A team's mettle -- its inner belief, the type of confidence on display that's not in a hype video or sideline celebration -- reveals itself in those critical moments of a season that arrive maybe three or four times.
For Wisconsin, one such opportunity came last week in the third quarter at Nebraska. The Cornhuskers scored a game-tying defensive touchdown. On the ensuing kickoff return, the Badgers committed a holding penalty and scurried to recover their own fumble.
A personal foul placed them 93 yards from the goal line as the noise from a crowd of about 89,000 crescendoed at Memorial Stadium, where the home team had won 20 straight games at night.