WHO: Wisconsin Badgers (4-3, 2-2 B1G)
WHEN: 11:00 AM CT (Saturday, October 30)
WHERE: Camp Randall Stadium (Madison, WI)
TV: ESPN (Bob Wischusen, Dan Orlovsky, Kris Budden)
RADIO: Hawkeye Radio Network (TuneIn, or local listings) | SiriusXM Ch. 195
STREAM: WatchESPN
MOBILE: ESPN app
TWITTER: @IowaFBLive | @IowaAwesome | @IowaOnBTN
WEATHER: partly cloudy, highs in the 50s, no rain, minimal wind
LINE: Wisconsin -3.0 (TOTAL: 36.5)
NOTE: Don't forget to follow all the action during the game and chat with your fellow Iowa fans in the Go Iowa Awesome discord! (More info here.)
Generally speaking, you know what you're going to get with and Iowa and Wisconsin. Iowa's going to have an excellent defense and an offense that ranges from passable to bad. Wisconsin's going to have a great defense and an offense that usually ranges from very good to passable. The Badgers are going to have a beefy offensive line and 1-2 running backs behind that wall of big meaty men who excel at finding holes and methodically grinding down the field. They're going to run a 3-4 defense featuring some very good linebackers and some stout defensive backs. Unsurprisingly, this year's Wisconsin team fits that description pretty well too.
The Badgers got off to a rocky start this year, going 1-3 before their current 3-game winning streak. They narrowly lost a home season opener against Penn State when they squandered too many opportunities to score. A few weeks later they got blown out in back-to-back games against Notre Dame and Michigan (both at home or on a neutral field), though only the Michigan game was anything like a comprehensive beatdown. Wisconsin actually led Notre Dame 13-10 in the fourth quarter before conceding 31 straight points to end the game, but 21 of those points came off a kick return touchdown and two pick-sixes. The only Notre Dame offensive touchdown in that stretch was also set up by an interception; overall Wisconsin turned the ball over a mind-melting four times in the fourth quarter. That was a true Murphy's Law quarter: everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
The competition has eased up for the Badgers since that difficult start, though, and between that and just better play overall, they've notched three straight wins, downing Illinois, Army, and Purdue over the last few weeks. The defense has regained their solidity, giving up just nine points per game in those three wins, while the running game has thundered for almost 900 yards (879), averaging 293 yards per contest. That ground game dominance has allowed them to limit the passes for error-prone QB Graham Mertz (55.9% completion, 2 TD, 7 INT this season); he threw just 42 passes in those three wins, including only eight last week against Purdue.
All that is preamble to say that Iowa's game against Wisconsin today will probably come down to things:
1) Which team can run the ball better?
and
2) Can Iowa generate turnovers? (There are some sub-questions associated with that, like where on the field do the turnovers occur and can the Iowa defense score off those turnovers, but those all depend on whether or not Iowa is actually able to force turnovers.)
Re: running the ball -- the team that wins the rushing battle has won the last nine games in a row in this series. The last time one of these teams got outrushed by the other and still managed to win was Iowa back in 2009. This is a stat that looks ominous for Iowa, given the way the Badger rushing attack is rounding into form, while Iowa's ground games continues to be, ah, inconsistent at the best of times. Iowa's run defense has been stout this year -- 7th in the nation in yards per game (89.9 ypg) and 5th in the country in yards per rush (2.73) -- though they haven't been tested by many strong running teams yet this season and certainly not by a running game as good as the Badger attack. Meanwhile, Wisconsin has the best run defense in the country this season, allowing just 53.3 yards per game and a miserly 1.87 yards per carry. Those are deeply foreboding stats for an Iowa running game that has struggled to find consistent production against middling (or worse) run defenses this season.
Turnovers have been very kind to Iowa this season (21 takeaways overall, including 16 interceptions and an overall turnover margin of +12) and very harsh to Wisconsin. The Badgers are -8 on the season in turnover margin, having lost eight fumbles and thrown nine interceptions while recovering just four fumbles and five interceptions themselves. Even in their current three-game winning streak they only have a cumulative turnover margin of +1. But turnovers were brutal in all three of their defeats this season -- five giveaways against Notre Dame and three apiece against Penn State and Michigan. That will certainly lose you games.
And a turnover-filled display like that from the Badgers is probably what Iowa will need in order to have an opportunity to win this game. The defense is going to need to put Wisconsin in passing situations and force Mertz to throw the ball -- because if he does, odds are good he'll throw a few to the other team. They're going to need to force a few fumbles from Mertz or the running backs or return men as well. And just forcing turnovers likely won't be enough; Iowa is also going to need to get turnovers in the right areas (i.e., the Wisconsin side of the field). There's value in forcing turnovers on the Iowa side of the field -- particularly in preventing Wisconsin from scoring themselves -- but as much as possible, Iowa's defense needs to set up the offense with short fields and easier scoring opportunities. If Iowa has to put together multiple 60-70 yard scoring drives to win this game, that is probably a recipe for failure and heartbreak.
I don't know what's going to happen today, but the fact that Iowa seems to have only a narrow path to victory does not make me especially hopeful. You wouldn't think the offense could look much more inept than it did against Purdue two weeks ago... but the Badgers have a significantly better defense than the Boilermakers did, so even moderate improvement from Iowa may not make much difference in terms of the actual result. And relying so heavily on turnovers is a dangerous gambit, as we discovered so painfully against Purdue. I want Iowa to win (obviously) and I think there is a way that they can win... but I also don't think it's the most likely outcome.
WISCONSIN 20, IOWA 10
