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This was my pick for Wisconsin's first loss back in the beginning of the season.   Always a big rivalry game every year.  The last few years there has been no home field advantage.  The big question marks for the game are Wisconsin's injury report this week? Can Iowa survive the emotional high from last weeks win or suffer the over confidence of Ohio State?

   

No idea what to expect from this game.  I do not expect Wisconsin to turn the ball over four times.  If Wisconsin plays a classic clock and ball control Wisconsin game I think they win in a close one.

This is a huge game for both teams.  Wisconsin is favored, and rightfully so, but they haven't played anyone with a pulse yet.  I'm not convinced Iowa counts as a team with a pulse, but they did pull off arguably the biggest stunner of the season by waxing a really, really good Ohio State team.  If Wisconsin beats Iowa, they're not going to lose until at least the B1G championship game.  If Iowa beats Wisconsin, it's also highly likely they win out until at least the postseason.  They may need a little help, but they're not entirely out of the NY6 picture.

It's a shame that Wisconsin hasn't had the opportunity to prove itself - it's a very, very good team - maybe even great.  They don't have the talent of a PSU or OSU, but they are a fundamentally-sound team that doesn't shoot itself in the foot very much.  Iowa is a bit of a "poor man's version" of UW, but it's really not that far off.  The Hawks are playing cleaner ball right now, and the defense is playing about as well as can be asked from it.  The offense finally worked against a supremely talented defense Saturday, but the question is, will it explode for the second straight week?  I'm thinking probably not - it comes back down to Earth a bit this weekend as the stars aligned in Iowa's favor last Saturday - but I also think it will be at least competent.  I think 25-30 points isn't out of the question (and that should be enough to win), as long as the defense continues to perform at a high level, and Nate Stanley keeps Chucking it (pun intended).  It took 9 games, but it looks like the Hawks figured out that the run game is most effective complementing the pass, and not the other way around.

All that said, while my head says Wisconsin wins (and perhaps handily), Iowa does have a couple of things going in its favor.  Most, if not all, the pressure is on the Badgers.  Secondly, the road team has had considerable success as of late.  It's been several years since the home team won.

Yes, statistically Wisconsin does have a better defense than Ohio State (approx 270 ypg vs approx 325), both of which are better than Iowa (about 370).  The real discrepancy is PPG though.  Wisconsin gives up about 13, Iowa gives up about 18, and OSU gives up about 22.

But I don't know how well that translates because both Iowa and Ohio State have played better teams than Wisconsin - if UW played either UI or OSU's schedule, they may well be undefeated, but I'd wager their defensive numbers would suffer some.

Cephus and Orr are officially listed as OUT for this weekend. Cephus probably for the season the way it sounds. Starting S Dixon is questionable, along with a few others.

Next man in.

This game is going to boil down to three things:  Time of possession, field position, and turnovers (and to a lesser extent, penalties).

Both teams are looking to eat clock, and Wisconsin seems to be a bit better at it this season.  I'm guessing that Iowa will again use short/medium passes to set up the run and convert on third downs (or avoid them altogether).  One of Iowa's biggest areas of concern is the punting game, as they don't have a real weapon that can flip the field - if they are forced to punt from inside their own 20, they tend to give the opposing offense a short field.  While TDs are tough to come by even with short fields, Iowa's defense will eventually tire and FG attempts start turning into touchdowns.  Iowa has also had turnover issues earlier in the season, but they have been considerably tighter with the ball the past few games.  Iowa has the advantage where Stanley is more of a focal point on offense (as evidenced by an impressive 22/4 TD-to-INT ratio) but while Hornibrook is more of a "game manager", he's actually the more accurate passer overall (though Stanley has thrown ~70 more passes on the season).

From the Wisconsin State Journal... Grrrr...

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Joe LaBuda will be at Camp Randall Stadium on Saturday afternoon, watching two ranked teams and wishing being a fan was a little less complicated.

LaBuda, the longtime coach at Menomonie High School, will be cheering for the University of Wisconsin football team. He’ll also be cheering for one of his former players, Iowa sophomore quarterback Nate Stanley.

“It’s going to be weird,” LaBuda said of watching the No. 6 Badgers (9-0, 6-0 Big Ten Conference) play the No. 25 Hawkeyes (6-3, 3-3). “I’ll probably be hoping for Nate to do well but hoping for the Badgers to win. It’s a hard thing.”

It’d be so much easier for his former coach if Stanley were playing for his homestate team, which leads to a question LaBuda has heard over and over the past two seasons: Why is Stanley at Iowa and not UW.

The answer is rather simple, according to LaBuda.

“The only reason he’s not a Badger,” LaBuda said, “is Gary Andersen.”

LaBuda said he did everything he could to try to get Andersen and his staff interested in Stanley. But Andersen, UW’s coach during the 2013 and ’14 seasons, wanted a dual-threat quarterback who could run a spread attack out of the shotgun formation.

According to LaBuda, Stanley felt ignored when he attended a UW summer camp.

“He felt like when he was at Wisconsin, he was just kind of thrown in with 400 kids and nobody paid attention to him hardly,” LaBuda said. “It was very obvious that there wasn’t much interest.”

One coach who was very interested in Stanley was Paul Chryst. In fact, Stanley’s first scholarship offer came from Chryst, who was at Pittsburgh at the time.
Chryst liked what he saw on film and offered Stanley following his sophomore season at Menomonie. At 6-foot-5 with great arm strength, Stanley was a perfect fit for the pro-style system Chryst runs.

Michigan State and Stanford also showed interest in Stanley, a three-sport star at Menomonie. But Stanley was eager to end the recruiting process quickly and orally committed to Iowa in November of 2014, shortly after his junior season ended.

Less than a month later, Andersen left for Oregon State and UW hired Chryst to replace him. Chryst tried making another run at Stanley, but Stanley remained committed to the Hawkeyes.

“Paul worked hard on him,” said LaBuda, who has led Menomonie to five WIAA state titles. “But Paul also understood that he had given a commitment to Iowa and I think he respected Nate for that. He did everything he possibly could. It was a timing thing.”