Wisconsin football 2026

[Samurai Bucky]

We were at the Brewers game and some of the fans around us were keeping an eye on the score, too.  It was cool when they showed the score and played jump around.  TBH, I think only half of the crowd cared... 😄

Going to the game this Saturday.  Hopefully there will be a better turnout than the last home game.  It is homecoming after all.

[JosephC]

Michigan State took a thorough beating at Nebraska last weekend.  Wisconsin opens a big 10 1/2 point favorite.

[yourout]

19 minutes ago, JosephC said:

Michigan State took a thorough beating at Nebraska last weekend.  Wisconsin opens a big 10 1/2 point favorite.

That seems like a lot. 

 

[JosephC]

Seems like a lot to me as Michigan State went to Notre Dame and lost by 17, but I thought they would give Nebraska much more of a tussle.  It doesn't sound like they were competitive in that game at all.  

[LouisEly]

5 hours ago, yourout said:

That seems like a lot. 

 

They have a common opponent in Notre Dame.

Against ND, MSU had 167 yards of total offense and gave up 397 yards of total offense to ND.

UW had 284 yards of total offense and gave up 350.  It was more of a home game for UW (but ND fans travel well and it wasn't that far) whereas for MSU it was a true road game.  But MSU had one drive for more than 38 yards, and 7 of their 9 possessions went for less than 20 yards.  Only two of UW's 10 possessions went for less than 20 yards.

Given that it's a home game, I can see why it's a 10-point spread.  UW is getting better and trending up; MSU looked bad at home.

[Jim French Stepstool]

7 hours ago, tmwiese55 said:

 

 And in general if they could clean up the attention to detail, organizational, discipline stuff they could be perfectly ok. Gotta clean up the turnovers, penalties, bad snaps etc next. As small of a thing as it is, the QB having to worry about the snap every play starts him a half second behind where he should be and it distracts his mind from what it should actually be on.     

 

They won Saturday despite a lot of the stuff mentioned above still being an issue, so that remains a problem. It can't be easy to build consistency when a third-to-half of your roster is new every year but it'll be an albatross as long as your opponents are better than you at avoiding that stuff.

Fickell has shown to be able to attract players to the program. On field, I still feel he'll be as good as the assistants he hires. It seems like he hit on Ligashesky as a special teams coach. And so far, so good this year  for Tressel & the defensive staff. I'd like to see what the offense looks like under Grimes when/if the O-line shows more consistency. But knock on wood this looks like a more competent staff than the clown show of his first couple of years.

[Jim French Stepstool]

7 hours ago, Samurai Bucky said:

 

Going to the game this Saturday.  Hopefully there will be a better turnout than the last home game.  It is homecoming after all.

Raise a cup to section X, my home for about 14 years before I gave up my tix. Have fun!!!

[LouisEly]

1 hour ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

They won Saturday despite a lot of the stuff mentioned above still being an issue, so that remains a problem. It can't be easy to build consistency when a third-to-half of your roster is new every year but it'll be an albatross as long as your opponents are better than you at avoiding that stuff.

So far, the only opponent better than them at avoiding that stuff is Notre Dame.  And I watched 5-6 college football games this weekend and didn't see a whole lot for clean games. 

USC is 4-1 and still in the top 20 but they've had issues on defense all year.  Indiana struggled against Northwestern, and had it not been for a stupid facemask penalty on NU on a 3rd and 19 deep in IU's territory that was stopped well short of the first down, should have lost.  Oregon lost to Oklahoma State who lost to Tulsa.

Almost every school has 1/3rd of their roster new, so it's not so much who is most consistent/clean now as it is who will get there faster.

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 hours ago, LouisEly said:

 

Almost every school has 1/3rd of their roster new, so it's not so much who is most consistent/clean now as it is who will get there faster.

I agree. The days of people drilled in a certain way of doing things & having familiarity with a program & each other over a number of years are mostly gone, and that can lead to ugliness. But I'm not sure how much 'cleaner' the UW team has become week-to-week as the last few seasons unfolded. As I said, there may be better overall quality in the current staff so we'll see.

[homer]

 

[JosephC]

Commits until someone offers him more money in January.

[CheezWizHed]

43 minutes ago, JosephC said:

Commits until someone offers him more money in January.

This was my thought too... 2028 is a long way away and lots could happen between now and then. 

[homer]

Guys flipped pre NIL too. It's the same concern, except in those days people said "Yeah wait until Ohio State shows interest."

[Jim French Stepstool]

 It's an obvious positive in the sense that he likes the program enough that at this point we're his #1. Is it more flighty nowadays, due to the $$$? Sure.

He has a couple of HS teammates committed to UW in the '27 class, so that could have quite a bit of significance.

[yourout]

Penn state's getting trucked at Northwestern. 

Takes a bit of luster off of the win last week.

[JosephC]

Penn State were a real mystery team entering this season.  I was surprised they were ranked.  Just lost too much of last year's team, and then (1) the "existing" Penn State players had to get new to the new staff and schemes, (2) the incoming Iowa State players had to get used to their new surroundings.  Again, not to take anything away from the Badgers because a Big 10 road win is a Big 10 road win, but I'm not a bit surprised to see Penn State struggle now that they are into Big 10 season.

[craigharmann]

My biggest hope for today is that Iowa takes down that team from Ohio. Obviously, I want the Badgers to win today, but after the run of UCLA, USC and Iowa, the schedule looks good. If we could win one of those 3, and win out, we'd get a pretty good bowl berth. That's a positive in my opinion. 

[nate82]

Some bad punts and a horrible PI call gives Michigan State some points.

[homer]

My ask was for competitive football. I am seeing competitive football. I still think Fickell's ceiling is limited because he can't manage the clock or timeouts or know when to go for it on 4th down but I'll take this all season long.

[RobertR]

Are the Badgers good?

[nate82]

3 minutes ago, RobertR said:

Are the Badgers good?

Defense yes they are really good.  Not top 10 defenses good but in the top 50 for sure.  QB is still a question mark.  Joseph looks better when he is moving around.  If he has to stay in the pocket he is bad.  The WR’s are really good.  RB looks adequate right now.  The OL looks improved.  Probably the best OL the Badgers have had since 2018 or 2019.

[homer]

UW will be grateful to play next week at UCLA and not this week. It's 104 today and  It's supposed to be over 100 until Wed. Cools down to 80 by Sat.

[LouisEly]

1 hour ago, homer said:

UW will be grateful to play next week at UCLA and not this week. It's 104 today and  It's supposed to be over 100 until Wed. Cools down to 80 by Sat.

They don't play for two weeks.  10/17, I'll be there.

[LouisEly]

2 hours ago, RobertR said:

Are the Badgers good?

They're certainly in a lot better shape than Penn State, Michigan, or Michigan State.

[Samurai Bucky]

I really liked how they used Joseph with the read options.  He had better throws, too.  The one that was high across the middle was bad, but all in all, I thought it was a good performance.

The two roughing the passer penalties were very questionable.  I started calling them "Vegas Flags".  You see Vegas Flags - a - plenty in the NFL.

Pat Richter is looking very old.  The Season Ticket Seat Holder of the game was sitting next to us.  The gentleman that was with her said that Pat Richter was not able to walk out there by himself.