The Wisconsin Badgers are coming off a 41-13 loss to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in Week 1, where they were competitive for 30 minutes before falling apart in the final 30 minutes with a couple of backbreaking plays.
Against an elite team, the Badgers showed some promise, but also clearly have a ton to work on as they continued forward with the rest of their non-conference schedule. And despite their Week 1 result, Wisconsin heads into Week 2 as a significant favorite over their opponent.
Facing the 1-1 Western Illinois Leathernecks, the Badgers opened as 36.5-point favorites on FanDuel, and that has only climbed to 37.5 since the odds were released.
Wisconsin is 3-0 in program history against Western Illinois, last playing them in 2014, when they won 37-3. They also beat them 34-10 in 2006 and 31-13 in 1991.
The Leathernecks started the season facing NAIA Northwestern, winning 65-14 in a blowout game. They had 539 yards of offense, including 321 on the ground, while quarterback Kennedy McGill completed 15 of 17 passes for 194 yards.
Things flipped in Week 2, as Western Illinois was blown out 41-10 by Illinois State. That rushing offense went for only 52 yards on 2.3 yards per carry, while penalties remained an issue (seven in Week 1, 10 in Week 2). Defensively, they gave up nearly 500 total yards, including 239 yards on the ground.
That deficit came with Illinois State completing under 50 percent of their passes, as the dominance in the run game was too much.
Now, after a 31-point loss to Illinois State, Western Illinois is a 37.5-point underdog to Wisconsin, while the over/under is at 49.5 points. The implied total for the Leathernecks sits just under a touchdown, while the Badgers are currently projected to exceed 40 points, which they did once last year: Week 2 vs. Middle Tennessee.
Last year, Wisconsin sometimes struggled to handle adversity. That’s something we’ll look to see if they can improve on this year, especially in a game that they should dominate. Can they finally be consistent for 60 minutes?
“A lot of maturity is needed to handle adversity,” head coach Luke Fickell said on Tuesday. “There are a couple of different ways, and you can see it in guys faces, how they approach what they are doing. Everybody else will see it on Saturday night, but we will see it every single day. So, the big emphasis for us is what kind of maturity do we have, and in total as an entire team?
“We’re gonna go a hell of a lot harder tomorrow. Do we have the discipline? Guys that are dinged up, guys that maybe can’t go. Next guy that’s in there, do we have the maturity and the discipline, and what do you look for? We look for guys that prepare in a very similar way, take everything serious, and that will tell us about the discipline and maturity of our team.”
Wisconsin will kick off at 6:15 p.m. CT on Big Ten Network on Saturday evening.
