I was too slow to Wisconsin being worse than I thought to start the year, and I think I've been too slow to get back on the bandwagon. In three weeks, Bucky has gone from having their fan base concerned they were going to miss a bowl game for the first time in 20 years, to controlling their own destiny in the West. Do they have enough offense to beat whoever comes out of the East? I'm not sure, but they pretty clearly appear to at least have enough now to not be completely wasting the nation's second best defense. On paper, this looks like another slaughter, but somehow, Northwestern seems to give Wisconsin absolute fits. They've won 4 of the past 7, and are 8-7 against Wisconsin this century. It's not outstanding numbers, but I would bet that is the best of any of their West Division foe. So after Minnesota's slip up against Illinois moved the Badgers up into a first place tie, can the Wisconsin staff keep the team from looking past the Cats? If they do, Northwestern doesn't have nearly enough offense. If the Badgers fall back into being that team in the first half of the season who was at the bottom of the FBS in turnovers, Northwestern has a chance. Wisconsin's offense went from looking mediocre to looking bad, simply because they didn't have enough margin for error to afford the turnovers. Northwestern's terrible run defense is discussed almost weekly here. But when you play in the Big Ten West, have crossover games against Michigan and Michigan State, and you can't stop the run, well that's going to be a weekly discussion point every single week that you aren't playing Purdue. The Wildcats' numbers have trended slightly up the past couple games, but that has been more due to Rutgers and Iowa's inability to run the ball. I truly think Joe Rudolph will only let Graham Mertz throw the ball out of sympathy, both for him, and for Northwestern. I think Wisconsin could win this game without putting the ball in the air once. |