The NFL draft has come and gone and college football’s summer offseason programs have yet to receive a date for when they can get underway, leaving us with not a lot of news relating to Wisconsin football.

So today, in prime offseason and no sports form, we’re outlining the best Wisconsin football teams since 2000.

As a disclaimer, this is only a ranking of the best teams, not necessarily the seasons we’ve watched with the most accomplishments.

 

5. 2016

The 5-3 range on this list simply came down to ranking the Big Ten Championship-losing teams from the last four years.

Though the 2016 squad fell 38-31 to then-No. 8 Penn State in the conference championship game, this Badger team was better than many remember it to be and was an easy selection for this list.

On offense the team was led by a young Alex Hornibrook, current Philadelphia Eagle running back Corey Clement and Troy Fumagalli and Jazz Peavy on the outside.

The defensive unit was led by T.J. Watt, T.J. Edwards, Leo Musso, Jack Cichy, D’Cota Dixon, Sojourn Shelton and Derrick Tindal and was a squad that ranked No. 4 in the nation in opponent points-per-game.

Highlights of the season came Week 1 when they defeated No. 5 LSU at Lambeau Field, Week 4 when they upset No. 8 Michigan State 30-6, a 23-17 win against No. 7 Nebraska and their 24-16 Cotton Bowl victory against No. 12 Western Michigan.

Simple Rating System is a statistic used by Sports-Reference.com that analyzes teams based on a combination of their strength of schedule and average point differential.

Paul Chryst‘s 2016 unit received a 15.30, with zero being the average, which is good for No. 3 among Badger teams since 2000.

So why isn’t this team higher on the list, as they were in the AP Top 10 every week from Week 2 to the end of the season and their three losses all came against other top-10 teams?

Two reasons, the first of which being offensive efficiency and quarterback play.

The offense finished the year ranked No. 67 in the nation in points-per-game and were led at quarterback by Hornibrook who finished the season with a 9-7 touchdown-interception ratio and had an adjusted-yards-per-attempt of only 6.2.

The second is the fact that they were unable to beat the Nittany Lions in the conference championship despite being the higher-ranked team and winners of their last six games.

History will still look upon this team finely, though it was hard to rank them above other recent teams given their lack of adequate quarterback play and overall offensive efficiency.