Coming off a big win last week, the no. 8 Wisconsin Badgers will try to avoid a letdown when they host the Northwestern Wildcats. Kickoff is at noon EST on Saturday, September 28 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin. The game will be nationally televised on ABC.
According to our Week 5 college football odds, the Badgers are 24-point favorites at home. The over/under for the game is set at 45 points.
As mentioned, Wisconsin is coming off a huge win over Michigan last week that catapulted the Badgers into the top-10. Wisconsin led the game 35-0 before allowing the Wolverines to score a couple of consolation touchdowns late. Of course, those were the first points the Badgers have given up all season. They began the year with back-to-back shutouts of South Florida and Central Michigan, so it wasn’t a huge shock to see them clamp down on Michigan.
The key for the Badgers moving forward is to avoid a letdown. Wisconsin is actually in the midst of a five-game homestand, which should help them avoid an off week. If the Badgers can stay undefeated over the next few weeks, all eyes will be on their showdown with Ohio State in Columbus at the end of October.
As for Northwestern, Pat Fitzgerald’s team is coming off a disappointing loss to Michigan State last week in their Big Ten opener. The Wildcats have struggled to get much going on the offensive side of the ball this year, scoring just seven points in their season opener against Stanford and managing only 10 points last week.
At 1-2, it doesn’t get any easier for the Wildcats, who face back-to-back road games against Wisconsin and Nebraska before hosting Ohio State and Iowa. That’s three of their next four games against teams currently ranked in the top-15. On the bright side, Northwestern began last year 1-3 and ended up winning the Big Ten West. However, such a turnaround this season appears less likely.
The other piece of good news is Northwestern’s recent success against Wisconsin. The Wildcats have taken down the Badgers in three of the last five years, including a 31-17 win last season. However, Fitzgerald is just 1-4 when taking his team to Madison, and a few of those games have ended up being lopsided affairs.
This is a lot of points to swallow, but my gut tells me that Northwestern is in serious trouble this year. I also think Wisconsin is for real and a serious College Football Playoff contender. Given the play of Wisconsin’s defense this year, another shutout isn’t out of the question, which makes me want to take a chance on the Badgers covering.
The Northwestern offense has been beyond awful this season. To be fair, they’ve played good defensive teams like Stanford and Michigan State. But I think it goes beyond that. Clemson transfer Hunter Johnson hasn’t been the answer at quarterback Northwestern was expecting him to be. It got so bad that Johnson was benched in the third quarter last week against MSU. Aidan Smith didn’t fare much better, although a quarterback controversy could be brewing at Northwestern.
The Northwestern running game has been decent, but not nearly good enough for the Wildcats to overcome such poor quarterback play. I’m not even sure that Northwestern can replicate the garbage-time touchdowns that Michigan got last week against the dominant Wisconsin defense. It’s worth noting that the Wolverines only managed 41 total rushing yards last week. That doesn’t bode well for a Northwestern team with such poor quarterback play.
On the other side of the ball, I also have questions about the Northwestern defense. After all, they just gave up 31 points to a rather lackluster Michigan State offense. They held tough against Stanford, but the Stanford offense isn’t exactly in good shape these days either. Obviously, the Northwestern offense isn’t helping out the defense too much. But that just makes it more likely that the Wildcats will break at some point and the floodgates will open for the Wisconsin offense.
Keep in mind that the Badgers have run wild on every team they’ve played this season. Jonathan Taylor just went off for 203 yards on 23 carries against a Michigan defense that should have been able to put up more resistance. The Badgers only attempted 16 passes against the Wolverines and Michigan still couldn’t keep the Wisconsin rushing attack contained. That could translate to another big game form Taylor this week.
In short, it’ll take a massive turnaround from Northwestern this week to stay competitive with Wisconsin. The Northwestern defense may be able to keep the Wildcats in the game in the first half. But it should only be a matter of time until the Badgers assert themselves at the line of scrimmage and spring Taylor loose. The Wildcats probably can’t count on their offense to respond and keep them in the game. Eventually, I think this game could get out of control, so I’ll take my chances with Wisconsin covering the spread.