Wisconsin Football: Big Ten has rough first weekend

Wisconsin football was one of the only bright spots of week one for the Big Ten.

The Big Ten had hoped to come into the 2018 season with a bang. However, only a few member programs were able to deliver. Fortunately, Wisconsin football was one of them.

Wisconsin opened against a weaker opponent, like much of the rest of the Big Ten and despite a slow starter still finished off Western Kentucky better than some other conference foes were able to handle their opponents.

The Negatives

Penn State was taken to overtime by App State, which isn’t the worst indictment in the world. App State took Tennessee to the wire in 2016 too. The Mountaineers are a talented Group of 5 team and many expected the game to be somewhat competitive, but not as much as it was. If Penn State has hopes of competing for a national championship it has to turn things around. And fast. The Nittany Lions head to rival Pitt next weekend for what won’t be any easier of a matchup.

While we were busy watching the Badgers, the Spartans struggled to get off to a hot start and looked unimpressive. Michigan State was trailing Utah State late on Friday night until it eventually out-willed the Aggies in the final minutes of the game. The Spartans weren’t as nationally recognized as some of the other names in the Big Ten in regards to national title hopes, but there is work to be done before they can focus on goals that big.

Michigan had the marquee matchup of the opening weekend for the Big Ten and traveled to Notre Dame. Shiny, new quarterback Shea Patterson looked awful in his debut performance and Michigan looks broken. I expected the Michigan defense to smother Notre Dame and Patterson to be a real threat to win the Heisman. Unless the Wolverines figure some things out I was incredibly wrong.

The Positives

Ohio State hosted Oregon State in its first game without Urban Meyer on the sidelines, but you wouldn’t be able to tell. The Buckeyes slaughtered the Beavers. It wasn’t ever close. They looked like a true contender to win the conference and compete for a national title.

Maryland got Texas to open the season again hoping to complete the sweep it started last year in upset fashion. And complete the sweep it did. Maryland, also without its head coach for this game, jumped out to an early lead and made key plays down the stretch to preserve the win. This game may say more about Texas and its current state of the program, but Maryland deserves a ton of credit for representing the Big Ten well while some other major players struggled.

And of course, we have Wisconsin, who won comfortably over Western Kentucky. There is plenty of analysis already up at Badger of Honor, with more to come from the weekend. But the most important thing we saw from the Badgers was the contributions from some of the younger players. Scott Nelson and Jake Ferguson are probably the most noteworthy of the young guys.

Check out the rest of the Big Ten week one schedule here, and look ahead to week two, which includes a bit of an easier road for some programs who really need it.