Wisconsin 34 - 13 Purdue: Badgers take care of business (eventually)

Wisconsin turned what was a close game in the first half into a blowout.

The team looked flat on both sides of the ball coming off their bye week, especially the defense. Purdue was moving the ball easily in small chunks of yardage and Wisconsin was having a tough time stopping them, despite the fact that the Boilermakers were starting their third string, true freshman QB due to a rash of injuries. John Clay and the running game had a tough time getting going early, and the offense clearly missed the different look of James White. I was shaking my head on several plays, most notably a sweep to the left where Clay seemed to dance back and forth for about 5 seconds before being tackled behind the line of scrimmage instead of trusting his blockers. Clay is a great between-the-tackles back but it seems like we've been seeing a little too much of this hesitation from him in general this season.

Clay and Watt were both knocked out of the game for a good spell - Clay with a knee problem and Watt with some sort of shoulder injury and the team just looked lost heading into the locker room at halftime. I wouldn't have believed I was saying this a month ago, but big props to the coaching staff for making adjustments at halftime and absolutely crushing Purdue 28-3 in the second half. Wisconsin's defense stiffened and managed to pick off the Purdue QB three times, including a blowout-sealing Pick Six from Antonio Fenelus.

Game ball: Montee Ball and the offensive line for producing the best executed play I've seen all season, by any team. Midway through the third quarter, with Wisconsin clinging to a 13-10 lead, Ball rushed to the left for a 31 yard touchdown and had five or six blockers ahead of him on the way to the end zone. Wisconsin went up 20-10 but you knew the game was over at that point.

Next week UW takes on Indiana at Camp Randall, but I'll miss the game. My brother was smart enough to schedule his wedding for a weekend when UW takes on IU at home and there's no Packers game (laughing).

Preview: Wisconsin at Iowa

This is the last big game of the season for the Badgers, so hopefully that's enough to get the team over the letdown game hump. After this week the Badgers have a bye before facing Purdue and Indiana, traveling to the Big House to face Denard Robinson, and ending the season vs Northwestern at Camp Randall. For the Badgers to have a shot at the Rose Bowl they need to win this game and hope Michigan State loses to Iowa and someone else - NW seems like a good candidate this week taking on MSU for their homecoming in Evanston. Aside from that we would just have to hope that PSU picks them off in the last game of the season.

Going into this game I was sure Wisconsin would get blown out - I thought this game had 27-10 written all over it. Now I'm not so sure. Much of the vibe I've gotten this week is that Wisconsin is firing on all cylinders and knows it, and isn't just sitting on their big victory last week. The other question is how good Iowa is. They lost on the road to a decent Arizona team, and crushed a not so great Penn State team at Kinnick. This will be a big test for them as well. Their defense has looked great, but then again, so did OSU's and the Badger offensive line had their way with them.

How Wisconsin wins: J.J. Watt gets pressure on Stanzi and James White gets to the edge consistently. The Badgers did a decent enough job defending Boom Herron last week and I don't think Robinson or the Hawkeyes O-line are as good as OSU's. Stanzi is a good QB if he has time but he is prone to mistakes, and pressure from the likes of Watt and Nzegwu should lead to a few turnovers.

How Iowa wins: Aside from the letdown game factor, Iowa wins this game by making Scott Tolzien beat them. He's a decent enough QB, but only in the context of UW's offense. He's not a guy you want throwing every down.

Final prediction: I'll go with MB's prediction of 28-24 Iowa, though I feel much better about this matchup than I did a few days ago.

Preview: #11 Badgers (4-0, 0-0) at #24 Sparty (4-0,0-0), 2:30 PM CT (*UPDATED*)

Update: MSU coach Mark Dantonio was readmitted to the hospital today with a blood clot, probably a complication from his surgery after the Notre Dame game. Not sure how this will affect MSU's approach today. I wish Dantonio all the best and a speedy recovery.

Finally, the real college football season begins. A strong but still-flawed Badger team heads to East Lansing where they haven't won since 2002. My favorite MSU memory was Lee Evans's 5 TD day at Camp Randall back in (November?) 2003. My now-wife had just moved to Wisconsin and her parents were in town that weekend for a visit. We had a great time in the student section in our light sweatshirts but my VA-based in-laws were absolutely freezing despite their arctic gear. They left after Wisconsin went up by 30 points or so to find a bar to warm up in.

I don't know much about MSU so let's take a look at their results before taking a closer look at the individual matchups.

MSU Results
vs Western Michigan: W 38-14
at Florida Atlantic: W 30-17
vs Notre Dame: W 34-31 (OT)
vs Northern Colorado: W 45-7

The most notable one here is the ND game, which they won on a fake FG attempt in overtime. Ballsy call by the coaching staff and it worked perfectly. As for the rest, not much to really conclude. They won the games they should have and with a good enough margin, though the FAU game probably should have been a little higher.

FO Rankings (parens are UW ranks)
FEI: 39 (41)
S&P Offense: 24 (19)
S&P Defense: 92 (111)
S&P Team: 27 (19)

Primary offensive players

QB
--
MSU
Kirk Cousins: 61/91, 863 yds, 6 TD, 2 INT, 164.1 rating
UW
Scott Tolzien: 64/84, 851 yds, 5 TD, 2 INT, 176.2 rating

RB
--
MSU
Edwin Baker: 57 Rush, 449 yds, 7.9 yd/carry, 5 TD
Le'Veon Bell: 48 Rush, 396 yds, 8.2 yd/carry, 7 TD
UW
John Clay: 77 Rush, 501 yds, 6.5 yd/carry, 6 TD
James White: 34 rush, 269 yds, 7.9 yd/carry, 4 TD

I'm surprised to see how well MSU's rushing attack has acquitted itself. Even more impressive is that neither of those guys were at the top of the depth chart heading into the season. Overall it looks like their offense is quite underrated. Defense looks like their big problem. They gave 31 points to a mediocre Domer team at home.

Key Matchups:
MSU LT D.J. Young vs UW DE J.J. Watt
Watt is one of the best pass rushers in the Big 10, and Young has looked shaky against MSU's weak competition. It could be a long day for Cousins, and Sparty in general if he has a rough time.

MSU KR Keshawn Martin vs UW Special Teams
UW's special teams looked like absolute shit against ASU, and didn't have much to do last week against Pile of Electronics State. We'll see if any corrections have been made

Michigan State Spartans vs Michigan State Spartans
Sparty has been the most penalized team in the B10 this year, and they've averaged 78 penalty yards per game on roughly 9 penalties per game.

Prediction: A close game, but Wisconsin pulls away in the 4th quarter. UW wins 34-24

Lots of good games on the schedule in general - there's going to be a lot of channel flipping. Some quick predictions

2:30, #21 Texas vs #8 Oklahoma. The classic RRS. Ryno says Texas can win this game if they stop being cute with their offense. I think Oklahoma wins, 24-17. It will cap off a pretty awful week in general in Austin, after losing to UCLA last week and having the campus shut down by a student gunman.

7:00,#9 Standford at #4 Oregon. This should be a fun one. I'm voting for Oregon to win this barn-burner 38-31, mainly because I'm annoyed that Stanford somehow leapfrogged UW (and moved up 10 spots) after beating ND last week. What gives? I think Stanford is probably the better team but it runs contrary to how this bullshit polling system works.

7:00 #7 Florida at #1 Alabama. Florida could win this game, but Alabama has certainly staked is claim as the #1 team. If this were in the Swamp I might feel differently. AlaGoddamnBama wins 24-13.

7:00 #22 Penn State at #17 Iowa. A shaky freshman QB playing against a fired up Iowa defense at Kinnick? Yes please. Iowa wins 31-13.

Arizona State defeats Arizona state (UW wins 20-19)

Wisconsin was lucky to win this game. They looked terrible, especially on defense and special teams. Wisconsin just couldn't tackle. At all. They were further hurt by the fact that 2009 Big 10 Defensive Freshman of the Year Chris Borland re-injured his separated shoulder three minutes into the game. DE and defensive captain J.J. Watt had to be taken off the field twice (though he returned each time), and Culmer St. Jean missed a fair amount of time too.

Arizona absolutely shredded UW's special teams, running one kick back in the first quarter, taking another to the house in the second (that was called back for two blocking in the back penalties), and nearly got a third at the end of the half (mentioned below). All in all ASU netted 256 return yards. That's just inexcusable.

The story of the game was ASU's miscues. They committed 8 penalties in the first half, including one I hadn't seen before - a sideline penalty on the ASU coaching staff. That sparked a tirade by ASU coach Dennis Erickson that probably should have been flagged a second time. They also committed a costly late hit penalty to keep UW's final, clock-killing drive alive. Erickson waited far too long to burn ASU's timeouts during the last drive, and found Wisconsin able to run out the clock before they could get it back.

Most importantly though, ASU left 15 points on the field. As they were slashing through UW in the first half, ASU missed out on two straight touchdowns, one by a clumsily dropped pass by one of their players, and another on a catch out of bounds by another reciever who just missed getting his foot down by inches. After UW scored to take the lead with 10 seconds left in first half, UW kicked off to ASU and they nearly ran it all the way back until Shelton Johnson finally made the tackle at the one yard line.

Most painfully, ASU led a drive to tie the game late in the 4th quarter and carved through the porous Wisconsin defense yet again to apparently get the game tying score. But then Jay Valai dove in and blocked the extra point, and the Badgers held on to win.

Wisconsin was outplayed in all aspects of the game. The offense looked out of sorts in the first half. When the Badgers were only down by 3, from the playcalling you'd guess that they were trailing by 2+ TDs. Too much passing from Tolzien, though he did make some nice plays to Kendricks. The 'real' Wisconsin only showed up in the 3rd quarter, when they ground out an 85-yard drive for a TD, followed by finally getting some pressure on Threet for once. Clay had a quietly decent game. For some reason they were barely using him early in the game and the announcers were confused that he was on the bench while the offense was sputtering. He still ended up over the century mark.

Game Ball (tie): Sheldon Johnson and Jay Valai
Tip o' the Cap: Steven Threet had a fantastic game. He was fully in command of that offense and was shredding the decimated UW linebacker corps.
Wag of the Finger: Obviously, the special teams coaching staff. I wonder if they'll run around tackling random people during the week, much like P.J. Hill and the rest of the running game had to carry footballs around all week when they had fumbling problems a few weeks ago.

The Badgers are banged up, but at least they effectively have a Bye next week against Austin Peay before B10 play starts in East Lansing on Oct. 2.

UNLV 21 - 41 Wisconsin

A decent start for UW. It was a classic non-conference Wisconsin game, in that they dominated the other team but still made enough mistakes to make you nervous at halftime. Tolzien threw a pick 6, and Nick Toon fumbled in the red zone, which led directly to 14 of UNLV's 21 points.

However, aside from that one bad throw Tolzien looked really good. I think I heard the phrase "game manager" half a hundred times during the broadcast, and generally when the Badgers needed a completion he and the wideouts came through. But of course, Wisconsin's calling card is the running game and holy crap did it look good. The only negative I can say about it is that they have so many great backs that Clay might not get enough carries to win the Heisman. Clay had several of his trademark runs where he was hit and then ran another 7-8 yards with a guy on his back, and Ball looked good too. But the player who impressed me the most was freshman James White, the 'speed back'. He got 11 carries and looked great, and what especially pleased me was that the Badgers put him back for a few kick returns, though from the stat sheet it looks like he didn't get a chance to run with any of them. Despite all the love the announcers were giving Gilreath I've never thought that he was an especially good returner.

The offense in general was in good form, starting from the first drive where they marched down the field, eating a ton of clock on the way (~7:30 on the opening drive). Wisconsin dominated the TOP by 17 minutes and it felt like a LOT longer.

The special teams have looked better so far, and the best news I saw all game was that Bielema is no longer coaching the special teams himself this year. There was lots of criticism in the media the past few seasons that Bielema's handling of the ST unit was weak due to his other responsibilities, but that could just be a correlation = causation fallacy.

The defense looked great, but of all the team's units I can't really say much about them until they face a real offense at ASU or MSU. Watt still looks great, and Borland looks just as dominant as he did last year. The Badgers were also all over the Rebels backfield early in the game, which was great to see. Valai got beat on one of UNLV's touchdowns but that happens sometimes (that's what the play action is for anyway). The safeties are good but I don't have any clue about the cornerbacks this year.

My memories of the second half are a lot hazier after the Badgers pushed the score up to 41. We were watching it on DVR (to skip commercials) and it was after 1 in the morning at that point, so I was nodding off. I put on the rest of the game in the morning but already knew that not much else was going to happen.

Final stats:
Total Yards: UW 475, UNLV 217
Rushing Yards: UW 278, UNLV 112
Passing Yards: UW 197, UNLV 105
Fumbles: UW 1, UNLV 1
INT: UW 1, UNLV 0
TOP: UW 38:19, UNLV 21:41