The Wisconsin Badgers enter Week 4 of the 2023 football season at 2-1, though still with more questions than answers about the caliber of the team.
Convincing out-of-conference wins against Buffalo and Georgia Southern looked easy on the scoreboard, though neither felt like the resounding blowouts they should’ve been. Then add a 31-22 loss at Washington State and you’re looking at a Wisconsin Badger team with a worse season-long outlook than they had entering Week 1.
Next up is a trip to West Lafayette for a Friday night matchup with 1-2 Purdue. The Badgers haven’t lost to the Boilermakers since 2003, now having won sixteen straight games in the series.
Related: Big Ten Power Rankings after Week 3: Wisconsin rises after ugly win
Purdue new head coach Ryan Walters is already off to a shaky start to his tenure with home losses to Fresno State and Syracuse. Walters spoke on Wisconsin’s dominance of Purdue over the last two decades, noting “if we want to get to where we want to go as a program, that’s a school we’re going to have to beat year in and year out.”
"If we want to get to where we want to go as a program, that's a school we're going to have to beat year in and year out. … You can't go into the game hesitant or shy about making plays just because of the logo on the helmet."
Purdue HC Walters on the losing streak to #Badgers
— Colten Bartholomew (@CBartWSJ) September 19, 2023
Friday night could be a tale of two trajectories at the final whistle. Whichever team wins has a leg-up in the Big Ten West and could appear to have turned a corner, while the loser will have its Big Ten Championship hopes quickly fade away.