What does it mean? I don’t know. However, the pattern is clear: The Wisconsin Badgers have — to varying degrees — played the same game the past three weeks. The reason this Saturday’s game against the Purdue Boilermakers was more lopsided than the previous few weeks is that Purdue is a thinner, more banged-up team than Iowa or Nebraska. Wisconsin’s level of play has been fairly similar, with a lot of the same characteristics continuing to emerge, for better or worse:
Jonathan Taylor running wild: check. The offensive line blasting the opposing defensive front: check. Jack Coan making the necessary throws, but not being spectacular (because he didn’t really need to be): check. Wisconsin’s offense leading the team: check.
The defense being very inconsistent: check. The back seven allowing important completions at various stages of a game: check. An opponent’s speed and play design creating big gains against the Badgers: check. Wisconsin not being able to shut down an opponent’s passing game: check.
The 62-yard field goal by Zach Hintze was something entirely new — maybe the Badgers will be tied late at Minnesota next week and need a long boot — but a lot of this game against Purdue recalled the previous two weeks. I’m not going to say it’s good. I’m not going to say it’s bad. It just IS. This team has fallen into a pattern with good and bad components. That is the foremost observation to make for a team which owned a different identity in the first half of the season, played poorly in two consecutive games, and has now produced a third act in this 2019 season’s theatrical production. It began against Iowa and hasn’t ended.
Now this three-act play moves to Minneapolis for a monster game. These Badgers — the ones who have appeared the past three weeks — are smashing opponents in the mouth but playing sloppy ball just when they are on the verge of landing knockout punches. That isn’t necessarily a recipe for a loss, but it is certainly a recipe for danger. It doesn’t mean certain defeat against the Golden Gophers, but it hardly inspires confidence in a decisive victory, either. This is what Wisconsin is right now. Will we see a different iteration of the Badgers next Saturday? That’s the question everyone in Madison — and across a nation of Big Ten and college football fans — wants to know. We have to wait several days to find out.