BY MIKE LUCAS
UWBadgers.com Senior Writer
MADISON, Wis. — Sundays are for resets. That's how Wisconsin quarterback Bart Houston treats the day-after-football hangover that has nothing to do with being overserved and everything to do with being overextended physically and mentally by all the preparation that goes into playing on game days.
"You come in and watch the tape on what happened Saturday and then you really do press the reset button, you unwind," Houston conceded. "It's just as important after a loss as it is a win, because if you let the past dictate what you're going to do for the next week, you've already lost that week."
Saturday was understandably emotional for the 23-year-old Houston, a California native, who was making his last appearance at Camp Randall Stadium. But it wasn't as much of a factor during senior introductions prior to the kickoff against Minnesota as it was during the postgame celebration with Paul Bunyan's Axe.
Houston kept a promise by bringing the Axe over to his mom and dad at field level.
"When I did that it kind of hit me, like, 'My parents are here, it's Senior Day … this is pretty significant, pretty sweet,'" said Houston. "It also kind of hit me during the game when Eric Steffes went down. Dang, it was a good play (a 71-yard run by Jazz Peavy on a jet sweep), but it was a bad play (Steffes was chopped by a Gophers defensive back and injured).
"I have a class with him throughout the year and I got a little emotional then."
Steffes, a fifth-year senior tight end, was helped to the sideline with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter of a tie game. Houston had to refocus. "I had to figure it out — I still had a game to play," he said of getting back to business. "That can be mental toughness or whatever you want to call it."
Houston knew that a lot of people were counting on him, especially after redshirt freshman quarterback Alex Hornibrook went out of the game with an injury. Did he consider the ramifications? Did he think, "Hornibrook is not coming back, it's my game." Did it change how he was thinking? "No, it didn't affect me, but it changed what Karé was thinking," Houston said with a smirk.
Karé Lyles is the only other scholarship quarterback on the roster.
Lyles, a true freshman from Scottsdale, Arizona, is being redshirted.
"It's funny, but he was more freaked out about it than I was," Houston recalled. "I'm like, 'Calm down. You're the backup quarterback for the University of Wisconsin. If I go down, you've got to go in.'" Houston let that reality sink in with Lyles, the son of Kevin Lyles, a former UW quarterback and tight end, and then informed him, "But too bad. I'm not going down."
As he has done many times since losing his starting job to Hornibrook the week of the Big Ten opener, Houston provided a spark off the bench. Against Minnesota, he completed 9 of 14 passes for 123 yards. Over the last six games in relief, he's 25-of-37 for 385 yards with three TDs and one pick.
"Bart does do a great job of being in the moment," Wisconsin head coach Paul Chryst said Monday. "One thing I have enjoyed and appreciated from Bart is that I think he's having fun playing the game, and when you play the game that way, you're understanding situations and you're trying to do the right thing. No doubt, he has given us a spark a number of times. It has been good to see."
Houston doesn't necessarily put undue pressure on himself to be that spark.
"I really never do," he said. "There's a quote on our wall (in the meeting room) and it says, 'Be you. Be the good you.' That's what I think about preparing throughout the week. What can I do with my God-given abilities to help this team? And that's just being the best me that I can be."
Houston will "visualize plays that might happen" during his relief stint.
"Then," he said, "I just go out and play."
Simple and to the point. Now during interviews, he can wander and laugh and come off sounding a little loosey-goosey. Pleasantly and refreshingly so. But is it a façade?
"It is a little bit of a façade," he confided.
Does he wish people would take him more seriously?
"No … maybe … I don't know," he said.
Seriously?
"I'm a happy-go-lucky guy," he went on. "I used to be that stoic character. But I didn't feel like I was generating energy within the game I play. So I kind of transitioned into the goofball mindset, I guess. I've having fun … I'm having the time of my life. This is the best thing I can be doing right now."
As he was standing outside the locker room, Houston's girlfriend walked past on her way to the training room. Caitlyn Clem is the starting goalie on the UW women's soccer team that just completed its season with a double-overtime loss to Florida in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
On the Friday night before the Purdue game, Houston got to watch the Florida match on a TV in the snack room of the team's hotel in West Lafayette, Indiana. "We had the whole team watching the second half," said Houston, who noted a few of his teammates are also dating members of the women's soccer team.
"I'm a good fan. But I don't know what's going on. I don't know soccer enough. We'll talk sports, but it's not like I'm going over football plays with Cait (a junior from Okemos, Michigan). It's more the mentality and how we want to lead the team and what has helped us in the past."
While he says that he's not the type of person that can hold everything inside ("A person, a man, can only take so much"), you get the impression that happy-go-lucky Bart is holding back on some things, something which he didn't dispute. "I just like to keep it to myself until the right point," he said.
When is that?
"That's usually Sunday," he replied.
• • • •
Sunday morning started with breakfast at Mickies Dairy Bar, a classic old-school diner and Madison landmark on Monroe Street across from the UW Field House and Camp Randall Stadium.
Houston had the chili cheese omelet. His dad had eggs and toast. They both passed on the "Scrambler" — a delicious, devilish, cholesterol platter; layers of Yanks, gravy, eggs, bacon, more gravy.
"He's had it before, but he said it was way too much for him," acknowledged the younger Houston, who walked over to the stadium after breakfast and watched film of the Minnesota win.
Guy Houston went back to the hotel to be with his wife, Inge.
"My mom was doing homework," Bart said.
Inge Houston is taking some computer programming classes at an East Bay community college (the same one Bart's younger sister is attending in San Francisco).
"She's literally doing it for the funzies," Bart said.
And, no, it didn't seem like an odd word choice — funzies — not from him.
"My mom's wish," Houston was saying now of Sunday's game plan, "was to go to a cheese-making factory in Monroe, and New Glarus happened to be on the way."
So, they stopped at the New Glarus Brewing Company, the home of Spotted Cow.
"We have happy cows," Bart Houston was quick to quip of his home turf, a reference to a successful marketing campaign for California's dairy industry.
Alas, his mom would not go home happy. The cheese factory in Monroe was closed.
The Houstons turned around and drove back to Madison.
"That was the end of our trip," Bart Houston said with a shrug. "Anticlimactic."
His senior year has been anything but that.
Who could have imagined such a script for the team, such a storyline for Houston?
"I would have said, 'No way,'" he conceded. "It's a crazy story. But there are a few more chapters to write and we'll see what happens and how it goes. This is the most important chapter (the title game against the Nittany Lions) because we have to write it this week."
The funzies may be just beginning.
