The scheduled kickoff for the Wisconsin Badgers’ 2020 football season is now only 47 days away.

Yes, there are still question marks about what the schedule will look like and if September 4 is a realistic date to start the season. But from what we know now, the Badgers and the rest of the conference will play a conference-only schedule and (hopefully) a conference championship and bowl season.

A lot about the season and each team’s chances changed when the Big Ten altered their schedule, so I went through the top teams in the conference earlier this week and analyzed how their stock was affected by the change. Long story short, the elimination of out-of-conference games has a profound affect on the season outlook of many of the conference’s leading programs.

Today we’re going a little more into the weeds and making three bold claims and one guarantee about what is to come during the altered season.

First, the three bold claims:

 

No. 1: The Indiana Hoosiers will finish the season No. 3 in the Big Ten East and with a better record than Michigan

I never thought I would ever type those words out, but when you look at each team’s schedule and different preseason situations it makes a lot of sense.

First, Indiana has only four challenging games on their schedule: at Wisconsin, vs Penn State, at Ohio State and at Michigan.

Michigan, on the other hand, has five: vs Wisconsin, vs Penn State, at Minnesota, vs Indiana and at Ohio State.

What’s the difference between those schedules? Most of Indiana’s tough games are on the road in what will likely be empty stadiums and most of Michigan’s will be at home in front of an empty stadium.

So the playing field is leveled a bit to start.

Second, and the biggest reason the Hoosiers are trending upward while Michigan is going the opposite direction, is Indiana welcomes back Michael Penix Jr. after an 8-5 2019 season while Michigan needs to groom Dylan McCaffrey to take over the starting job after going 9-4 last season.

Having talent and experience return at the quarterback position is pivotal this year as the preseason is already different and shortened in addition to the fact that out-of-conference “cupcake” games that are usually important to preparing a quarterback for conference play are no longer on the schedule.

I’m buying Indiana’s stock with Penix Jr. under center, a veteran offensive line and an improving defense and selling Michigan’s with a new quarterback and a gauntlet of a schedule.

 

Next…one of the Badgers’ division rivals who will be taking a step backwards this season