wisconsin football

Wisco Wednesday: Week 1 Preview

Cole Tollison / August 30, 2023 / 1 Comment

Big Fick debuts vs. the Buffalo Bulls in Mad Town. The start of an era.

Not nearly as intimidating as the Bills, the Bulls are a middle of the road team in the Mid-American Conference that also resides in Buffalo, NY. There is a lot of interest in the new offense that Fickell is bringing to Madison. The Bulls should be a nice tune up/pseudo preseason game for the Badgers to work out the kinks of new offensive and defensive schemes.

Odds listed were taken from FanDuel at the time of writing.

Game Preview: Buffalo at (19) Wisconsin

Spread:

Wisconsin -27.5

Over/Under:

54.5

Location:

Camp Randall – Madison, Wisconsin

Kickoff Time:

Saturday – 2:30 PM CT

TV Network:

FS1

Who are the Buffalo Bulls?

2022 Season:

Buffalo went 7-6 in 2022
They beat Georgia Southern in the Camellia Bowl to end the season.
They went 5-3 in the MAC East, taking 2nd in the division.
66th in scoring defense, giving up 26.7 pts per game.
64th in scoring offense, scoring 28.5 pts per game

The defense and offensive rankings can be a bit inflated because they played poor competition for most of the season. They threw the ball a bit …

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Wisco Wednesday: Post-Realignment Schedule Thoughts

Cole Tollison / August 23, 2023 / Leave a Comment

Oregon and Washington are in the B1G (in 2024). Time to rip up the current schedule plans.

I have some thoughts on future B1G schedules I want to touch on with the new additions to the B1G. I don’t think they are very extreme. But, there is likely to be some disagreement. This is a longer article that is a deep dive into schedule making (and how it’s impossible to please everyone).

Schedule Demands Post Realignment

With Oregon and Washington being added to the B1G the schedule has to be redone, again. I have a couple of demands for the new schedule. They are all common sense, I think, but they should be said.

Stay at 9 conference games. I fear that if the B1G goes to 10 conference games right now, most teams, including Wisconsin, will try to cancel their future, marquee, non-conference matchups. I do not want Wisconsin canceling their home-and-home series vs Alabama for 2024 and 2025. And, I want the B1G to continue playing big non-conference games in the future.
Keep all 11 rivalries highlighted in the previous model, Flex Protect Plus, and keep Oregon vs Washington. This is likely a given, with one

…

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Wisco Wednesday: Luke Fickell is an Upgrade at Wisconsin

Cole Tollison / July 12, 2023 / Leave a Comment

How much better will Wisconsin be in 2023?

The badger state is full of excitement and anticipation. What will the new QB look like? What will the offense look like? Packer fans need to know what will happen now that Rodgers is gone. Oh, you were talking about the other football team going through massive changes in Wisconsin.

The Badgers have the same questions mentioned above, and one more big one. Can Luke Fickell deliver the championships he has mentioned frequently since taking over the program? There’s a lot of unknown there, and it might take time for the program to be what Fickell is envisioning. When comparing Fickell to his predecessor, a more focused question would be: Can he win big games, the type of wins that have mostly eluded Wisconsin since Russell Wilson was under center?

Under previous coach Paul Chryst, the answer was mostly no. There was the Rose Bowl loss, no wins over Ohio State or Penn State, losses to Notre Dame and Alabama in marquee non-conference matchups, and 0 for 3 in Indianapolis in the B1G Championship game. It hurts a lot more when it’s laid out like that. Everyone liked Coach Dad. …

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