Wisconsin lost 24-10 to Northwestern yesterday, dropping to 5-5 on the season and 3-4 in Big Ten play.
The on-field product was a disaster, and head coach Luke Fickell said as such after the game. The Badgers looked like a team headed towards a 3-9 season after its coach was fired, not one in year one of a new coaching regime that brought boat-loads of offseason excitement.
But the context makes it all even worse. The loss is Wisconsin’s second straight to a team outside the nation’s top 70. Both Indiana last week and Northwestern this week were not bowl-caliber football teams. Now, after playing Wisconsin, they probably are.
The Badgers now have a 5-5 record (3-4 Big Ten) against what will be the easiest schedule it faces in a very long time, maybe forever. The Big Ten West stinks more than it has ever stunk, yet Wisconsin might not even be a top-4 team in the division.
Without a goal-line pick-six against Rutgers and a crazy fourth quarter against Illinois, we could be staring at a 3-7 football team. With its only decisive victory coming at 3-7 Purdue.
Frame it. pic.twitter.com/G75JVK6Xwz
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) November 12, 2023
This 5-5 record is far worse than last year, when the Badgers dropped a weird one to Washington State, got killed at Ohio State and got boat-raced by a very good Illinois team. It’s worse than 2020, when the team salvaged a 4-3 record during the most challenging football season in history.
I’m no Badger historian. But this could be the worst Wisconsin season since Don Morton went 2-9 in 1989 before Barry Alvarez was hired in 1990.
And it’s coming at the worst possible time. The program faces Alabama each of the next two years, and enters a new Big Ten as a middle-of-the-pack team.
Gone are the days of being able to salvage seasons by winning the Big Ten West. Now comes gauntlets against Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Oregon, USC and Washington. And Wisconsin right now looks unequipped to face that challenge.