Much was made about Bret Bielema's age it was announced he'd be the successor to Barry Alvarez as the coach of the University of Wisconsin football team.

Bielema wisely surrounded himself with veteran assistants like Bob Palcic and Mike Hankwitz. Both had been around the game for more than three decades.

Now that Palcic and Hankwitz are gone from the program after two seasons, it's interesting to take a look at how young Bielema's staff is.

Running backs coach John Settle, who will turn 43 in June, is the oldest member of the staff. Offensive coordinator Paul Chryst also is 42. Offensive line coach Bob Bostad is 41.

The rest of the staff, like Bielema, 38, are 30-somethings.

Recruiting coordinator/linebackers coach Randall McCray is 38; defensive coordinator Dave Doeren and wide receivers coach DelVaughn Alexander are 36; newly hired assistants Joe Rudolph (tight ends) and Charlie Partridge (defensive line) are 35 and 34, respectively; and secondary coach Kerry Cooks is 33.

What Bielema's staff lacks in age and experience, it makes up for in eagerness to recruit. In fact, you could argue that Bielema hired Rudolph and Partridge because he wanted to place a bigger emphasis on recruiting. (Palcic and Hankwitz weren't asked to do a lot of recruiting for the Badgers.

"I can see why people would draw that conclusion,'' Bielema said last week after he announced the hiring of Partridge. ``But I'm looking for football coaches. I really believe that the one thing we've got to be able to do is coach football and win games on Saturday.

"Recruiting is important and I'll put a huge emphasis on it -- nobody puts a bigger emphasis on it as a head coach than me. I don't need all nine guys to be stellar recruiters. I need four or five, and I think I have that.''

It's difficult to determine because not every program lists coaches' ages on their Web sites, but I bet you won't find many Division I coaching staffs in the country that are younger than UW's. Including Bielema, the average age is 37.5.

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