Bowl eligibility and the Heartland Trophy are on the line this Saturday evening inside Kinnick Stadium when the Iowa Hawkeyes and Wisconsin Badgers square off for their 98th all-time meeting.
Both teams enter with identical 5-2 overall records and matching 3-2 counts in Big Ten play. Iowa is coming into its second-straight home game after winning against Northwestern, while the Badgers are trying to right the ship after losing to Penn State.
With kickoff one day away, ESPN’s Bill Connelly looked at the game and dove into some trends pointing toward the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Wisconsin at Iowa (7:30 p.m., NBC). Some averages for you. Average score of an Iowa home game: Hawkeyes 40, Opponent 15. Average score of a Wisconsin game against the SP+ top 30 (Iowa is 18th): Opponent 36, Wisconsin 15. I’m not saying Wisconsin can’t win — the Badgers’ defense improved quite a bit in October. But trends certainly lean toward the home team.
Current line: Iowa -3 | SP+ projection: Iowa by 6.3 | FPI projection: Iowa by 3.1 – Connelly, ESPN
Iowa dominates at home. Wisconsin struggles on the road. Sure, that is put in much simpler terms than things truly are, but it is of note.
The odds currently have Iowa as a three-point favorite, almost identical to what ESPN’s FPI projection has them favored by, 3.1 points. The more intriguing projection is ESPN’s SP+ projection which has Iowa favored by nearly a touchdown at 6.3 points.
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