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The UW effect?

Next man up

Michigan is #13 in Coaches Poll and Wisconsin is #10.  In the AP Michigan is #12 and the Badgers are #15.   I like the Coaches poll better despite Michigan being favored by 7.5 points at this time.  Nor will I let the warm fuzzy from the pass blocking observed against Maryland make me very optimistic.  Wisconsin will be the best defense Michigan has seen to date despite Badgerfan's opening epitaph for the Badger defense.  The long range weather forecast for Saturday is for snow flurries and showers with an evening low of 38 the last time I looked.  Perfect weather for the Badgers to try their classic clock eating ball control running game.

I think we're all pretty injured (Michigan was down 3/4 of its starting DL versus Maryland and lost some depth behind the starters as well; we've also been down our best WR and RB co-starter), but that does sound particularly bad for UW. And they don't seem to be stemming the injury tide on defense.

This is an interesting game for a lot of reasons - for one because we play too seldom in an expanded Big Ten and, for two, because not many ranked teams run offenses like these anymore. It's also impactful for the whole dang season. Wisconsin has a fair strangehold on the West right now. But if they were to lose once or twice, and they do play two games like this one, things get very interesting over there. And for Michigan, I think it's generally noted that they've put 2017 behind them and are better compared to 2016 when the team came a literal inch from the CFP. But these next 3 games (UW, MSU, PSU) determine all of that. They need to go undefeated through these three to stay in the CFP race. However, winning 2/3 keeps them in the race for the East.

UW is also missing its best run blocking TE - out for the season. That is huge, especially for a game like this one. I think you'll see packages where UW will deploy 6, even 7, OL to try and run the ball this weekend. They did it against Iowa, which was the best defense they'd seen this season. That gets ramped up another notch with Michigan.



At least they got the road night game jitters out of the way in Iowa City. Michigan Stadium is never amped up like Kinnick is for a night game.

That's probably not saying much.  Iowa just gave up 31 to a one-dimensional Minnesota offense, and considering the injuries they sustained, they'll probably give up a similar amount to Indiana.

This is now a sandbagging thread.