If you’re a Wisconsin sports fan, that day may well have been the pinnacle of your recent sporting life. To wit: the previous weekend, the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers dropped 49 points on the pre-Tebow-as-starter Denver Broncos with Aaron Rodgers rolling up over 400 yards of passing; on the college side of the gridiron, the No. 7-ranked Wisconsin Badgers had, um, “welcomed” the Nebraska Cornhuskers to the Big Ten by nearly matching the Packers’ point total. Meanwhile, the Brewers had just accomplished a heart-pumping National League Division Series win over Arizona, putting themselves in prime position to carry their home field advantage to a first-ever Brew Crew World Series championship.

The Badger State sports scene was so blissful that a few days earlier, some inventive computer denizen slapped together the Badgers, Brewers, and Packers logos into a trio of Wisconsin athletic pride, a W-B-G symbol that quickly adorned many a Facebook profile pic. The Badgers seemed to finally have enough firepower to slide into the BCS National Championship, the Brewers were a favorite to win the World Series, and the Packers? An undefeated season looked realistic, even likely. Heady times, weren’t they?

About four months later, the W-B-G sits at home, having flamed out in a series of disappointments, giving the Wisconsin sports fan a triple shot of “Wait ‘til next year.”
So, wha’ happened?

There are in-depth reasons that have to do with each team: the questionable time-out usage of Badgers coach Bret Bielema, the pitching order of the Brewers trying to match against a magical St. Louis Cardinals squad, the Packers simply peaking before the playoffs. However, the biggest lesson we can glean from the zenith of last October and the accompanying fall is that sports will always surprise you.

Players and coaches are human, subject to over- and under-thinking their strategy and injuring parts of their bodies that keep them from playing the games. This sounds obvious, but we get so caught-up in a run of athletic excellence that we forget the need for full schedules to be played, that an off-game can happen at an inopportune time, that success does not last forever.

This is a particularly tough pill for Packers fans to swallow. Aaron Rodgers was putting up historic numbers for an NFL quarterback during the regular season, seeming to be “in the zone” where he was nearly incapable of throwing an interception or even an incompletion. By early December, a scan of the schedule and the likely teams the Packers would play in the playoffs made one think the team could be the first ever to go 19-0. Even I, a die-hard Viking fan, thought the team was more than likely to attain the mark.

Green Bay had an off-game, against the Chiefs, and the undefeated season was over. Teams were more competitive against the Packers, but the green-and-gold still finished 15-1, and every 15-1 NFL team in history had at least made their conference championship. Alas, not this one.

I can somewhat relate to this year’s Packers fan sorrow. The 1998 Vikings went 15-1 and were penciled-in by many to make or win the Super Bowl. For a moment, I let my guard down and thought the impossible – a Minnesota Vikings Super Bowl win – could actually happen. Of course, that 15-1 team lost at home in the conference championship to the one-year-wonder Atlanta Falcons, and I feel more bitter than sweet about that campaign. Having such high expectations, then having them dashed, was almost worse than finishing 3-13 (like this past season). The crash is always worse than the slow deflation.

However, Wisconsin sports fan, cheer-up. The Packers not only won a Lombardi Trophy one year ago (something Vikings fans would almost kill for), but are well positioned to win more this decade. The Badgers are always competitive, although the Brewers may need time to reload. What *should* make you cringe is this: Between Wisconsin and Minnesota, which state has the most recent championships in a top-division college and professional sport? The Gopher State: UMD in college hockey and the Lynx in pro women’s basketball. If only their logos made for a nice mash-up.