[lawrence-newsletter]Although we would like to forget as soon as possible, we all remember on November 19, 2019 when Wisconsin traveled to Illinois looking to improve to 7-0. After a series of disasters and turnovers in the fourth quarter, Illini Kicker James McCourt nailed a 39-yard field goal to shock the Badgers and give Illinois a 24-23 victory. UW entered that game as more than 30-point favorites and faltered just a week before their biggest test of the season at Ohio State.
In hindsight, even though Paul Chryst and the UW staff would never allow Wisconsin to look ahead, the game had all the makings of a look-ahead trap game. The Badgers were absolutely rolling, and had won all six games by at least two scores up until that point. A top-5 matchup on the road in Columbus loomed for an undefeated UW squad. Meanwhile, a trip to Urbana-Champaign was screaming trap.
So, where do the pre-season traps lie in Wisconsin’s 2020 schedule? Here are the three most likely trap games that the Badgers have to avoid falling victim to.
3. Wisconsin vs. Indiana — Week 1 — 9/4/20
Indiana is and will always will be a basketball school, but the 2020 version of the Hoosiers could be one of their better football teams in a long time. Coming off of a year where IU went 8-5 and lost by a point to Tennessee in the Gator Bowl, hopes are high in Bloomington. After a year where they had two credible QB options in 2019, one of those two options in Peyton Ramsey has transferred to Northwestern (more on him later) and Michael Penix Jr. will be handed the keys to the Hoosier car. In five games as a freshman, Penix Jr. went 4-1 with ten touchdowns and four picks. As a rising sophomore, he has more hype surrounding him than any other Indiana signal caller has had in recent years. Head Coach Tom Allen has done a solid job at instilling a defensive philosophy into a team that proved they know how to win last year.
Week one is also a strange time. Weird things happen when you are playing a quality opponent in your first game of the season. Well nobody expects Wisconsin to lose this game outright, first game jitters will certainly be there. Indiana is not your non-conference week one pushover.