The Wisconsin Badgers finally caught their hodag Saturday.

What’s a hodag you ask? Well according to folklore, a hodag is a mystical creature that roams the woods of Wisconsin. To give you a visual, it’s a lizard-like animal with scales and big claws and several other unflattering characteristics. Wisconsin people love it. I’ll never understand them.

Anyway, the hodag is a very elusive creature that no one can seem to catch.

But the Badgers did.

They finally found what they couldn’t get all season to this point. They caught their first conference win … courtesy of your Fighting Illini.

And while Wisconsin left Camp Randall Stadium with their heads held high, the search for Illinois continues as they still haven’t caught their hodag: consecutive quality games.

A lot of the blame for the loss Saturday can be attributed to the appearance of a subpar Juice Williams, another mystical creature we’ve yet to see much of this season. Juice, who had been lighting up the scoreboard and stat sheet recently, threw three interceptions Saturday and averaged only 6.9 yards per throw. While two of those interceptions should be credited to freshman wide receiver Fred Sykes, Juice’s inability to make the big play with his arm was evident. Instead, the Badgers were the ones making the big plays when they needed it, and that was the difference in the game.

I’m sure there was a mess of emotions running through everyone’s mind after the loss. Some of you were probably frustrated. Some of you were probably angry. Some of you were probably confused. And while those are all reasonable reactions to yet another head-scratching defeat, I felt none of them. All I wanted was some answers.

It seems that with every loss the story is the same with this team. Players talk about inconsistency and coaches talk about getting ready for the next game, but nobody offers any answers.

So here’s my own.

Saying this team is inconsistent is no longer a valid analysis of their play. In fact, it’s just a cop-out. After being around this team the last few months, it’s clear to me that they’re inconsistent because they’re young and mentally immature. These players need to have an edge and they have to play with some anger. They need to get over whatever sense of entitlement they think they might have.

So what’s my plan to fix this? All competition all the time.

Now I’m not going to pretend I know more about running a team than Ron Zook or that he is somehow to blame for any of the team’s losses, but there needs to be an attitude change around Memorial Stadium. It starts by making the players earn everything.

The entire way this team operates needs to be changed into a competition. Practice drills, weightlifting, film studies, grades, eating, sleeping (not sure how you’d do this but feel free to let your imagination run wild). All of it. There needs to be a clear winner who is rewarded and a clear loser who is punished. Sound a little ridiculous? Perhaps, but the coaching staff needs to establish that there are consequences for everything and that nothing is given to you.

The point of all this will be to create a team that thrives off of competition instead of shying away from it. My biggest problem with this team is that they think (for whatever reason) they only need to show up and the game will just take care of itself. In reality though, they haven’t proved anything. Constant competition should fix that.

Still not convinced? Let’s look at the running backs as an example of how competition can better this team.

Going into Camp Rantoul, there was no clear-cut individual who looked like they would take the position all to themselves. Instead, they were forced to compete against each other. Every player that was competing for playing time had different running styles and body types, but anyone of them could fit the offense as the feature back. As we know now, Daniel Dufrene was named the “starter”, but it has basically been running back by committee since the beginning of the season.

Now Dufrene, Jason Ford, Mikel Leshoure and Troy Pollard all contribute on a weekly basis. Why? Because they pushed each other and they all have benefitted from that.

This aura of competition is something Zook needs to install across the whole team. I don’t care if your name is Juice Williams, Arrelious Benn or Brit Miller, nothing is given to you unless you earn it on the field every day.

Maybe if this plan were put into place and maybe if it were to work then things could change for the Fighting Illini. And maybe, just maybe, they would be able to catch the real hodag they’ve been looking for all season: the potential we thought they had.

Kyle Betts is a graduate student. He can be reached at [email protected].