Tag: big ten week 3

ESPN SP+ predicts the final score of every Big Ten Week 4 contest

ESPN SP+ predicts the final score of every Big Ten Week 4 contest

Week 3 of the Big Ten football season saw some chaos. Not chaos in the sense of big upsets, but chaos that has seen No. 6 Penn State rise to the top of our Big Ten power rankings, No. 10 Ohio State fall after two underwhelming performances and two schools from Michigan continue to rise.

Week 4 in Big Ten land still doesn’t see any big-time in-conference matchups—No. 18 Wisconsin vs. No. 12 Notre Dame being the marquee game on the slate.

Related: The five biggest issues for Wisconsin headed into Notre Dame week

There are some sneaky in-conference games that could put two rising teams on upset alert, though, as No. 19 Michigan hosts Rutgers and No. 20 Michigan State hosts Nebraska.

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ESPN’s Bill Connelly used his SP+ metrics to predict every game on the Week 4 slate. Here are his score predictions for every Big Ten contest:

Wisconsin vs. Michigan: Series history

It has now been 17 days since the Wisconsin Badgers throttled the Illinois Fighting Illini 45-7 and started their season 1-0. After their…

It has now been 17 days since the Wisconsin Badgers throttled the Illinois Fighting Illini 45-7 and started their season 1-0.

After their Week 2 game against Nebraska and Week 3 game against Purdue were canceled due to COVID-19 cases within the program, things seem to now be taking a turn with Saturday’s game against the Michigan Wolverines, at this point, set to be played.

Related: Wisconsin is in the hunt for a four-star safety who is the son of a Packers legend

The Wolverines sit at 1-2 on the year after opening their season with a decisive win against Minnesota, losing as more than 20-point favorites against Michigan State and this weekend falling 38-21 against Michael Penix Jr. and the 3-0 Indiana Hoosiers.

The Badgers have taken the field against the Wolverines 68 times in their history. After their win last year, the all-time series sits at 51-16-1 in favor of Michigan.

Much of those wins, however, came back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s when the Maize and Blue went on a 23-1 run.

Recent history has seen the power shift a bit, with the Badgers boasting a 6-4 edge since 2005.

The most recent contests between the two teams have formed a clear pattern of the home team coming out on top–with Chryst and company losing in Ann Arbor in 2016, winning in Madison in 2017, losing in Ann Arbor in 2018 and winning in Madison again in 2019.

Yes, this year’s game will be played in the Big House, but given the Wolverines being 1-2 and looking far-from-dominant on both sides of the football and the Badgers having missed their last two games–it’s anybody’s guess who holds the edge entering the contest.

 

Going through the two teams’ all-time records, here are some other facts to note:

  • Michigan has the most wins in college football history
  • Wisconsin bests them in one area: Bowl record
  • Michigan’s largest margin of victory in the series is 56-0 back in 1977
  • Wisconsin’s largest margin of victory is 34-12 back in 1962
  • Michigan has the second-most national championships of all time, the third-most conference championships, the third-most consensus All-Americans, the fourth-highest all-time winning percentage and the fifth-most Heisman winners and NFL Draft picks
  • Michigan will be without defensive leader Aidan Hutchinson this weekend after he suffered an ankle injury against Indiana

Breaking: Wisconsin’s game against Purdue on Saturday is canceled

According to a release from the program, the Wisconsin Badgers’ game on Saturday against the Purdue Boilermakers is canceled…

According to a release from the program, the Wisconsin Badgers’ game on Saturday against the Purdue Boilermakers is canceled due to COVID-19 cases in the program.

This news comes after the Badgers’ game last weekend against the Nebraska Cornhuskers was canceled for the same reason.

Per the release, there are now 27 active COVID-19 cases in the program–15 athletes and 12 staff–and there was not enough of a positive trend to warrant the resumption of football activities in preparation for Saturday.

If you’re wondering, Paul Chryst’s team will now need to play all of the remaining five games on the schedule in order to qualify for the Big Ten Championship.

Here’s what Athletic Director Barry Alvarez had to say about the news:

“I share in the disappointment of our student-athletes and staff,” Alvarez said. “We have seen a level of improvement in our testing numbers, but not enough to give us confidence to resume normal activities and play our game on Saturday. We will continue to test regularly, take the proper health-related precautions and look forward to getting our team back on the field as soon as possible.”

 

The Badgers’ next game is now on November 14 against the Michigan Wolverines.

Wisconsin vs. Purdue: Series history

The 1-0 Wisconsin Badgers, at this point, are set to take the field again on Saturday against the 2-0 Purdue Boilermakers. There are…

The 1-0 Wisconsin Badgers, at this point, are set to take the field again on Saturday against the 2-0 Purdue Boilermakers.

There are still many question marks surrounding whether the game will be played, and answers are supposed to be released tomorrow and Wednesday.

But as of right now the game is on, so we’re here to go over their series history against the first-place Boilermakers.

Related: WATCH: Former Badger takes a fumble to the house for the Miami Dolphins

The series between the two schools began back in 1892 when Purdue defeated Wisconsin 32-4.

There have now been 87 total contests with Wisconsin boasting a 50-29-8 overall record.

Maybe the most significant note in the history between the two schools: the Badgers haven’t lost to the Boilermakers since 2003–winning 14 straight contests.

Going through the series here are some other things to note:

  • Wisconsin’s largest margin of victory: 62-17 back in 2011
  • Wisconsin’s longest win streak: 14 (2004-present)
  • Purdue’s largest margin of victory: 45-7 back in 1965
  • Purdue’s longest win streak: 3 (1932-1934)
  • The Badgers best the Boilermakers in every all-time accomplishment except…
    • National titles (both have zero)
    • Bowl record (Purdue’s .526 narrowly bests Wisconsin’s .516)
    • Weeks at AP No. 1 (Purdue has 5 and Wisconsin has 1)

Wisconsin joins the top 3 in ESPN’s latest SP+ rankings

The offseason love for Paul Chryst and the Wisconsin Badgers was higher than in any year I can remember…

The offseason love for Paul Chryst and the Wisconsin Badgers was higher than in any year I can remember.

Yes, they landed at No. 12 in the preseason AP Poll which seems like a normal for the team. But ESPN’s advanced rating systems FPI and SP+ have seen them as one of the best in the nation, even though they’ve only played one game.

FPI–ESPN’s college football power index–currently has the Badgers as the No. 4 team in the nation and gives them a 40 percent chance to make the playoff and a 7.5 percent chance to end the season National Champions.

Related: A Nebraska radio station had an awful theory about why Saturday’s game was canceled

ESPN’s SP+ rankings, created by staff writer Bill Connelly, saw what happened with Clemson struggling to defeat Boston College and now has the Badgers as the third-best team in the nation. Yes, SP+ moved the 1-0 Badgers ahead of the 7-0 Clemson Tigers.

From the rankings:

“What is SP+? In a single sentence, it’s a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. I created the system at Football Outsiders in 2008, and as my experience with both college football and its stats has grown, I have made quite a few tweaks to the system.”

The two teams still ahead of Wisconsin are Ohio State at No. 1 and Alabama at No. 2. I never thought I would say a sentence that included Ohio State, Alabama and Wisconsin as the top-3 teams in the nation.

Here is what Connelly had to say about the Badgers and their rest-of-season outlook:

“For all of this season, we have been able to count on two things regarding the SP+ rankings: Ohio State was going to be No. 1, and Alabama and Clemson were going to trade the No. 2 and 3 rankings back and forth.

Thanks to an extremely 2020 oddity, that trend finally changed. To be sure, Ohio State’s still No. 1 after handling a top-10 Penn State team with relative ease. But thanks to Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence-less struggle against Boston College, combined with Wisconsin’s canceled game against Nebraska — which meant the Badgers have still produced a single, nearly perfect data point for 2020 — the Tigers fell to fourth.”

 

The Badgers are scheduled to be back in action on Saturday against Purdue, though that game is still in question with Wisconsin continuing to announce more positive COVID-19 tests.

When they do return to the field all eyes will be trained on their performance, as across the Big Ten we’ve seen huge upsets, new programs in first place and overall pandemonium. If Wisconsin can bring the consistency they’re so well known for, the Big Ten West is theirs for the taking.

I won’t talk about the playoff just yet, but the path is there if the Badgers are able to return to the field at full strength sooner rather than later.