Speed is not a running joke with Wisconsin's Alvarez.(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Byline: Michael Hunt

TAMPA, Fla. _ Barry Alvarez is not a good bowl coach. Barry Alvarez is a great bowl coach. You cannot be classified otherwise after going three for three in Pasadena and winning seven of nine overall.

Yet it is those two losses _ to Georgia in the 1998 Outback Bowl and to Auburn last year in the Music City Bowl _ that occasionally brings out the laziness in the media.

The cliche goes something like this:

As members of the Southeastern Conference, Georgia and Auburn must have faster players than any plodding mudder from the Big Ten Conference. It would therefore follow that the Badgers lost those two bowl games because they couldn't match up in terms of speed.

Although that myth was busted years ago, dying a deserved death before the closing decade of the 20th century, it somehow persists. For example, Alvarez was asked several times Friday during the final press conference before Saturday's Outback Bowl whether Georgia's speed would present problems for Wisconsin.

Although a walking cast on his right leg physically limits him, you got the feeling it wasn't going to stop Alvarez from going over the podium with the next such question. This was a case when speed, or at least its repeated mention, might've really killed.