | Center |  Baltimore Ravens | Estimated |
| 2001 | R4.10 | Bill Ferrario | Offensive Guard |  Green Bay Packers | Estimated |
| 2001 | R6.19 | Roger Knight | Linebacker |  Pittsburgh Steelers | Estimated |
| 2001 | R6.30 | Jason Doering | Defensive Back |  Indianapolis Colts | Estimated |
| 2001 | R7.30 | Ross Kolodziej | Defensive Tackle | New York Giants | Estimated |
| 2000 | R1.11 | Ron Dayne | Running Back | New York Giants | Estimated |
| 2000 | R1.22 | Chris McIntosh | Offensive Tackle |  Seattle Seahawks | Estimated |
| 2000 | R4.30 | Bobby Myers | Defensive Back |  Tennessee Titans | Estimated |
| 2000 | R7.18 | Mark Tauscher | Offensive Tackle | Green Bay Packers | Estimated |
| 1999 | R1.27 | Aaron Gibson | Offensive Tackle |  Detroit Lions | Estimated |
| 1999 | R3.22 | Tom Burke | Defensive End | Arizona Cardinals | Estimated |
| 1999 | R6.03 | Cecil Martin | Running Back |  Philadelphia Eagles | Estimated |
| 1998 | R2.22 | Tony Simmons | Wide Receiver |  New England Patriots | Estimated |
| 1998 | R4.14 | Donald Hayes | Wide Receiver |  Carolina Panthers | Estimated |
| 1997 | R2.07 | Jerry Wunsch | Offensive Tackle | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | Estimated |
| 1997 | R4.07 | Pete Monty | Linebacker |  New York Giants | Estimated |
| 1997 | R4.26 | Tarek Saleh | Linebacker | Carolina Panthers | Estimated |
| 1995 | R2.05 | Cory Raymer | Center |  Washington Redskins | Estimated |
| 1995 | R2.19 | Terrell Fletcher | Running Back |  San Diego Chargers | Estimated |
| 1995 | R3.11 | Mike Verstegen | Offensive Tackle |  New Orleans Saints | Estimated |
| 1995 | R4.03 | Michael Roan | Tight End |  Houston Oilers | Estimated |
| 1995 | R4.25 | Mike Thompson | Defensive Tackle |  Jacksonville Jaguars | Estimated |
| 1995 | R6.13 | Lee DeRamus | Wide Receiver | New Orleans Saints | Estimated |
| 1995 | R6.22 | Kenny Gales | Defensive Back |  Chicago Bears | Estimated |
| 1994 | R3.12 | Joe Panos | Offensive Guard |  Philadelphia Eagles | Estimated |
| 1994 | R7.12 | Mark Montgomery | Running Back | Philadelphia Eagles | Estimated |
| 1993 | R5.15 | Chuck Belin | Offensive Guard |  Los Angeles Rams | Estimated |
| 1992 | R1.07 | Troy Vincent | Defensive Back |  Miami Dolphins | Estimated |
| 1991 | R3.12 | Don Davey | Defensive End | Green Bay Packers | Estimated |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
News
No outlet on our list has written about him by name yet. His record is on Career.
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Builder meaningfully raised a program that wasn't one
4th-best Wisconsin tenure of 14 by the numbers.
Followed Don Morton (1987–1989) · succeeded by Bret Bielema (2006–2012).
| Season | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2012 | 2014 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||||||||||||||
| Record | 1-10 | 5-6 | 5-6 | 10-1-1 | 7-4-1 | 4-5-2 | 8-5 | 8-5 | 11-1 | 10-2 | 9-4 | 5-7 | 8-6 | 7-6 | 9-3 | 10-3 | 0-1 | 1-0 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | W bowl | W bowl | — | W bowl | L bowl | W bowl | W bowl | W bowl | — | W bowl | L bowl | L bowl | W bowl | L bowl | W bowl | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||||||||||||||
| Offense | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 22 | 69 | — | — | |
| Defense | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 72 | 19 | — | — | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||||||||||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 26.0 | 33.2 | — | — | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 20.5 | 27.7 | — | — | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 51.4 | 17.9 | — | — | |
All-time wins
Wins at programs this site tracks, 1936–present — one consistent count for every coach, not each program’s own historically reported total.
1st all-time at Wisconsin
Was he good?
The data leans positive: every conclusive reading points the same way.
+33.0 pts at Wisconsin · #16 of 1290 · top quarterModel fit as of 2026-09-04.