Our mid-week rankings check-in sees an overall trend for the Wisconsin Badgers across most metrics: a slide.
These ranking updates come as a reaction to Week 1 games across the college football world. For Wisconsin, that was an indecisive 28-14 victory over Western Michigan.
Related: Wisconsin two-deep depth chart for Week 2 vs. South Dakota includes minor changes
ESPN SP+ is one of the rating systems that is down on the Badgers after their performance on Friday night. Its Week 2 rankings dropped the team nine spots down to No. 35 overall.
Specifically, the update moved the Badgers’ overall rating from 12.9 down to 8.9, due in large part to a significant downgrade for Phil Longo’s offense.
Here is where Wisconsin currently ranks overall, on offense and on defense, plus how that compares to its preseason slots:
- Overall: 8.9 (No. 36 overall) — Down from 12.9 (26th)
- Offense: 23.4 (88th) — Down from 25.1 (77th)
- Defense: 14.5 (8th) — Down from 12.2 (7th)
Here are SP+’s full rankings after a busy Week 1 across college football.
Of note, here is where each of Wisconsin’s upcoming opponents rank after Week 1:
- Alabama: No. 2 overall (30.3)
- USC: No. 21 (14.3)
- Purdue: No. 54 (3.4)
- Rutgers: No. 38 (7.0)
- Northwestern: No. 77 (-2.1)
- Penn State: No. 6 (25.3)
- Iowa: No. 17 (15.5)
- Oregon: No. 8 (22.8)
- Nebraska: No. 33 (9.6)
- Minnesota: No. 59 (2.2)
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